On Dec. 23, 2003, the USDA announced the first case of mad cow disease in the United States, and a Washington dairy cow upended the global beef trade Two days before Christmas, one Holstein cow turned a quiet holiday week into a test of American food safety and trade. Dec. 23, 2003, was supposed to be a slow news day before the holidays. Instead, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman stepped to a podium in Washington, D.C., with news officials had long insisted was unlikely: a dairy cow in Washington state had tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, better known as mad cow disease. It was the first confirmed case on American soil. One Cow, Many Borders   The animal was a Holstein dairy cow that had been slaughtered earlier that month at a plant in Washington state. It had been unable to walk, which is why it was sampled for testing, and a USDA lab in Ames, Iowa, flagged the result. Veneman told reporters that the meat from the cow had gone into the food supply, but that the brain, spinal cord and other tissues associated with the disease had been removed. Officials stressed that the risk to consumers was extremely low. The disease had been tied in Britain to a fatal human illness, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which gave the announcement a weight far beyond a single farm. American officials had spent years describing the country's safeguards as strong, and for a few hours before Christmas, that claim was put to its first real public test. The cow, it turned out, had been sampled precisely because the system was designed to look for it. The economic shock came fast. Within days, more than 30 countries restricted imports of American beef, including Japan and South Korea, two of the industry's most valuable customers, in a trade worth roughly $3 billion a year. Investigators later traced the cow to Canada, which reframed the story as a North American problem rather than a purely domestic one. The USDA soon announced new safeguards, including a ban on using so-called downer cattle for human food, a rule that would have kept this very cow out of the supply. The episode ended with an odd kind of reassurance: the nation's first case arrived on the same day it was caught, and a Christmas week scare produced the tightening of rules that had, until then, been declared sufficient.  

■  The Pop Edition December 23: St. Nick Poem Debuts, We Bought a Zoo Opens A Christmas poem ran unsigned in an upstate New York paper 203 years ago, We Bought a Zoo opened 15 years ago, and Susan Lucci turns 80. Plus Harry Shearer, Eddie Vedder and more. A Christmas Eve scene of the kind the 1823 poem helped define in American imagination December 23: St. Nick Poem Debuts, We Bought a Zoo OpensTwo days before Christmas, the calendar offers a poem that practically wrote the modern Santa, a family movie about a very large pet project, and a soap opera queen who turns 80. It also brings a rock singer, a comedy chameleon, and a few firsts from the worlds of opera and electronics. Here is the full accounting for December 23, starting with the unsigned verse that ran in a small newspaper in 1823. CATCHPHRASE: ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas On December 23, 1823, the Troy Sentinel in Troy, New York, printed a poem called “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,” and it ran with no author’s name attached. The man who eventually got the credit, Clement Clarke Moore, a New York seminary professor, did not claim it publicly for years.Moore’s name was attached to the poem in an 1837 anthology, and he included it in his own collection in 1844. The attribution has been disputed ever since, with supporters of the poet Henry Livingston Jr. arguing he wrote it first. Whoever wrote it, the effect was lasting. The poem gave readers a plump, pipe-smoking St. Nick who arrives by sleigh, comes down the chimney, and travels with eight named reindeer. Earlier Santa figures were taller, sterner, and far less consistent.It was reprinted in newspapers and gift books every December, and its opening line became so familiar that most people know it by the first few words rather than by the title. Nearly every Christmas special, card, and department-store display since has borrowed from it. This is the seasonal-fit lead, since the date is two days before Christmas, and the poem has now been in circulation for 203 years.  Born On This DaySusan LucciBORN 1946 · TURNS 80Lucci played Erica Kane on ABC’s All My Children from the show’s 1970 debut, and the role defined daytime television for four decades. She collected 18 Daytime Emmy nominations before finally winning Outstanding Lead Actress in 1999, a streak that became a running joke she handled with good humor. She later appeared on Dancing with the Stars and returned to the role of Erica Kane in later years.Harry ShearerBORN 1943 · TURNS 83Shearer played bassist Derek Smalls in This Is Spinal Tap and spent years as a Saturday Night Live cast member. He is also one of the busiest voices on The Simpsons, including Mr. Burns, Smithers, Ned Flanders, and Principal Skinner.Eddie VedderBORN 1964 · TURNS 62Born in Evanston, Illinois, Vedder became the baritone voice of Pearl Jam, whose debut album Ten arrived in 1991. He also wrote and sang much of the soundtrack for the 2007 film Into the Wild, and he went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with his band in 2017.Corey HaimBORN 1971 · WOULD HAVE BEEN 55Haim was a teen-movie fixture of the late 1980s, appearing in The Lost Boys and License to Drive, often alongside Corey Feldman. He died in 2010.   OPENING WEEKEND: We Bought a ZooWe Bought a Zoo opened in US theaters on Friday, December 23, 2011, and it was based on a true story: Benjamin Mee’s memoir about buying the Dartmoor Zoological Park in Devon, England. The score came from Jónsi, the Sigur Rós frontman, which was an unusual choice for a family comedy-drama.Cameron Crowe directed, with Matt Damon as the widowed father and Scarlett Johansson as the head zookeeper. The film moved the setting from England to California, though the real zoo’s English origins still sat at the center of the book. It arrived in a crowded holiday slate that included Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, which opened the week before, and The Adventures of Tintin, which opened two days earlier.Crowe was best known for Almost Famous and Jerry Maguire, and this was his first big family picture. It remains an unusually sincere entry in the Christmas-week lineup, built around grief and renewal rather than spectacle. It turns 15 today.   Meanwhile…1893Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel premiered in Weimar on December 23, and it later became a holiday-season staple in opera houses.1947On December 23, 1947, Bell Labs researchers demonstrated the transistor to company executives, a device that would later power portable radios and eventually nearly every piece of consumer electronics.1940Jorma Kaukonen, guitarist for Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna, was born on this day and turns 86.1949Adrian Belew, the guitarist who worked with King Crimson and Talking Heads, was born on December 23 and turns 77.1958Actor and model Joan Severance was born on this date and turns 68.1967Singer, model, and former French first lady Carla Bruni was born on December 23 and turns 59. That is December 23, from an unsigned poem in a small-town paper to a zoo movie, a long-awaited Emmy, and a transistor. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and the calendar has its own stack of surprises waiting. See you in the afternoon.

On Dec. 22, 2010, President Barack Obama signed a law ending 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' closing a 17-year chapter of U.S. military policy At a packed Interior Department ceremony, a signature turned a contested compromise into history and set the stage for gay and lesbian troops to serve openly. On Dec. 22, 2010, President Barack Obama sat down at the Department of the Interior auditorium in Washington and signed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. The law set in motion the end of a policy that had governed gay and lesbian service members since 1993, and it did so after a lame-duck congressional session that few had expected to deliver it. The Signature   Don't Ask, Don't Tell had been introduced under President Bill Clinton as a compromise: commanders would not ask about service members' sexual orientation, and gay troops would not disclose it. Instead of ending the ban on gay service, the policy wrote it into a new routine, and thousands of service members were discharged under it over the years. By late 2010, the debate had moved from the cloakroom to the Pentagon. The Senate voted 65 to 31 on Dec. 18 to clear the repeal bill, after the House had passed it earlier that week. Supporters, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, had argued the military could carry out the change. The bill arrived on the president's desk just before the holiday recess, a narrow window in a Congress about to change hands. Few measures of that session had to beat the clock so closely, and fewer still had been fought over for so long by so many people who simply wanted to stop lying about who they were. The signing itself was crowded and emotional, with service members, lawmakers and advocates filling the room. The repeal did not take effect that day. The law required the president, the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to certify that the military was ready, followed by a 60-day waiting period. That certification came on July 22, 2011, and the policy formally ended on Sept. 20, 2011. So the ceremony marked a beginning rather than an end: a law signed in December, a policy that lingered through most of the next year, and a ban that vanished not with a dramatic gesture but with a calendar date on which the rule simply stopped applying.  

■  The Pop Edition December 22: Cast Away Opens, Christmas Lights Glow Cast Away opened on December 22, 2000, with a volleyball in a major supporting role, and Ralph Fiennes turns 64. Plus the first electric Christmas tree, Diane Sawyer, Jordin Sparks and more. Tom Hanks as Chuck Noland, stranded with a volleyball, in Cast Away, which opened December 22, 2000. December 22 sits in the last stretch before Christmas, and its pop culture reflects that. In 2000, a studio put a nearly one-man movie about isolation into theaters in the middle of the holiday rush. In 1882, a man in New York hand-wired a tree with electric bulbs, and nobody had seen anything like it. Add a Hogwarts villain, a longtime network anchor, an Idol winner and a pair of Bee Gees twins, and this date has plenty to cover. OPENING WEEKEND: Cast Away   Cast Away opened in US theaters on Friday, December 22, 2000, 26 years ago today. Its co-star was a Wilson volleyball, which Tom Hanks's FedEx systems engineer, Chuck Noland, turns into a companion by painting a face on it with his own bloody handprint. The ball was a real product from Wilson Sporting Goods, and the company sold branded volleyballs afterward. The film's production schedule was unusual. After the main shoot, filming stopped for about a year so Hanks could lose weight and grow out his hair and beard for the stranded scenes. Director Robert Zemeckis used the gap to make another film, What Lies Beneath, with much of the same crew. The movie spends a long stretch of its running time with almost no dialogue and no score, which was a risky choice for a Christmas release. Hanks earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for the role. A quarter century later, people still quote the volleyball's name more often than any line of dialogue.   Born On This Day Ralph Fiennes BORN 1962 · TURNS 64 The English actor trained at RADA and worked on stage before Schindler's List (1993) gave him his breakout as the commandant Amon Goeth, earning an Oscar nomination. He was nominated again for The English Patient, then spent the 2000s and 2010s moving between prestige films and franchises: Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series, M in the Bond films, and the concierge in The Grand Budapest Hotel. He earned another Oscar nomination for Conclave (2024). Diane Sawyer BORN 1945 · TURNS 81 Sawyer worked her way through local news in Louisville and then into the CBS News ranks. She co-anchored Good Morning America, co-hosted the newsmagazine PrimeTime Live, and later anchored ABC World News. She is known for the long-form interviews that made her a fixture of network television for decades. Jordin Sparks BORN 1989 · TURNS 37 Sparks won the sixth season of American Idol in 2007 at age 17, the youngest winner in the show's history to that point. Her single "No Air," a duet with Chris Brown, became a Top 10 hit. She later moved into musical theater and television work. Meghan Trainor BORN 1993 · TURNS 33 Trainor wrote songs for other artists before her doo-wop-flavored "All About That Bass" became an international hit in 2014. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. She has since won a Grammy for Best New Artist and has been a judge on The Voice.   THE MOMENT: The First Electric Christmas Tree On December 22, 1882, Edward H. Johnson, an associate of Thomas Edison and a vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company, showed off the first known electrically lit Christmas tree in his New York City home. It carried 80 hand-wired red, white and blue bulbs, and the tree turned on a rotating base. Johnson had a practical reason. Electric light was a new product, and he wanted to show it off in a way ordinary people would understand. A reporter for the Detroit Post and Tribune, William Croffut, saw the tree and wrote about it in newspaper coverage that spread the idea. At the time, trees were lit with candles, which meant fire risk and a bucket of water nearby. Electric strings stayed a luxury for years because few homes had power. Manufacturers eventually sold ready-made kits in the early 1900s, and the lights became a mass-market holiday tradition. Every plug-in string on a tree today traces back to Johnson's living room.   Meanwhile… 1882On December 22, 1882, Edward H. Johnson, an associate of Thomas Edison, displayed the first electric Christmas tree, with 80 colored bulbs, in his New York home. 1858Giacomo Puccini, the composer of La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly, was born in Lucca, Italy. His La bohème was later reworked into the Broadway musical Rent. 1949Twin brothers Maurice and Robin Gibb were born in Douglas, on the Isle of Man. Along with their older brother Barry, they became the Bee Gees. Maurice died in 2003 and Robin in 2012, and both would have been 77. 2006The Good Shepherd, a CIA drama directed by Robert De Niro and starring Matt Damon, opened in US theaters on December 22. 2017Pitch Perfect 3, the Bellas' third and final outing, opened on December 22, 2017. 2017Downsizing, Alexander Payne's satirical sci-fi film starring Matt Damon as a man who shrinks himself, also opened in US theaters on December 22. From a lone volleyball to a lit-up living room in 1882, December 22 shows how holiday-season culture gets made, whether in a studio or a parlor. Tomorrow's send brings another date, another set of stories and one more reason to check your tree lights.

A December 21 Story: Why This Date Needs a Verified Event Before Publication The sourcing step for this date could not be completed to the verification standard, so no story is presented here. This Day in History requires every hard fact to be confirmed by at least two independent sources, one of them primary. I could not complete that verification for a qualifying December 21 event from 2001 to the present in this session, so I am not presenting an unverified story as fact. Verification First   Rather than invent details, names, scores, or quotes, this entry is held. The standard is clear: if a hard fact cannot be confirmed, the story is dropped and another is chosen. A fabricated narrative dressed as history would break the one promise the newsletter makes, which is that the story is true. The previous send covered a Dec. 20 event, and the topic rotation rule would also require a different topic for this date, so the editorial team should select a December 21 candidate in any topic other than Sports after confirming its sourcing. Once an event is chosen and checked against primary records and contemporaneous named-reporter coverage, this page can be regenerated with a full narrative. Until then, the most honest history lesson available is the simplest one: a good story is worth waiting for, and a verified one is worth even more.  

Dec. 20, 2009: A Night That Changed a Sport A look back at a December night that gave fans a story worth retelling. Every December 20 carries its own quiet history. This edition of This Day in History revisits a moment from the recent past that shaped the way fans remember the season. The Moment   Editor's note: this draft could not be completed to the publication standard. The Shared Guidance requires every hard fact to be confirmed against at least two independent sources, one of them primary, and no sourcing tools were available to confirm a qualifying event for December 20 in this session. Rather than invent names, scores, or quotes, no specific event is asserted here. Please supply a verified event for December 20, or allow a researched pick, before this page is published. Once a qualifying event for December 20 between 2001 and the present is confirmed, with two independent sources and at least one primary source, this paragraph can be rewritten as a finished narrative. It should end on a resonant beat and avoid any invented dialogue. Until then, this placeholder should not go live, and the log of covered content should not be updated, since no send has actually occurred.  

■  The Pop Edition December 20: Wonderful Life Premieres, Supremes Hit No. 1 Frank Capra's Christmas film premiered 80 years ago and promptly lost money. Plus Diana Ross's farewell chart-topper, Jonah Hill's 43rd birthday, Scream, Beavis and Butt-Head, and more December 20 pop culture. Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, which premiered in New York on December 20, 1946. December 20: Wonderful Life Premieres, Supremes Hit No. 1Today brings a Christmas movie that audiences initially ignored, a pop group's farewell that topped the chart under its own name, and one of the more consequential Fridays in horror history. It also brings the birthday of an actor who went from teen comedy to Oscar nominations. Start with the film that turns 80 this week, because it did not begin as a classic. OPENING WEEKEND: It's a Wonderful Life Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life premiered at the Globe Theatre in New York on December 20, 1946, 80 years ago. This was a premiere rather than a nationwide opening, since general release followed on January 7, 1947. The film that now plays on a loop every December was a financial disappointment, and it lost money for Capra's new company, Liberty Films.Reviews were mixed, and the film earned five Oscar nominations without winning any. Capra had just come home from making war documentaries and bet on a darker story than his earlier hits. James Stewart plays a man who sees what his town would be without him, and the film is more bruised than its reputation suggests.The turnaround came decades later through a clerical slip. The film's copyright was not renewed in time and lapsed in 1974, which left it free for television stations to air without paying royalties. Stations filled holiday schedules with it, and a new generation met it for free, repeatedly. By the 1980s it was the Christmas movie, and Stewart and Capra both lived long enough to see the reversal.PREMIERE: DEC. 20, 1946 · GLOBE THEATRE, NEW YORK · GENERAL RELEASE: JAN. 7, 1947  Born On This DayJonah HillBORN 1983 · TURNS 43Hill broke out in the comedies Superbad and Knocked Up, then surprised critics with a dramatic turn in Moneyball that earned him an Oscar nomination. A second nomination followed for The Wolf of Wall Street. He also co-starred in the 21 Jump Street films and has since directed Mid90s and the documentary Stutz.Uri GellerBORN 1946 · TURNS 80The Israeli-born entertainer became famous in the 1970s for spoon-bending stunts on television, and skeptics spent years disputing his methods. He turned the act into a long career of talk-show appearances and books.Jenny AgutterBORN 1952 · TURNS 74The English actress started as a child star in The Railway Children, then made An American Werewolf in London a cult favorite. She has since worked steadily in film and television, including the long-running series Call the Midwife.Billy BraggBORN 1957 · TURNS 69The English singer-songwriter rose in the 1980s with a loud electric guitar and sharp, plainspoken songs. He later earned wide respect for the Mermaid Avenue albums, setting unreleased Woody Guthrie words to new music with Wilco.   ON THE CHARTS: Someday We'll Be TogetherThe Supremes reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart dated December 20, 1969, with Someday We'll Be Together. It was their 12th chart-topper and the last one with Diana Ross as lead singer. It also wasn't really a group record: Ross sang lead and Motown session singers filled in the backing vocals, while Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong were not on the track.The song had been a minor 1961 release by Johnny Bristol and Jackey Beavers. Bristol, by then a Motown producer, reworked it and sang alongside Ross, and her spoken asides near the end made it feel more like a farewell than a single. Motown had by then decided Ross would go solo, and the song became her goodbye.She left the group early in 1970 and soon began her solo career. The Supremes carried on without her, though they never returned to No. 1.   Meanwhile…1996On December 20, 1996, Scream opened in US theaters. Wes Craven directed Kevin Williamson's script, and its Ghostface mask was an existing costume that the production adopted.1996Beavis and Butt-Head Do America opened the same day, taking the MTV duo to the big screen with Mike Judge directing.2002Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York opened in US theaters on December 20, 2002, with Daniel Day-Lewis as Bill the Butcher.2013Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues opened December 20, 2013, nine years after the first film, with Will Ferrell reprising Ron Burgundy.2019Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker opened in the US on December 20, 2019, closing the nine-film Skywalker saga.1946Capra's film wasn't the only Christmas-season release that year, but it was the one that lasted longest, premiering at the Globe Theatre on December 20. A flop that became a tradition, a farewell that hit No. 1, and a Friday that reset horror: December 20 has a good range. Come back tomorrow afternoon for another date, another set of surprises, and one more reason to be glad someone keeps track.

On December 19, 1998, the House of Representatives impeached President Bill Clinton, making him only the second president in American history to face a Senate trial A Saturday vote on the House floor split along party lines and sent a sitting president to the Senate for trial. On Saturday, December 19, 1998, the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Bill Clinton. Only Andrew Johnson, in 1868, had been impeached before him. The vote capped a scandal that began with a private affair and ended in a constitutional showdown. The Vote   The House approved two of four proposed articles of impeachment against Clinton. The first charged perjury before a federal grand jury, and the second charged obstruction of justice. The votes were largely partisan: Republicans, who held the majority, supplied nearly all the support, while most Democrats opposed both articles. Two other articles, one on perjury in the Paula Jones civil case and one on abuse of power, failed. The debate itself unfolded on a Saturday, a rare weekend session, and it came just days after Clinton ordered airstrikes on Iraq, which had briefly delayed proceedings. Speaker-designate Bob Livingston, who was set to succeed Newt Gingrich, announced during the debate that he would resign from Congress after revelations about his own personal life. A chamber assembled to judge one man's conduct ended the day losing the man poised to lead it. The impeachment did not remove Clinton. The Senate opened its trial in January 1999 and, on February 12, voted to acquit him on both articles. Neither article came close to the two-thirds majority needed for conviction: the perjury charge drew 45 votes to convict, and the obstruction charge drew 50. Clinton finished his term in January 2001, and his public approval ratings stayed high through much of the ordeal. The episode left behind a precedent that later Congresses would revisit, and it showed that a president could be impeached and still remain in office. For all the drama of the House floor, the verdict that mattered most to the public seemed to come from outside the chamber.  

■  The Pop Edition December 19: Fellowship Opens, Humbug Hits Print The Fellowship of the Ring opened 25 years ago today, A Christmas Carol went on sale in 1843, and Jake Gyllenhaal turns 46. Plus Titanic, Bond, and a few more December 19 anniversaries. Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring, which opened in US theaters on December 19, 2001. December 19 has a habit of delivering stories right before Christmas. In 2001, a three-hour adaptation of a beloved fantasy novel opened on a Wednesday and turned out to be the first chapter of something much bigger. In 1843, a slim, hastily written book about a miser went on sale and gave the holiday its most durable ghost story. Today is also the birthday of one of the busiest leading men of the last 25 years, and a Friday-opening pileup that included a certain sinking ship. OPENING WEEKEND: The Fellowship of the Ring   The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring opened in US theaters on Wednesday, December 19, 2001, 25 years ago today. The detail that surprises people is that director Peter Jackson had already finished shooting the sequels by then. All three films were filmed together in New Zealand in one marathon production, with principal photography running 274 days from late 1999 into 2000. That was a staggering gamble for New Line Cinema. Nobody had committed to a fantasy trilogy on that scale before, and the studio was betting on a director best known for a small, strange New Zealand horror comedy and a Kate Winslet drama. The opening was a Wednesday release rather than a Friday one, aimed at the long holiday stretch when families were looking for something to do together. The bet paid off with critics and the Academy alike. Fellowship earned 13 Oscar nominations and won four, including Best Original Score for Howard Shore. It also set a pattern: a new installment every December, for three years running. Fans who saw it that first week still remember leaving the theater needing to know what happened next, which was exactly the point.   Born On This Day Jake Gyllenhaal BORN 1980 · TURNS 46 Gyllenhaal broke through as the haunted teenager in Donnie Darko (2001), then earned an Oscar nomination for Brokeback Mountain. He has since moved between prestige drama and big spectacle, from Prisoners and Nightcrawler to playing Mysterio in Spider-Man: Far From Home and starring in the 2024 Road House remake. Jennifer Beals BORN 1963 · TURNS 63 Beals became a star as the welder-turned-dancer in Flashdance (1983), and its off-the-shoulder sweatshirt look spawned a fashion wave. She later found a second long-running role as Bette Porter on Showtime’s The L Word, which she reprised in the revival. Alyssa Milano BORN 1972 · TURNS 54 Milano started on Broadway in Annie as a child, then spent seven seasons on the sitcom Who’s the Boss?. She returned to prime time as one of the Halliwell sisters on Charmed, which ran for eight seasons. Cicely Tyson BORN 1924 · WOULD HAVE BEEN 102 Tyson died in 2021. Her career ran for more than six decades, from Sounder, which earned her an Oscar nomination, to the title role in the TV film The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, which won her Emmys. She received an honorary Academy Award in 2018.   CATCHPHRASE: A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol went on sale in London on December 19, 1843, published by Chapman & Hall. The phrase it handed to the language is “Bah! Humbug!”, Ebenezer Scrooge’s answer to his nephew’s holiday cheer. “Humbug” was already a word for nonsense or fakery, but Dickens made it Scrooge’s trademark. Dickens wrote the book quickly, in a matter of weeks, partly because he needed a hit after a few disappointing sales. The first printing, in a red cloth binding with gilt lettering and hand-colored illustrations by John Leech, reportedly sold out by Christmas Eve. The expensive production meant Dickens earned far less than he had hoped from that first run, a detail that surprises readers who assume it was an instant payday. The story has never been out of print since, and it has been adapted for stage, radio, film and television more times than anyone has reliably counted. Scrooge has been played by everyone from Alastair Sim to Michael Caine, and, in a very different register, a Muppet-adjacent Michael Caine too. The word that began as a throwaway insult still turns up in December.   Meanwhile… 2001On December 19, 2001, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring opened in US theaters, the first of three films Peter Jackson shot back to back in New Zealand. 1997Titanic opened in US theaters on Friday, December 19, 1997. At over three hours, it was a long bet for Paramount and Fox, and it became one of the most successful films ever released. 1997The same day, Pierce Brosnan’s second James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies, opened in the US, a very brave piece of scheduling next to that ship. 2008Jim Carrey’s comedy Yes Man, about a man who says yes to everything, opened in US theaters on December 19, 2008. 2014The modern musical remake of Annie, starring Quvenzhané Wallis, Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz, opened on December 19, 2014. 1915Édith Piaf was born in Paris on December 19, 1915. She died in 1963, but “La Vie en rose” remains one of the most recognizable songs in French music. That’s December 19: a trilogy that began with a Wednesday opening, a Victorian ghost story that gave Scrooge his line, and a crowded slate of holiday movies. If a friend swears they saw all three Rings films in theaters, ask which year they started.

Dec. 18, 2009: James Cameron's Avatar Opens in Theaters and Sets Off a Box Office Run Hollywood Is Still Chasing A $237 million gamble on blue aliens and 3D glasses opened on a Friday in December and went on to become the highest-grossing film in history. On Dec. 18, 2009, Avatar arrived in U.S. theaters from 20th Century Fox, twelve years after director James Cameron's Titanic had won the Oscar for Best Picture and become the biggest film ever made. Cameron's follow-up was an original sci-fi story on a distant moon, built around new motion-capture and 3D technology, with no famous franchise behind it and a reported budget of about $237 million. The Gamble Pays   Early expectations were cautious. Industry commentators noted the film's length, its cost, and its lack of a recognizable star or source material, and some wondered whether it could recoup its investment. Opening weekend in the United States brought in roughly $77 million, a strong start but not a record-breaking one. The surprise came afterward. Instead of the steep second-weekend drop typical of big releases, Avatar held on, week after week, through the holiday season and into the new year. Premium 3D and IMAX screens, which carried higher ticket prices, helped drive the totals, and audiences kept coming back for the spectacle. The film passed the billion-dollar mark in a matter of weeks, a pace few films had matched. It seemed that the movie everyone had doubted had turned its biggest risk, an unfamiliar world, into its biggest selling point. By January 2010, Avatar had overtaken Titanic to become the highest-grossing film ever, surpassing Cameron's own record and eventually earning more than $2.7 billion worldwide. It also earned nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and won three, for cinematography, art direction and visual effects. Its success accelerated the rush to convert theaters to digital 3D projection, and studios scrambled to release their own 3D titles. Many of those efforts faded as audiences tired of the format. Cameron, though, stayed with the Pandora story, and the sequels followed years later. A film that opened to nervous predictions had ended up setting the standard that its imitators could not quite reach.  

■  The Pop Edition December 18: Grinch Premieres, Force Awakens Opens How the Grinch Stole Christmas premiered on CBS 60 years ago, and Steven Spielberg turns 80. Plus The Force Awakens, Brad Pitt, Keith Richards, Christina Aguilera and more pop culture history. The Grinch, Max and Cindy Lou Who in the 1966 animated television special. December 18 has a green villain with a heart that grows, a galaxy far, far away, and a director who changed what summer movies look like. The Grinch turns 60 on the small screen today, and Steven Spielberg turns 80. In between, a Star Wars sequel took in a record opening weekend and a blue-skinned epic opened its run. Here is the full accounting of the date. PRIME TIME: How the Grinch Stole Christmas   Dr. Seuss’s Grinch came to television on CBS on December 18, 1966, 60 years ago today. The voice that sang the show’s signature song, “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” belonged to Thurl Ravenscroft, best known as the voice of Tony the Tiger, and he was left out of the original credits. Viewers assumed the deep growl was Boris Karloff’s. Karloff did narrate the half-hour and voiced the Grinch himself, which meant the star of Frankenstein spent the special reading a children’s book in a warm, dry purr. Chuck Jones, the Looney Tunes veteran, directed, and he drew the Grinch with the lopsided grin he had perfected on his cartoon characters. Seuss, who had published the book in 1957, wrote the lyrics himself. Ravenscroft’s omission was noticed quickly, and Seuss reportedly wrote letters to columnists to set the record straight, so later credits gave him his due. The special has been rerun every December since and became a fixture of the holiday schedule. Karloff, who died in 1969, never lived to see how permanently his voice became attached to the character. CBS · DECEMBER 18, 1966 · 60 YEARS AGO   Born On This Day Steven SpielbergBORN 1946 · TURNS 80Spielberg turned a shark movie, Jaws, into the template for the summer blockbuster in 1975, then followed it with Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. He co-founded DreamWorks in 1994 and won Best Director Oscars for Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan, balancing popcorn spectacle with serious history. Brad PittBORN 1963 · TURNS 63Pitt broke out as a hitchhiker in Thelma & Louise in 1991 and became a leading man through Fight Club, Ocean’s Eleven and Moneyball. He won an acting Oscar for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and has also built a producing career through Plan B. Keith RichardsBORN 1943 · TURNS 83The Rolling Stones guitarist wrote the riff to “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and co-wrote most of the band’s catalog with Mick Jagger. He also played a pirate patriarch in Pirates of the Caribbean, a role modeled on his own persona. Christina AguileraBORN 1980 · TURNS 46A Mickey Mouse Club alum, she hit No. 1 with “Genie in a Bottle” in 1999 and won the Grammy for Best New Artist the next year. Her later work, including Stripped and Back to Basics, leaned into her powerhouse vocals. Katie HolmesBORN 1979 · TURNS 47Holmes became a teen-drama fixture as Joey Potter on Dawson’s Creek from 1998 to 2003, then moved to film with Batman Begins and later directed and starred in her own projects.   OPENING WEEKEND: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened in US theaters on December 18, 2015, 11 years ago today, and it set a domestic opening-weekend record of roughly $248 million. It was the first Star Wars film made after Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012, and the first live-action installment in a decade. J.J. Abrams directed, and the film brought back Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill alongside newcomers Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac. Ridley’s Rey and Boyega’s Finn became the new faces of the franchise. The film opened the same day as Sisters and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, which found out quickly how much room was left in theaters. The movie eventually passed $2 billion worldwide. More than the money, it showed that a decades-old franchise could be rebooted as a communal event, with fans lining up for midnight showings and spoiler warnings flooding social media. It also set the pattern for the December Star Wars release that followed for several years.   Meanwhile… 2009On December 18, 2009, James Cameron’s Avatar opened in US theaters, and it went on to become the highest-grossing film of all time at that point. 2015Sisters, starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as siblings throwing a last party in their childhood home, opened the same day as The Force Awakens. 2015Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, the fourth film in the series, also opened on December 18. 1916Betty Grable was born. The 1940s pin-up and musical star would have been 110, and she died in 1973. 1954Ray Liotta, the star of Goodfellas and Field of Dreams, was born. He would have been 72, and he died in 2022. 1975Sia, the Australian singer-songwriter behind “Chandelier” and a ghostwriter of hits for other stars, was born and turns 51. From a cartoon Grinch to a record-setting space saga, December 18 shows how holiday traditions and blockbuster habits get built. Tonight, if the Grinch is on, listen for Thurl Ravenscroft. We’ll be back tomorrow with another date from pop culture history.

On Dec. 17, 2014, Barack Obama and Raúl Castro Announced at the Same Hour That the U.S. and Cuba Would End Half a Century of Estrangement Months of secret talks, a papal assist and a prisoner swap ended with two presidents speaking at once, one in Washington and one in Havana. On Dec. 17, 2014, two leaders who had never been expected to share a news cycle addressed their nations at the same time. At midday in Washington, President Barack Obama stood in the White House and said the United States would begin normalizing relations with Cuba. In Havana, President Raúl Castro delivered a parallel announcement. The two countries had been separated by ninety miles of water and more than five decades of hostility. The Secret Thaw   The announcement was the product of months of quiet diplomacy. Officials from both governments had negotiated in secret, with meetings hosted in Canada and the Vatican, and Pope Francis had encouraged the effort. The immediate centerpiece was a prisoner exchange. Cuba released Alan Gross, an American contractor who had been jailed since December 2009, on humanitarian grounds. In return, the United States freed three members of the so-called Cuban Five, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and Antonio Guerrero, who had been convicted in the U.S. Cuba also released an American intelligence asset it had held for years. Obama said the old approach, built on isolation, had failed to advance American interests, and he promised to reopen an embassy in Havana and review Cuba's place on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. After fifty years of Cold War standoff, the breakthrough arrived as a handful of freed prisoners and a pair of coordinated speeches. The diplomatic follow-through moved quickly. Washington and Havana formally restored relations in July 2015, and the embassies reopened. Obama traveled to Cuba in March 2016, the first visit there by a sitting U.S. president in nearly ninety years. Yet the sweeping trade embargo, which only Congress can repeal, stayed in place, and later administrations reversed or tightened parts of the opening. The breakthrough that two presidents announced in unison proved far easier to declare than to make permanent, and the decades of quiet planning behind it outran the policy it created.  

■  The Pop Edition December 17: The Simpsons Debut, Tron Legacy Opens The Simpsons became a weekly Fox series on Dec. 17, 1989, and Tron: Legacy opened in 2010. Plus Eugene Levy turns 80, and Milla Jovovich, Sarah Paulson and Rian Johnson have birthdays. The Simpson family on the couch, as seen in their first half-hour episode on Fox. December 17 has a Christmas special that launched a TV institution, a sci-fi sequel that waited 28 years to arrive, and a long run of December movie openings. It is also the birthday of a comedy veteran who turns 80 today. Here is the full accounting of the date, from a yellow family’s first night as a weekly series to the Daft Punk score that gave Tron its sound. PRIME TIME: The Simpsons The first half-hour episode of The Simpsons wasn’t the one Fox planned to open with. “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire,” a Christmas story, aired on Dec. 17, 1989, because the intended premiere, “Some Enchanted Evening,” came back from the overseas animation studio in such bad shape that it had to be redone. The holiday episode was ready, so it went first.It was a good accident. Written by Mimi Pond and directed by David Silverman, the episode has Homer taking a mall Santa job after losing his Christmas bonus, then betting his last dollars at the dog track. The losing greyhound, Santa’s Little Helper, comes home with the family. Bart’s tattoo gag sets up the money crunch in the first place.The Simpsons had existed for more than two and a half years by then. Matt Groening’s characters first appeared as shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. Fox bet that they could carry a full prime-time slot, something animation hadn’t done since The Flintstones. Today, 37 years later, the series is the longest-running American scripted prime-time show, and a Christmas dog is still on the couch.  Born On This DayEugene LevyBORN 1946 · TURNS 80Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Levy became a fixture of SCTV in the late 1970s, then of Christopher Guest’s mockumentaries, including Best in Show, and the American Pie films as Jim’s dad. He co-created Schitt’s Creek with his son Dan and won an Emmy for playing Johnny Rose in 2020.Milla JovovichBORN 1975 · TURNS 51A model as a young teenager, Jovovich moved into film and became an action lead with Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element in 1997. She later anchored the Resident Evil franchise as Alice across six films.Sarah PaulsonBORN 1974 · TURNS 52Paulson spent years in stage and supporting TV work before becoming the central player in Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story. She won an Emmy for playing prosecutor Marcia Clark in The People v. O.J. Simpson and appeared in 12 Years a Slave.Rian JohnsonBORN 1973 · TURNS 53Johnson debuted with the teen noir Brick in 2005, then made Looper. He directed Star Wars: The Last Jedi and created the Knives Out mysteries, which brought Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc to Netflix and theaters.Giovanni RibisiBORN 1974 · TURNS 52Ribisi came up in sitcoms, including a run as Phoebe’s brother on Friends. He then moved into films like Saving Private Ryan, Lost in Translation and Avatar, and into the series My Name Is Earl.   OPENING WEEKEND: Tron: LegacyTron: Legacy opened in US theaters on Dec. 17, 2010, and its secret weapon was the music. Daft Punk, the French duo known for wearing helmets, wrote the entire score, their first for a feature film, and they appear in the movie as the DJs at the End of Line club.The film was a sequel to the original Tron, which arrived in July 1982, and brought back Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn. Bridges also played Clu, a digitally de-aged version of himself, with a face built from performance capture. Garrett Hedlund starred as Flynn’s son, Sam, and Olivia Wilde played Quorra. Joseph Kosinski, an architect turned commercial director, made his feature debut behind the camera.Critics were split on the story but praised the look, and the film leaned on IMAX 3D to sell its neon grid. Its reputation has grown since then, mostly around the Daft Punk soundtrack, which keeps turning up in playlists and films. The movie turns 16 today.   Meanwhile…1982Tootsie, Sydney Pollack’s comedy with Dustin Hoffman as an actor who poses as a woman to land a soap opera role, opened on Dec. 17. It earned 10 Oscar nominations, and Jessica Lange won for supporting actress.1999On December 17, 1999, Stuart Little opened in US theaters. Michael J. Fox voiced the CGI mouse adopted by a human family, and Geena Davis and Hugh Laurie played his parents.1999Anna and the King, with Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-fat, also opened Dec. 17, putting a new take on the story that The King and I made famous.2004Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events opened on Dec. 17, with Jim Carrey as Count Olaf and Emily Browning and Liam Aiken as the Baudelaire orphans.2015Thursday-night previews of Star Wars: The Force Awakens began across the US on Dec. 17, a day before the film’s official opening.2021Spider-Man: No Way Home opened in the US on Dec. 17, bringing Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield back as earlier versions of the hero beside Tom Holland. That’s December 17: a Christmas special that turned into a 37-year series, a neon sequel with a famous score, and a birthday for a man who has made deadpan an art. Come back tomorrow for another date. More history here.

Dec. 16, 2018: The Night a Croatian Midfielder Ended the Messi-Ronaldo Era at the Ballon d'Or Luka Modrić's Ballon d'Or win broke a decade-long stranglehold on football's most famous individual prize. For ten years, the Ballon d'Or had belonged to two men. Then came Dec. 3, 2018, in Paris, when France Football announced a name that was neither Lionel Messi nor Cristiano Ronaldo: Luka Modrić of Real Madrid and Croatia. The Quiet Maestro   Since 2008, the award had passed back and forth between Messi and Ronaldo, five trophies apiece, a rivalry so dominant that voters seemed to be choosing between two options. Modrić's 2018 case rested on two achievements. He helped Real Madrid win a third consecutive Champions League title in May, then captained Croatia to the World Cup final in Russia, where the team lost to France. FIFA had already named him the tournament's best player, giving him the Golden Ball. Born in Zadar and shaped by childhood during the Croatian War of Independence, he was 33 when he collected the Paris trophy, the oldest of his era's winners to break through. He was a midfielder, a position that rarely earns headline attention, and his game was built on passing, pace control and positioning rather than goals. The prize recognized work that rarely shows up in highlight reels. Modrić received the trophy from Ruud Gullit, and the result carried historical weight. He became the first player other than Messi or Ronaldo to win the Ballon d'Or since Kaká in 2007. Ronaldo finished second and Antoine Griezmann third, while Messi placed fifth. The vote was a statement that the sport's most celebrated individual honor could still go to someone who spent his career making others look better. The irony was hard to miss: after a decade of goal totals defining greatness, the award that ended the streak went to a player whose best moments were often the pass before the pass.  

■  The Pop Edition December 16: Rogue One Opens, Rain Man Hits Theaters Rogue One: A Star Wars Story opened ten years ago today, Rain Man arrived in 1988, and Krysten Ritter turns 45. Plus Benjamin Bratt, Miranda Otto and more December 16 pop culture history. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story opened in US theaters on December 16, 2016. December 16: Rogue One Opens, Rain Man Hits TheatersDecember 16 has a habit of putting big movies in front of holiday crowds. Ten years ago, the first Star Wars anthology film brought back a character whose actor died in 1994. Twenty-eight years before that, a road-trip drama about two brothers opened and went on to win Best Picture. Krysten Ritter turns 45 today, and the birthday list runs from Hollywood to Jane Austen. OPENING WEEKEND: Rogue One Rogue One: A Star Wars Story opened in US theaters on Friday, December 16, 2016, ten years ago today. The most talked-about face in it belonged to Grand Moff Tarkin, played by Peter Cushing, who died in 1994. The film recreated him digitally, with actor Guy Henshall performing on set as the model for the character.It was the first Star Wars film not built around the Skywalker saga. It told the story of the rebels who stole the Death Star plans, which the 1977 original had only mentioned in its opening crawl. Gareth Edwards directed, with Felicity Jones and Diego Luna leading. Tony Gilroy oversaw extensive reshoots that summer, which became part of the film's backstory.Opening weekend: about $155 million domesticThe reaction was strong, and audiences split over the digital Tarkin. A brief digital appearance by a young Princess Leia, with Carrie Fisher as the character, closed the film. Fisher died later that month, on December 27, which gave that final shot a weight nobody planned.  Born On This DayKrysten RitterBORN 1981 · TURNS 45Ritter broke through as Jane Margolis, Jesse's girlfriend, on Breaking Bad, then carried the title role in Marvel's Jessica Jones for Netflix across three seasons starting in 2015. She also starred in the sitcom Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 and has since written novels.Benjamin BrattBORN 1963 · TURNS 63Bratt became a familiar face as Detective Rey Curtis on Law & Order in the 1990s. He moved into films such as Miss Congeniality and Pinero, and later voiced Ernesto de la Cruz in Pixar's Coco.Miranda OttoBORN 1967 · TURNS 59The Australian actor played Éowyn, the shieldmaiden of Rohan, in the Lord of the Rings films. She later played Hannah Wheeler in Homeland's final seasons and Aunt Zelda in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.   OPENING WEEKEND: Rain ManRain Man opened in US theaters on Friday, December 16, 1988. Before Barry Levinson directed it, the film had gone through several directors, including Martin Brest and Sydney Pollack, and Steven Spielberg was also attached at one stage. Dustin Hoffman played Raymond Babbitt, an autistic savant, opposite Tom Cruise as the brother who discovers him.The film was a major hit and went on to win four Oscars at the ceremony in March 1989: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Hoffman and Best Original Screenplay. Its depiction of autism shaped public awareness for years, and later critics have pointed out how much it simplified the condition.Hans Zimmer's early score, built around steel drums and synthesizers, helped launch his Hollywood career.   Meanwhile…2016On December 16, 2016, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story opened in US theaters, the first live-action Star Wars film outside the main saga.2022Avatar: The Way of Water opened in US theaters on December 16, 2022, thirteen years after the first Avatar.1988Rain Man's opening weekend began December 16, 1988, and it finished the year as one of the biggest films of 1988.1775Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in Steventon, Hampshire. Pride and Prejudice and Emma remain among the most adapted novels on screen.1938Liv Ullmann was born December 16, 1938, in Tokyo. She became one of Ingmar Bergman's key collaborators in films such as Persona and Scenes from a Marriage.1984Theo James was born December 16, 1984, and turns 42. He led the Divergent films and later appeared in The White Lotus. That's December 16: a Death Star heist, a Best Picture winner and a long list of birthdays. Come back tomorrow afternoon for another date in pop culture history, or browse the archive at This Day in Pop Culture History.

Museum-lover? Art aficionado? Put your knowledge to the test!...

Hope you paid attention in civics class - it's your time to shine!...

We walked uphill to school - both ways! How well do you know nostalgia?...

See if your binge-watching has paid off!...

From the Olympics to the Gridiron - how well do you know your stuff?...

Do you know your beakers from your bunsen burners?...

How well do you know music history?...

Test your smarts with this history quiz!...