Moments in Time – December 7, 2023

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• On Dec. 18, 1966, Dr. Seuss’s popular book “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” was made into an animated TV special narrated by well-known horror movie star Boris Karloff, who also provided the voice of the titular character, and shown for the first time on CBS.
• On Dec. 19, 1942, American fighter pilot Eddie Rickenbacker was pulled out of the Pacific Ocean after being lost at sea for 22 days. He and six other men would have starved to death if they hadn’t caught and eaten a seagull. Rickenbacker was on a special mission in the South Pacific when he went missing.
• On Dec. 20, 1990, the Population Crisis Committee declared Lagos, Nigeria the worst city in the world in which to live, with the top-ranked cities listed as Montreal, Melbourne and Seattle-Tacoma. Half of Lagos’ homes lacked water and electricity, and only one person in 100 owned a telephone. The city also had a density of 5.8 persons per dwelling.
• On Dec. 21, 2007, Britain’s former prime minister Tony Blair left the Anglican Church to become a Roman Catholic. The cardinal who led the service to welcome him said he was “very glad” to do so, but controversy remained on whether the conversion was in pursuit of the European Union presidency.
• On Dec. 22, 1945, broadcast journalist Diane Sawyer was born in Louisville, Kentucky. Before landing at CBS in 1978, she was a White House press aide during the Richard Nixon administration and later assisted Nixon with his memoirs. At one point she was the highest-paid woman in American TV news.
• On Dec. 23, 1954, Dr. Joseph E. Murray and several other surgeons performed the first truly successful human kidney transplant, between identical twin brothers, at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
• On Dec. 24, 1828, eggnog riots began at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, in what was also known as the Grog Mutiny. The disturbances were sparked by cadets’ copious consumption of eggnog made with smuggled whiskey and lasted until the next day.

© 2023 King Features Synd., Inc.