#Middlebury
On Dec. 11, 1872, already appearing as a well-known figure of the Wild West in popular dime novels, Buffalo Bill Cody makes his first stage appearance in a Chicago-based production of “The Scouts of the Prairie.”- On Dec. 12, 1901, Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving detractors who said the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less.
- On Dec. 6, 1917, a devastating blast occurs when the Mont Blanc, a French munitions ship, explodes after colliding with another vessel in Halifax harbor in Nova Scotia. The Mont Blanc was packed with 2,300 tons of picric acid, 200 tons of TNT and 35 tons of high-octane gasoline.
- On Dec. 7, 1941, a swarm of 360 Japanese warplanes descends on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in a ferocious early morning assault. The surprise attack devastated the U.S. Pacific fleet and drew the United States into World War II.
- On Dec. 9, 1950, Harry Gold, who confessed to serving as a courier of top-secret information on the atomic bomb, is sentenced to 30 years in prison. Gold implicated his brother-in-law and sister, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were later executed for espionage.
- On Dec. 10, 1967, soul legend Otis Redding dies in a plane crash in Wisconsin. “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” would be released in its “unfinished” form several weeks later. The whistled verse was a placeholder for additional lyrics that Redding had yet to write.
- On Dec. 8, 1982, “Sophie’s Choice,” starring Meryl Streep as a Holocaust survivor, opens in theaters. The “choice” refers to a terrible decision Streep’s character is forced to make about which of her two children will live or die while in a concentration camp.
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