Moments in Time – November 24, 2022

#MiddleburyCT

• On Dec. 10, 1768, the first part of the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the oldest continuously published and revised work in the English language, was published and advertised for sale in Edinburgh, Scotland.
• On Dec. 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX proclaimed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, in which he asserted that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was from the moment of her conception free from the effects of “original sin.”
• On Dec. 9, 1868, the world’s first traffic light was erected near Westminster Bridge in London. It didn’t have much of a chance to prove its worth, however, as it had to be removed just a month later following a gas leak that caused one of its lights to explode.
• On Dec. 6, 1933, U.S. federal judge John M. Woolsey announced that James Joyce’s novel “Ulysses” was not obscene in a legal sense but a work of merit. The ruling was hailed as a landmark and would open the door for greater freedoms in future literary works.
• On Dec. 5, 1955, the Georgia board of regents rejected Gov. Marvin Griffin’s request that the Georgia Tech football team be barred from playing in the following month’s Sugar Bowl simply because the school’s opponent, the University of Pittsburgh, included a Black athlete.
• On Dec. 11, 1981, after an extraordinary 21-year career in the ring and despite pleas that it was time for him to definitively retire, American boxer Muhammad Ali fought his last professional bout, losing to Trevor Berbick in a match that would be nicknamed “Drama in the Bahamas.”
• On Dec. 7, 2020, American aviator Chuck Yeager, who in 1947 became the first person to exceed the speed of sound in flight, which was approximately 662 miles per hour at his altitude of 40,000 feet, died at the age of 97.

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