Born In December Quotes

To the American People: Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. If we think on these things, there will be born in us a Savior and over us will shine a star sending its gleam of hope to the world. Presidential message, December 25, 1927

For Jenn At 12 years old I started bleeding with the moon and beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts. I fought with my knuckles white as stars, and left bruises the shape of Salem. There are things we know by heart, and things we don't. At 13 my friend Jen tried to teach me how to blow rings of smoke. I'd watch the nicotine rising from her lips like halos, but I could never make dying beautiful. The sky didn't fill with colors the night I convinced myself veins are kite strings you can only cut free. I suppose I love this life, in spite of my clenched fist. I open my palm and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree, and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers, and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath the first time his fingers touched the keys the same way a soldier holds his breath the first time his finger clicks the trigger. We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe. But my lungs remember the day my mother took my hand and placed it on her belly and told me the symphony beneath was my baby sister's heartbeat. And I knew life would tremble like the first tear on a prison guard's hardened cheek, like a prayer on a dying man's lips, like a vet holding a full bottle of whisky like an empty gun in a war zone… just take me just take me Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much, the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood. We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways, but you still have to call it a birthday. You still have to fall for the prettiest girl on the playground at recess and hope she knows you can hit a baseball further than any boy in the whole third grade and I've been running for home through the windpipe of a man who sings while his hands playing washboard with a spoon on a street corner in New Orleans where every boarded up window is still painted with the words We're Coming Back like a promise to the ocean that we will always keep moving towards the music, the way Basquait slept in a cardboard box to be closer to the rain. Beauty, catch me on your tongue. Thunder, clap us open. The pupils in our eyes were not born to hide beneath their desks. Tonight lay us down to rest in the Arizona desert, then wake us washing the feet of pregnant women who climbed across the border with their bellies aimed towards the sun. I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun. I know the heartbeat of his mother. Don't cover your ears, Love. Don't cover your ears, Life. There is a boy writing poems in Central Park and as he writes he moves and his bones become the bars of Mandela's jail cell stretching apart, and there are men playing chess in the December cold who can't tell if the breath rising from the board is their opponents or their own, and there's a woman on the stairwell of the subway swearing she can hear Niagara Falls from her rooftop in Brooklyn, and I'm remembering how Niagara Falls is a city overrun with strip malls and traffic and vendors and one incredibly brave river that makes it all worth it. Ya'll, I know this world is far from perfect. I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon. I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic. But every ocean has a shoreline and every shoreline has a tide that is constantly returning to wake the songbirds in our hands, to wake the music in our bones, to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that brave river that has to run through the center of our hearts to find its way home.

In its mythology, Mithra, the Persian god of light and wisdom, was born of a virgin in a cave on the 25th December and later, as an adult, undertook long voyages for the purposes of illuminating mankind. His disciples were twelve; he was betrayed, sentenced to death, and after his death, he was buried in a tomb from which he rose from the dead. The Mithrian religion also states that at the end of all time, Mithra will come again to judge the living and the dead. In this religious cult, Mithra was called the Saviour and he was sometimes illustrated as a lamb. Its doctrine included baptism, the sacramental meal (the Eucharist), and the belief in a saviour god that died and rose from the dead to be the mediator between God and mankind. The adherents of this religion believed in the resurrection of the body, universal judgement, and therefore in heaven and hell.

Any one thinking of the Holy Child as born in December would mean by it exactly what we mean by it; that Christ is not merely a summer sun of the prosperous but a winter fire for the unfortunate.

To cement their marriage, my parents had a second baby—me. I was born on December 2, 1981. My mother never missed an opportunity to recall that she was in excruciating labor with me for twenty-one hours.

Your parents are weirdos, in the best possible way. They do not celebrate birthdays; never in your life have you received a present on the tenth of December. Instead, you are given books on the days that their authors were born.

Every human is born of man and woman. Every human, at birth, is, or at least has the potential to be, beloved of his/her mother/father. Thus every human is worthy of love.

The morning of December 23, Emilienne woke from the kind of hard, heavy sleep known only to soldiers, drunks, and mothers of newly born children.

Her name was Janice, but I called her Jan because she was born in December—just like Chris T.


To those Romans December twenty-fifth was the birthday of the sun. They wrote that in gold letters in their calendar. Every year about that time, the middle of winter, the sun was born once more and it was going to put an end to the darkness and misery of winter. So they had a great feast, with presents and dolls for everybody, and the best day of all was December twenty-fifth. That feast, they would tell you, was thousands of years old- before Christ was ever heard of.

An elderly woman gathering wood, plump and impoverished, tells me about her children one by one, when they were born, when they died. When she becomes aware that I want to go on, she talks three times as fast, shortening destinies, skipping the deaths of three children although adding them later on, unwilling to let even one fate slip away—and this in a dialect that makes it hard for me to follow what she is saying. After the demise of an entire generation of offspring, she would speak no more about herself except to say that she gathers wood, every day; I should have stayed longer.

I was born the 26th of December. . . Arrive by dint of perseverance, but step by step. . . Tenancy to exaggerate the importance of earthly life. Avaricious of self. Constant in their affections and their hatreds. . . Yes, the Capricorn is a beast of solitude. Slow, steady, and persevering. Lives on several levels at once. Thinks in circles. Fascinated by death. Ever climbing, climbing. In search of the edelweiss, presumably. Or could it be immortelle? Knows no mother. Only "the mothers". Laughs little and usually on the wrong side of the face. . . Speaks truthfully instead of kindly. Metaphysics, abstractions, electromagnetic displays. Dives to the depths. Sees stars, comets, and asteroids where others see only moles, warts, and pimples. Feeds on himself when tired of playing the man-eating shark. A paranoiac. An ambulatory paranoiac. But constant in his affections - and his hatreds. Ouais!

Mollie, who was born on December 1, 1886,

THE FAIR HAD A POWERFUL and lasting impact on the nation’s psyche, in ways both large and small. Walt Disney’s father, Elias, helped build the White City; Walt’s Magic Kingdom may well be a descendant. Certainly the fair made a powerful impression on the Disney family. It proved such a financial boon that when the family’s third son was born that year, Elias in gratitude wanted to name him Columbus. His wife, Flora, intervened; the baby became Roy. Walt came next, on December 5, 1901. The writer L. Frank Baum and his artist-partner William Wallace Denslow visited the fair; its grandeur informed their creation of Oz. The Japanese temple on the Wooded Island charmed Frank Lloyd Wright, and may have influenced the evolution of his “Prairie” residential designs. The fair prompted President Harrison to designate October 12 a national holiday, Columbus Day, which today serves to anchor a few thousand parades and a three-day weekend. Every carnival since 1893 has included a Midway and a Ferris Wheel, and every grocery store contains products born at the exposition. Shredded Wheat did survive. Every house has scores of incandescent bulbs powered by alternating current, both of which first proved themselves worthy of large-scale use at the fair; and nearly every town of any size has its little bit of ancient Rome, some beloved and be-columned bank, library or post office. Covered with graffiti, perhaps, or even an ill-conceived coat of paint, but underneath it all the glow of the White City persists. Even the Lincoln Memorial in Washington can trace its heritage to the fair.

Schools could do the same thing. Elementary and middle schools could put the January through April–born students in one class, the May through August in another class, and those born in September through December in the third class. They could let students learn with and compete against other students of the same maturity level. It would be a little bit more complicated administratively. But it wouldn’t necessarily cost that much more money, and it would level the playing field for those who — through no fault of their own — have been dealt a big disadvantage by the educational system. We could easily take control of the machinery of achievement, in other words — not just in sports but, as we will see, in other more consequential areas as well. But we don’t. And why? Because we cling to the idea that success is a simple function of individual merit and that the world in which we all grow up and the rules we choose to write as a society don’t matter at all.

Joseph Stalin: Joseph Stalin was the Soviet dictator who ruled the Soviet Union with an iron fist and was responsible for a number of the decisions made during the battle of Stalingrad. He was born on December 18, 1978 in Gori, Georgia. He was an only child who grew up in a poor family. His father was an alcoholic shoemaker who beat Joseph and his mother was a

job 14:1 man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of troubles "If that isn't your experience now it will be; its just around the corner. if this is a bright day for you, the dark day is around the corner. If this is a dark day for you , there's a brighter day is coming. the life we live here in planet earth is tribulation." sermon: Be Constant in Prayer for the Joy of Hope. December 26, 2004 @ Desiring God

December 1662 Virginia’s House of Burgesses passes a new law holding that “all children borne in this country shalbe held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother.” This doctrine, known as partus sequitur ventrem (“that which is brought forth follows the belly”), is a departure from English tradition, in which a child’s status followed that of the father. The law incentivizes the rape of enslaved Black women by their white enslavers.

[…] once properly attired, I step into the ancient courts of ancient men, where, a beloved guest, I nourish myself on that food that is mine alone and for which I was born; where I speak to them without inhibition and ask them the reasons behind their actions; and in their humanity they reply; and for four hours I feel not a drop of boredom, think nothing of my cares, am fearless of poverty, unrattled by death; I transfer all of myself into them. (Letter to Francesco Vettori, December 10, 1513)

In fact, writing in the 1830's, Godfrey Higgins makes the following statements: John the Baptist was born on the 25th of June, the day of the solstice, so that he began to decline immediately. St. John the Evangelist, or the enlightener, or teacher of glad-tidings, was born at the same time of the year; (but, as it is said, two days after Jesus;) and as Osiris, and Bacchus, and Cristna, and Mithra, and Horus, and many others. This winter solstice, the 25th of December, was a favourite birth-day.29

Brian ‘The Tax Man’ Cockerill - While I’m mentioning drug dealers, I have to give a mention to a man hated by the peddlers of soul destroying stuff, big Brian ‘The Tax Man’ Cockerill (AKA as Scot’s Brian), born on 16 December 1964 in Coatbridge, in Lanarkshire, at 6ft 3in, with 23 stone of rock solid muscle, his awesome power has made him a truly terrifying force in Britain’s underworld. A walking colossus, anyone who gets in his way and tries to stay there had better be ready for the hiding of their life.

Reid was born in 1818 in Ballyroney, County Down, the son of Rev. Thomas Mayne Reid Sr., who was a senior clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. His father wanted him to become a Presbyterian minister, so in September 1834 he enrolled at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. Although he stayed for four years, he could not motivate himself enough to complete his studies and receive a degree. In December 1839 he boarded the Dumfriesshire bound for New Orleans, Louisiana, arriving in January 1840. Shortly afterward he found work as a clerk for a corn factor

When I first went to death row in December 1983, America was in the early stages of a radical transformation that would turn us into an unprecedentedly harsh and punitive nation and result in mass imprisonment that has no historical parallel. Today we have the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The prison population has increased from 300,000 people in the early 1970s to 2.3 million people today. There are nearly six million people on probation or on parole. One in every fifteen people born in the United States in 2001 is expected to go to jail or prison; one in every three black male babies born in this century is expected to be incarcerated.

I want to smash them to pieces. When China was the other side, it felt totally different. Really—I thought of those cruel, beastly American soldiers meandering all over our dear, beautiful Japanese soil, and the very thought was unbearable. If you dare even set foot on our sacred soil, your feet will rot off, for sure. You’re not qualified to be here. Oh, our pure soldiers of Japan—you’ve got to beat them all to a pulp. From here on, as things get scarce, even in our homes we’ll probably have quite a hard time of it. But don’t worry about us. We don’t mind. You’ll never hear us saying how much we hate it all. You won’t find us pitying ourselves and whining about how horrid it is to be born at a time like this. Instead, I even feel that being born into this world gives us a reason for living. I think it’s great that we were born into such a world.

Meanwhile, British Agent Number Seven was fulfilling more than his job as Great Britain’s man on the spot. He warned Beck-with that the pro-French Jefferson could make trouble “from some opinions he has given respecting your government,” but, luckily, “Washington was perfectly dispassionate.” Then Hamilton appears to divide his loyalties: “I shall certainly know the progress of negotiations from day to day. . . . In case any such difficulties should occur, I should wish to know them in order that I may be sure they are clearly understood and candidly examined.” A double agent appears to have been born. By December 1791 Jefferson realized that Hamilton was leaking the content of cabinet meetings to the British. By 1792 the rivals were so at odds that Washington came down from his Olympus and asked each what this great division in his cabinet—now being reflected in the nation—was all about.

A woman once told me that, for a time after her husband died, her grief was as constant as breathing. Then one day, while pushing a shopping cart, she realized she was thinking about yogurt. With time, thoughts in this vein became contiguous. With more time thoughts in this vein became sustained. Eventually they won a kind of majority. Her grieving had ended while she wasn’t watching (although, she added, grief never ends). And so it was with my depression. One day in December I changed a furnace filter with modest interest in the process. The day after that I drove to Gorst for the repair of a faulty seat belt. On the thirty-first I went walking with a friend—grasslands, cattails, asparagus fields, ice-bound sloughs, frost-rimed fencerows—with a familiar engrossment in the changing of winter light. I was home, that night, in time to bang pots and pans at the year’s turn: “E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.” It wasn’t at all like that—this eve was cloudy, the stars hidden by high racing clouds—but I found myself looking skyward anyway, into the night’s maw, and I noticed I was thinking of January’s appointments without a shudder, even with anticipation. Who knows why, but the edge had come off, and being me felt endurable again. My crucible had crested, not suddenly but less gradually than how it had come, and I felt the way a newborn fawn looks in an elementary school documentary. Born, but on shaky, insecure legs. Vulnerable, but in this world for now, with its leaf buds and packs of wolves. Was it pharmacology, and if so, is that a bad thing? Or do I credit time for my healing? Or my Jungian? My reading? My seclusion? My wife’s love? Maybe I finally exhausted my tears, or my dreams at last found sufficient purchase, or maybe the news just began to sound better, the world less precarious, not headed for disaster. Or was it talk in the end, the acknowledgments I made? The surfacing of so many festering pains? My children’s voices down the hall,

An era was over and a new Europe was being born. This much was obvious. But with the passing of the old order many longstanding assumptions would be called into question. What had once seemed permanent and somehow inevitable would take on a more transient air. The Cold-War confrontation; the schism separating East from West; the contest between ‘Communism’ and ‘capitalism’; the separate and non-communicating stories of prosperous western Europe and the Soviet bloc satellites to its east: all these could no longer be understood as the products of ideological necessity or the iron logic of politics. They were the accidental outcomes of history—and history was thrusting them aside. Europe’s future would look very different—and so, too, would its past. In retrospect the years 1945-89 would now come to be seen not as the threshold of a new epoch but rather as an interim age: a post-war parenthesis, the unfinished business of a conflict that ended in 1945 but whose epilogue had lasted for another half century. Whatever shape Europe was to take in the years to come, the familiar, tidy story of what had gone before had changed for ever. It seemed obvious to me, in that icy central-European December, that the history of post-war Europe would need to be rewritten.

To our amazement Jimmy received a letter, dated August 20, 1963, from Bertrand Russell, the world-famous philosopher and peace activist, saying “I have recently finished your remarkable book The American Resolution” and “have been greatly impressed with its power and insight.” The letter goes on to ask for Jimmy’s views on whether American whites “will understand the negro [sic] revolt because “the survival of mankind may well follow or fail to follow from political and social behavior of Americans in the next decades.” On September 5 Jimmy wrote back a lengthy reply saying among other things that “so far, with the exception of the students, there has been no social force in the white population which the Negroes can respect and a handful of liberals joining in a demonstration doesn’t change this one bit.” Russell replied on September 18 with more questions that Jimmy answered in an even longer letter dated December 22. Meanwhile, Russell had sent a telegram to the November 21 Town Hall meeting in New York City at which Jimmy was scheduled to speak, warning Negroes not to resort to violence. In response Jimmy said at the meeting that “I too would like to hope that the issues of our revolt might be resolved by peaceful means,” but “the issues and grievances were too deeply imbedded in the American system and the American peoples so that the very things Russell warned against might just have to take place if the Negroes in the U.S.A. are ever to walk the streets as free men.” In his December 22 letter Jimmy repeats what he said at the meeting and then patiently explains to Russell that what has historically been considered democracy in the United States has actually been fascism for millions of Negroes. The letter concludes: I believe that it is your responsibility as I believe that it is my responsibility to recognize and record this, so that in the future words do not confuse the struggle but help to clarify it. This is what I think philosophers should make clear. Because even though Negroes in the United States still think they are struggling for democracy, in fact democracy is what they are struggling against. This exchange between Jimmy and Russell has to be seen to be believed. In a way it epitomizes the 1960s—Jimmy Boggs, the Alabama-born autoworker, explaining the responsibility of philosophers to The Earl Russell, O.M., F.R.S., in his time probably the West’s best-known philosopher. Within the next few years The American Revolution was translated and published in French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Catalan, and Portuguese. To this day it remains a page-turner for grassroots activists because it is so personal and yet political, so down to earth and yet visionary.

NOBEL PRIZE–WINNER, British poet laureate, essayist, novelist, journalist, and short story writer Rudyard Kipling wrote for both children and adults, with many of his stories and poems focusing on British imperialism in India. His works were popular during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, even though many deemed his political views too conservative. Born on December 30, 1865, in Bombay, India, Kipling had a happy early childhood, but in 1871 he and his sister were sent to a boarding house called Lorne Lodge in Southsea, where he spent many disappointing years. He was accepted in 1877 to United Services College in the west of England. In 1882, he returned to his family in India, working as a journalist, associate editor, and correspondent for many publications, including Civil and Military Gazette, a publication in Lahore, Pakistan. He also wrote poetry. He found great success in writing after his 1889 return to England, where he was eventually appointed poet laureate. Some of his most famous writings, including The Jungle Book, Kim, Puck of Pook’s Hill, and Rewards and Fairies, saw publication in the 1890s and 1900s. It was during this period that he married Caroline Balestier, the sister of an American friend and publishing colleague. The couple settled in Vermont, where their two daughters were born. After a quarrel with his brother-in-law and grumblings from his American neighbors about his controversial political views, Kipling and his family returned to England. There, Caroline gave birth to a son in 1896. Tragically, their eldest daughter died in 1899. Later, Kipling’s son perished in battle during World War I. In 1907 Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize. He died on January 18, 1936, and his ashes are buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Lucid Motors was started under the name Atieva (which stood for “advanced technologies in electric vehicle applications” and was pronounced “ah-tee-va”) in Mountain View in 2008 (or December 31, 2007, to be precise) by Bernard Tse, who was a vice president at Tesla before it launched the Roadster. Hong Kong–born Tse had studied engineering at the University of Illinois, where he met his wife, Grace. In the early 1980s, the couple had started a computer manufacturing company called Wyse, which at its peak in the early 1990s registered sales of more than $480 million a year. Tse joined Tesla’s board of directors in 2003 at the request of his close friend Martin Eberhard, the company’s original CEO, who sought Tse’s expertise in engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain. Tse would eventually step off the board to lead a division called the Tesla Energy Group. The group planned to make electric power trains for other manufacturers, who needed them for their electric car programs. Tse, who didn’t respond to my requests to be interviewed, left Tesla around the time of Eberhard’s departure and decided to start Atieva, his own electric car company. Atieva’s plan was to start by focusing on the power train, with the aim of eventually producing a car. The company pitched itself to investors as a power train supplier and won deals to power some city buses in China, through which it could further develop and improve its technology. Within a few years, the company had raised about $40 million, much of it from the Silicon Valley–based venture capital firm Venrock, and employed thirty people, mostly power train engineers, in the United States, as well as the same number of factory workers in Asia. By 2014, it was ready to start work on a sedan, which it planned to sell in the United States and China. That year, it raised about $200 million from Chinese investors, according to sources close to the company.

California, land of my dreams and my longing. You've seen me in New York and you know what I'm like there but in L.A., man, I tell you, I'm even more of a high-achiever - all fizz and push, a fixer, a bustler, a real new-dealer. Last December for a whole week my thirty-minute short Dean Street was being shown daily at the Pantheon of Celestial Arts. In squeaky-clean restaurants, round smoggy poolsides, in jungly jacuzzis I made my deals. Business went well and it all looked possible. It was in the pleasure area, as usual, that I found I had a problem. In L.A., you can't do anything unless you drive. Now I can't do anything unless I drink. And the drink-drive combination, it really isn't possible out there. If you so much as loosen your seatbelt or drop your ash or pick your nose, then it's an Alcatraz autopsy with the questions asked later. Any indiscipline, you feel, any variation, and there's a bullhorn, a set of scope sights, and a coptered pig drawing a bead on your rug. So what can a poor boy do? You come out of the hotel, the Vraimont. Over boiling Watts the downtown skyline carries a smear of God's green snot. You walk left, you walk right, you are a bank rat on a busy river. This restaurant serves no drink, this one serves no meat, this one serves no heterosexuals. You can get your chimp shampooed, you can get your dick tattooed, twenty-four hour, but can you get lunch? And should you see a sign on the far side of the street flashing BEEF-BOOZE-NO STRINGS, then you can forget it. The only way to get across the road is to be born there. All the ped-xing signs say DON'T WALK, all of them, all the time. That is the message, the content of Los Angeles: don't walk. Stay inside. Don't walk. Drive. Don't walk. Run! I tried the cabs. No use. The cabbies are all Saturnians who aren't even sure whether this is a right planet or a left planet. The first thing you have to do, every trip, is teach them how to drive.

We had planned to spend Christmas morning with my family, and then head over to Phil and Kay’s for Christmas night. The whole family was there, including all the grandkids. Bella, Willie and Korie’s daughter, was the youngest and still an infant. We opened presents, ate dinner, and the whole evening felt surreal. Tomorrow morning I’ll have a baby in this world, I thought. When Jep and I left that night, I said, “I’m gonna go have a baby. See you all later!” For all the worry and concern and tears and prayers we’d spent on our unborn baby, when it came to her birth, she was no trouble at all. I went to the hospital, got prepped for the C-section, and within thirty minutes she was out. Lily was beautiful and healthy. I was overwhelmed with happiness and joy. I felt God had blessed me. He’d created life inside of me--a real, beautiful, breathing little human being--and brought her into this world through me. It was an unbelievable miracle. And the best part? Jep was in the delivery room. Unlike his dad, he wanted to be there, and he shared it all with me. I’ll never forget the sight of Jep decked out in blue scrubs, with the blue head cover, holding his baby girl for the first time. I’ll never forget how she nestled down in the crook of his arm, his hand wrapped up and around, gently holding her. He stared down at her, and I could see a smile behind his white surgical mask. He was already in love--I knew that look. After we admired the baby together, I fell asleep, and Jep took his newborn daughter out to meet the family. He told me later he bawled like a baby. Later, when she went to the hospital nursery, Jep kept going over there to stare at her. I think he was in shock and overwhelmed and excited. Lily had a light creamy complexion and little pink rosebud lips, and she was born December 26, 2002. Despite the rough pregnancy, she was perfect. God answered our prayers, and now we were a family of three. We’d been married just a little over a year.

Although thrilled that the era of the personal computer had arrived, he was afraid that he was going to miss the party. Slapping down seventy-five cents, he grabbed the issue and trotted through the slushy snow to the Harvard dorm room of Bill Gates, his high school buddy and fellow computer fanatic from Seattle, who had convinced him to drop out of college and move to Cambridge. “Hey, this thing is happening without us,” Allen declared. Gates began to rock back and forth, as he often did during moments of intensity. When he finished the article, he realized that Allen was right. For the next eight weeks, the two of them embarked on a frenzy of code writing that would change the nature of the computer business.1 Unlike the computer pioneers before him, Gates, who was born in 1955, had not grown up caring much about the hardware. He had never gotten his thrills by building Heathkit radios or soldering circuit boards. A high school physics teacher, annoyed by the arrogance Gates sometimes displayed while jockeying at the school’s timesharing terminal, had once assigned him the project of assembling a Radio Shack electronics kit. When Gates finally turned it in, the teacher recalled, “solder was dripping all over the back” and it didn’t work.2 For Gates, the magic of computers was not in their hardware circuits but in their software code. “We’re not hardware gurus, Paul,” he repeatedly pronounced whenever Allen proposed building a machine. “What we know is software.” Even his slightly older friend Allen, who had built shortwave radios, knew that the future belonged to the coders. “Hardware,” he admitted, “was not our area of expertise.”3 What Gates and Allen set out to do on that December day in 1974 when they first saw the Popular Electronics cover was to create the software for personal computers. More than that, they wanted to shift the balance in the emerging industry so that the hardware would become an interchangeable commodity, while those who created the operating system and application software would capture most of the profits.

Worldly morality and love for Krishna. (18/43 Mall Road, Kanpur, December 1, 1927)   Bless me so that I can dedicate my life to fulfilling Śrī Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s desire and glorifying the Supreme Lord, which is the goal of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Śrī Gaurasundara has been established at Kurukṣetra, which is a center for vipralambha-rasa. His service has now been introduced at Naimiṣāraṇya, which is the place for Bhāgavata recitation. Next year, Śrī Gaurasundara may be installed in Vṛndāvana. I have visited Puṣkara, Dvārakā, Gopīsarovara, Prabhāsa, Sudāmāpurī, and Avantipura. Yet, even after seeing these seven major holy places that award liberation, I am not being liberated because of not engaging in the service of all of you. It is not that I do not have a desire to serve Lord Krishna in a liberated state. Since today I remembered the Bhagavad-gītā verses, api cet suduracāra (9.30), sarvadharmān parityajya (18.66), yat karoṣi yad aśnāsī (9.27), and yā prītiravivekīnāṁ, as well as the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam verse, janmādasya (1.1.1), I wrote this letter to disturb you. Ethical principles and moral rules are best according to material considerations. I have no second opinion about this. But since love of Krishna is most relishable, moral rules are not superior to nor more relishable than Krishna. In fact, there is no comparison. Many people do not like the way Lord Krishna forcibly killed the washerman in Mathurā and took away the clothes, garlands, etc., They may think that sincere premika bhaktas, who are under the shelter of the transcendental parakīya-rasa, are less ethical, but love for Hari has such a wonderful power that even a greatly delightful moral standard becomes dim in front of it. The code of conduct that is found when one becomes absorbed in service to Krishna, giving up all impediments that come in its way and are born of “a sense of duty,” should be ardently respected. Unless a chanter is considerate, he does not attain devotional service, and if devotional service is not attained, then a mundane sense of duty and a doubting temperament do not go away.

Anna Chapman was born Anna Vasil’yevna Kushchyenko, in Volgograd, formally Stalingrad, Russia, an important Russian industrial city. During the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II, the city became famous for its resistance against the German Army. As a matter of personal history, I had an uncle, by marriage that was killed in this battle. Many historians consider the battle of Stalingrad the largest and bloodiest battle in the history of warfare. Anna earned her master's degree in economics in Moscow. Her father at the time was employed by the Soviet embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, where he allegedly was a senior KGB agent. After her marriage to Alex Chapman, Anna became a British subject and held a British passport. For a time Alex and Anna lived in London where among other places, she worked for Barclays Bank. In 2009 Anna Chapman left her husband and London, and moved to New York City, living at 20 Exchange Place, in the Wall Street area of downtown Manhattan. In 2009, after a slow start, she enlarged her real-estate business, having as many as 50 employees. Chapman, using her real name worked in the Russian “Illegals Program,” a group of sleeper agents, when an undercover FBI agent, in a New York coffee shop, offered to get her a fake passport, which she accepted. On her father’s advice she handed the passport over to the NYPD, however it still led to her arrest. Ten Russian agents including Anna Chapman were arrested, after having been observed for years, on charges which included money laundering and suspicion of spying for Russia. This led to the largest prisoner swap between the United States and Russia since 1986. On July 8, 2010 the swap was completed at the Vienna International Airport. Five days later the British Home Office revoked Anna’s citizenship preventing her return to England. In December of 2010 Anna Chapman reappeared when she was appointed to the public council of the Young Guard of United Russia, where she was involved in the education of young people. The following month Chapman began hosting a weekly TV show in Russia called Secrets of the World and in June of 2011 she was appointed as editor of Venture Business News magazine. In 2012, the FBI released information that Anna Chapman attempted to snare a senior member of President Barack Obama's cabinet, in what was termed a “Honey Trap.” After the 2008 financial meltdown, sources suggest that Anna may have targeted the dapper Peter Orzag, who was divorced in 2006 and served as Special Assistant to the President, for Economic Policy. Between 2007 and 2010 he was involved in the drafting of the federal budget for the Obama Administration and may have been an appealing target to the FSB, the Russian Intelligence Agency. During Orzag’s time as a federal employee, he frequently came to New York City, where associating with Anna could have been a natural fit, considering her financial and economics background. Coincidently, Orzag resigned from his federal position the same month that Chapman was arrested. Following this, Orzag took a job at Citigroup as Vice President of Global Banking. In 2009, he fathered a child with his former girlfriend, Claire Milonas, the daughter of Greek shipping executive, Spiros Milonas, chairman and President of Ionian Management Inc. In September of 2010, Orzag married Bianna Golodryga, the popular news and finance anchor at Yahoo and a contributor to MSNBC's Morning Joe. She also had co-anchored the weekend edition of ABC's Good Morning America. Not surprisingly Bianna was born in in Moldova, Soviet Union, and in 1980, her family moved to Houston, Texas. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, with a degree in Russian/East European & Eurasian studies and has a minor in economics. They have two children. Yes, she is fluent in Russian! Presently Orszag is a banker and economist, and a Vice Chairman of investment banking and Managing Director at Lazard.

Dr. John G. Jackson quotes Kenneth R.H. Mackenzie as follows: “From the woolly texture of the hair, I am inclined to assign to the Budda of India, the Fuhi of China, the Sommanoacom of the Siamese, the Xaha of the Japanese, and the Quetzalcoatl of the Mexicans, and the same, and indeed an African, or rather ‘Nubian’ origin.” Most of these black gods were regarded as crucified saviours who died to save mankind by being nailed to a cross, or tied to a tree with arms outstretched as if on a cross, or slain violently in some other manner. Of these crucified saviors, the most prominent were Osiris and Horus of Egypt, Krishna of India, Mithra of Persia, Quetzalcoatl of Mexico, Adonis of Babylonia and Attis of Phrygia. Nearly all of these slain savior-gods have the following stories related about them: They are born of a virgin, on or near December 25th (Christmas); their births are heralded by a star; they are born either in a cave or stable; they are slain, commonly by crucifixion; they descend into hell, and rise from the dead at the beginning of Spring (Easter), and finally ascend into heaven. The parallels between the legendary lives of these pagan messiahs and the life of Jesus Christ as recorded in the BIBLE are so similar that progressive Bible scholars now admit that stories of these heathen have been woven into the life-story of Jesus.

Jesus, it’s the beloved day we call Christmas Eve, the date we’ve set aside to remember and reflect upon your nativity. Luke took so much care to fix your birthday in the context of real history and a real world, but whether or not you were born anywhere close to December 25 is not important at all. That you were born—that you actually came from eternity into time and space—that’s what’s important, Jesus. I sing to you today with all the passion and delight I can possibly muster, “Born that man (including me) no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth (including me), born to give them (including me) second birth.” For the certainty of your birth, and therefore my rebirth, I give you great praise.

iron law of Canadian hockey: in any elite group of hockey players—the very best of the best—40 percent of the players will have been born between January and March, 30 percent between April and June, 20 percent between July and September, and 10 percent between October and December.

Was there perhaps a fable or parable that he might tell to a grandchild about what has happened in his country? Koppel asks. “Here is a fable that I learned some years ago,” replies Gorbachev. “A young ruler wanted to rule in a more humane way in his kingdom. And he asked the views of the wise men. And it took ten years to bring twenty volumes of advice. He said, ‘When am I going to read all that? I have to govern my country.’ Ten years later they brought him just ten volumes of advice. He said that is still too much. Five years later he was brought just one volume. But by then twenty-five years have passed and he was on his deathbed. And one of the wise men said, ‘All that is here can be summarized in a simple formula—people are born, people suffer, and people die.

On Friday, 3 December1993, at a charity luncheon in aid of the Headway National Head Injuries Association, the Princess announced her withdrawal from public life. In a sometimes quavering, yet defiant, voice she appealed for ‘time and space’ after more than a decade in the spotlight. During her five-minute speech she made a particular point of the unrelenting media exposure: ‘When I started my public life 12 years ago, I understood that the media might be interested in what I did. I realized then that their attention would inevitably focus on both our private and public lives. But I was not aware of how overwhelming that attention would become; nor the extent to which it would affect both my public duties and my personal life, in a manner that has been hard to bear.’ As she later said: ‘The pressure was intolerable then, and my job, my work was being affected. I wanted to give 110 per cent to my work, and I could only give 50…I owed it to the public to say “Thank you, I’m disappearing for a bit, but I’ll come back.”’ Indicating that she would continue to support a small number of charities while she set about rebuilding her private life, the Princess emphasized: ‘My first priority will continue to be our children, William and Harry, who deserve as much love, care and attention as I am able to give, as well as an appreciation of the tradition into which they were born.’ While she singled out the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh for their ‘kindness and support’, Diana never once mentioned her estranged husband. In private, she was unequivocal about where the blame lay for her departure from the stage. ‘My husband’s side have made my life hell for the last year,’ she told a friend. When she reached the relative sanctuary of Kensington Palace that afternoon, Diana was relieved, saddened but quietly elated. Her retirement would give her a much-needed chance to reflect and refocus. If the separation had brought her the hope of a new life, her withdrawal from royal duties would give her the opportunity to translate that hope into a vibrant new career, one that would employ to the full her undoubted gifts of compassion and caring on a wider, international stage. A few months later, at a reception at the Serpentine Gallery, of which she was patron, the Princess was in fine form. She was relaxed, witty and happy among friends. The events of 1993 seemed a dim and dismal memory. As she chatted to the movie star Jeremy Irons he told her: ‘I’ve taken a year off acting.’ Diana smiled and replied: ‘So have I.

At the hospital, an attendant brought down a wheelchair for me. Steve somehow managed, without a forklift, to get me out of the truck and into the wheelchair. The birth progressed a lot faster than it had with Bindi. I wasn’t worried because I had Steve with me, and I knew everything would be fine, as long as we were together. I pushed like an Olympic baby pusher. I should have gotten the gold for my pushing. I think I pushed until I was nearly inside out. The baby came. Steve said, “It’s a boy!” and brought him to me. I remember my son’s tiny pink mouth. He looked like a baby bird with his eyes closed and his mouth open. He immediately began feeding. Steve cried tears of joy. Once we got settled, the proud papa headed for Sunshine Coast Grammar School to tell Bindi the news. “You’ve got a little brother,” he told her. Bindi was elated, in spite of the fact that she had spent every night saying her prayers for a little sister. Steve brought her to the hospital, where she took her little brother in her arms and looked at him lovingly. “How do you know he’s a boy?” she asked. “Bindi,” Thelma said, “they’re not born with clothes on.” “I think I will name him Brian,” Bindi said. “His name is Robert,” Steve told her. “Oh, well,” Bindi said. “I’m going to call him Brian for short.” It was a Sunday, December 1, 2003, and we had all just received the best Christmas present ever. Robert Clarence Irwin. Baby Bob.

Kristen had dreamed of having children since she was herself a child and had always thought that she would love motherhood as much as she would love her babies. “I know that being a mom will be demanding,” she told me once. “But I don’t think it will change me much. I’ll still have my life, and our baby will be part of it.” She envisioned long walks through the neighborhood with Emily. She envisioned herself mastering the endlessly repeating three-hour cycle of playing, feeding, sleeping, and diaper changing. Most of all, she envisioned a full parenting partnership, in which I’d help whenever I was home—morning, nighttime, and weekends. Of course, I didn’t know any of this until she told me, which she did after Emily was born. At first, the newness of parenthood made it seem as though everything was going according to our expectations. We’ll be up all day and all night for a few weeks, but then we’ll hit our stride and our lives will go back to normal, plus one baby. Kristen took a few months off from work to focus all of her attention on Emily, knowing that it would be hard to juggle the contradicting demands of an infant and a career. She was determined to own motherhood. “We’re still in that tough transition,” Kristen would tell me, trying to console Emily at four A.M. “Pretty soon, we’ll find our routine. I hope.” But things didn’t go as we had planned. There were complications with breast-feeding. Emily wasn’t gaining weight; she wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep, wouldn’t play. She was born in December, when it was far too cold to go for walks outdoors. While I was at work, Kristen would sit on the floor with Emily in the dark—all the lights off, all the shades closed—and cry. She’d think about her friends, all of whom had made motherhood look so easy with their own babies. “Mary had no problem breast-feeding,” she’d tell me. “Jenny said that these first few months had been her favorite. Why can’t I get the hang of this?” I didn’t have any answers, but still I offered solutions, none of which she wanted to hear: “Talk to a lactation consultant about the feeding issues.” “Establish a routine and stick to it.” Eventually, she stopped talking altogether. While Kristen struggled, I watched from the sidelines, unaware that she needed help. I excused myself from the nighttime and morning responsibilities, as the interruptions to my daily schedule became too much for me to handle. We didn’t know this was because of a developmental disorder; I just looked incredibly selfish. I contributed, but not fully. I’d return from work, and Kristen would go upstairs to sleep for a few hours while I’d carry Emily from room to room, gently bouncing her as I walked, trying to keep her from crying. But eventually eleven o’clock would roll around and I’d go to bed, and Kristen would be awake the rest of the night with her. The next morning, I would wake up and leave for work, while Kristen stared down the barrel of another day alone. To my surprise, I grew increasingly disappointed in her: She wanted to have children. Why is she miserable all the time? What’s her problem? I also resented what I had come to recognize as our failing marriage. I’d expected our marriage to be happy, fulfilling, overflowing with constant affection. My wife was supposed to be able to handle things like motherhood with aplomb. Kristen loved me, and she loved Emily, but that wasn’t enough for me. In my version of a happy marriage, my wife would also love the difficulties of being my wife and being a mom. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d have to earn the happiness, the fulfillment, the affection. Nor had it occurred to me that she might have her own perspective on marriage and motherhood.

I Was Chosen. Since The Day I Was Born. Religious Leader Petra Cecilia Maria Hermans Religion of Blue Circle December 6, 1972 - May 2053 Babaji God

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24 Thursday of the Fourth Week of Advent No Place Like Home Like most Americans, I have wandered far from my family of origin. I miss my mother and my brother and my two sisters—and especially my little nieces and nephew!—most at Christmas. And so, a journey is planned. We will pack everyone in the car and drive to my mother’s home in Pennsylvania. For a short time the whole family will be together, and there will be joy. But after that, I know, I will come back to New York, and the sadness will return. I ask Christ to help me bear this. In the crèche we see him born among us, but in the manner of a refugee or exile. Everything around him speaks of being displaced: the smell of the manure, the rough feel of hay on skin, the cold air that comes in through a hole where there is no door. He knows our loneliness. But if we look again, we see he is at his Mother’s breast. Like every child, he could be anywhere, as long as he is with her. She is his all. He is her all. And Joseph is close by. And now the shepherds are crowding in, with their sheep. And now the angels are hovering, suffusing the space with golden light. This is the tender compassion of our God! Is it not amazing that we wanderers have found a home here, among the cows and the pigs, the grubby shepherds and the perfect angels—our very own home in the bosom of the Church?   Reflection based on Luke 1:67-79

H.E. John Paul Airs is the executive board member, and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MAMI AG GROUP. He was born in Chelsea, London, on 14th December, the year 1950.

I was born and raised in a communist country where all religion's were forbitten. when I immigrated to the USA I told my husband now,. I want to get married in church because I don't want my children to grow up with out faith like I did! We went to Albanian church and got married but 1st we had to be baptized so on December 8, 1991 I converted to Christianity and got married, that very the same nigh I see God & Jesus on my dream! I see my self I was dropped on the side of the cross road of my childhood neighborhood ( Rusi Katolik) Shkoder, Albania! I'm standingh up on the and look around me it was raining and poring and the rain splashing down on ground, and catching on fire. I see people runging and hear them skreaming but around me was s sunshine spotlight. I hear a very firm voice come from up saying "My child tell your people in your languages stop screaming, and start praying" I tried to resist His order, and God said "DO AS YOU BEEN TOLD MY CHILD" with an very firm voice, and orderly voice. I can hear my self telling people "Moss bertit por lutu, mos bertit por lutu" (Don't scream, and start praying, don't scream start praying). I can hear people praying. The rain stopped and a bright sun come out. I hear God telling me "Well done my child" as I'm leaving going west Jesus showed up on the sky with his arms wide open. He have an light olive skin, light brawn shine waive hair , coming down to his both side of his chest. he have crystal watery blue eyes color, and pinkish lips, he smile at me and I see his pearly bright teeth. I wake up went to balcony to see if that was real or dream because it felt so real! since then I never felt the same, I felt a big burden was lifted out of my chest!

Not again,” Daphne muttered angrily when she came in for dinner one night. “How can Muggles listen to such dribble?” “It’s ‘Joy to the World,’” Justin responded importantly. “How can that possibly be dribble?” She scoffed at him. “Evidence shows that your Harry Potter figure—“ Harry gagged at her phrasing and nearly choked on the pumpkin juice he was drinking. “As I was saying,” Daphne began again, “your Harry Potter figure was most likely born in March. Your scholars say so.” Justin rolled his eyes. “The only reason that your Christmas was placed at the end of December was because of pre-existing pagan holidays celebrating the darkest time of the year, when the pagan god is reborn having died at Samhain. Your god’s death and resurrection had been told hundreds of times before that in all notable pagan religions. And you stole our date and our customs—including evergreen trees and mistletoe.” “I don’t think I like Jesus being called a Harry Potter figure,” Harry murmured to himself, finding the entire conversation suddenly frightening. “I can’t believe you just said that,” Justin said to Daphne, who pointedly ignored him. “Why not?” she questioned Harry. “He somehow survived death to rise again when he shouldn’t have and was born to save the world. He clearly is a prefiguration of the entire prophecy situation we currently have. Who knows? In two thousand years there might be a religion surrounding you.” Harry paled just at that horrifying thought, and was glad that Octavian celebrated Yule. After this Christmas, he would try never to think about those parallels ever again. “What about angels visiting the shepherds?” Justin asked Daphne defensively. “Or the three kings? I bet you don’t have those!” “You really think you came up with the kings?” Daphne laughed. “Don’t get me started on the three magical kings. They’re not even human!

The first wind of the New York winter was sharp and heartless. Whenever it blew, it always made my father a little nostalgic for Russia. He'd break out the samovar and boil black tea and recall some December when there was a lull in conscription and the well wasn't frozen and the harvest hadn't failed. It wouldn't be such a bad place to be born, he'd say, if you never had to live there.

And on December 31, 1999, when they told us that the day of the great change I had been dreaming of for so long would not change anything, not even the disgusting century in which we had been born, I saw the bluebird of my last hope fly out the window of the little apartment in Lawton—an insignificant bird, but one I had raised with care and that the winds of high decisions were taking from my hands. Because the authorities had not even allowed me that innocuous dream.

Giannis Antetokounmpo was born in Athens, Greece on December 6, 1994, to Charles and Veronica Antetokounmpo, who migrated from Nigeria all the way to Greece. Charles was a former soccer player while Veronica was a high-jumper. However, both Charles and Veronica were illegal immigrants to Greece. As such, Giannis and two of his other brothers, who were also born in Greece, had no citizenship and were neither Nigerian nor Greek.

Cuba’s First President “Tomás Estrada Palma was a Cuban-born American citizen, who was politically moderate and had worked with José Martí in New York. He became the leader of the Cuban Revolutionary Party after Marti’s untimely death. On December 31, 1901, Tomás Estrada Palma was duly elected to become the first President of Cuba. Estrada Palma and the Cuban Congress assumed governance on May 20, 1902, which then became the official birthdate of the Cuban Republic.” As found on page 118 of the multi-award-winning book “The Exciting Story of Cuba” by Captain Hank Bracker

But in my next breath was the question, “We know Jesus was born on December 25th but do you know what year it was? Surely if you know the month and the day, someone must know the year, right?” To which the teacher replied, “The year zero.” To which another in the class replied, “There is no year zero in the Julian calendar.” Later, information came out about the Mithrites and dancing around pine trees and such. By that time, I was banished from Sunday School.

Sadiq al-Mahdi, former prime minister of Sudan, would agree. On March 24, 1999, he wrote to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, that “the traditional concept of JIHAD does allow slavery as a by-product.”11 And so slavery persists to this day in some areas of the Islamic world. The BBC reported in December 2008 that “strong evidence has emerged of children and adults being used as slaves in Sudan’s Darfur region”—where a jihad rages today.12 Mauritanian human rights activist Boubakar Messaoud asserted in 2004 that in that country, people are born and bred as slaves: “A Mauritanian slave, whose parents and grandparents before him were slaves, doesn’t need chains. He has been brought up as a domesticated animal.”13 Three years later, nothing had changed. Messaoud explained in March 2007, “It’s like having sheep or goats. If a woman is a slave, her descendants are slaves.”14 Likewise in Niger, which formally abolished slavery only in 2003, slavery is a long-standing practice. Journalist and anti-slavery activist Souleymane Cisse explained that even Western colonial governments did nothing to halt the practice: “The colonial rulers preferred to ignore it because they wanted to co-operate with the aristocracy who kept these slaves.”15 Islamic slavery has not been unknown even in the United States. When the Saudi national Homaidan Al-Turki was imprisoned for holding a woman as a slave in Colorado, he complained that “the state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors. Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors was the focal point of the prosecution.”16 Where did he get the idea that slavery was a “traditional Muslim behavior”? From the Koran. Slavery: it’s in the Koran. And if it’s in the Koran, it is unquestionably right.

Joseph Smith Jr. was born December 23, 1805, in Sharon, Windsor County, Vermont. During his early life, he moved with his family to present-day Manchester, in western New York. It was while he was living there in the spring of 1820, when he was fourteen years of age, that he experienced his first vision, in which he was visited in person by God, the Eternal Father, and His Son Jesus Christ. He was told in this vision that the true Church of Jesus Christ that had been established in New Testament times, and which had administered the fulness of the gospel, was no longer on the earth. Other divine manifestations followed in which he was taught by many angels; it was shown to him that God had a special work for him to do on the earth and that through him the Church of Jesus Christ would be restored to the earth.

The magic of America is that we're a free and open society with a mixed population. Part of our security is our freedom.” Quote by Madeleine Albright, Former Secretary of State. Madeleine Albright was born Marie Jana Korbelová on May 15, 1937 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton on December 5, 1996 and was confirmed unanimously by the Senate to become the first woman to hold a Cabinet post as Secretary of State. She currently serves as the Chairperson of the Albright Stonebridge Group and is a Professor of International Relations at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. In May 2012, Secretary Albright was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Aside from English she speaks French, Russian, and Czech; she also understands Polish and Serbo-Croatian.

Susan Margaret Collins was born on December 7, 1952 in Caribou, Maine and is presently the senior United States Senator from Maine. Senator Collins has served in the Senate since 1997 and chaired the Senate Committee on Homeland Security from 2003 to 2007. She now is the Chairwoman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging. Collins is a graduate of St. Lawrence University, a liberal arts college, in Canton, New York. Considered a moderate Republican, she became the only Republican in the U.S. Senate currently representing a state in New England. Her vote was one of three republican votes in the Senate that helped to defeat a bill designed to destroy the Affordable Health Care Program presently in effect. John McCain's heroic stand only mattered because Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski bravely stood by him! It was their courage that saved health care for approximately 22 million people.

Sir Winston Churchill was born into the respected family of the Dukes of Marlborough. His mother Jeanette, was an attractive American-born British socialite and a member of the well known Spencer family. Winston had a military background, having graduated from Sandhurst, the British Royal Military Academy. Upon graduating he served in the Army between 1805 and 1900 and again between 1915 and 1916. As a British military officer, he saw action in India, the Anglo–Sudan War, and the Second South African Boer War. Leaving the army as a major in 1899, he became a war correspondent covering the Boer War in the Natal Colony, during which time he wrote books about his experiences. Churchill was captured and treated as a prisoner of war. Churchill had only been a prisoner for four weeks before he escaped, prying open some of the flooring he crawled out under the building and ran through some of the neighborhoods back alleys and streets. On the evening of December 12, 1899, he jumped over a wall to a neighboring property, made his way to railroad tracks and caught a freight train heading north to Lourenco Marques, the capital of Portuguese Mozambique, which is located on the Indian Ocean and freedom. For the following years, he held many political and cabinet positions including the First Lord of the Admiralty. During the First World War Churchill resumed his active army service, for a short period of time, as the commander of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. After the war he returned to his political career as a Conservative Member of Parliament, serving as the Chancellor of the Exchequer where in 1925, he returned the pound sterling to the gold standard. This move was considered a factor to the deflationary pressure on the British Pound Sterling, during the depression. During the 1930’s Churchill was one of the first to warn about the increasing, ruthless strength of Nazi Germany and campaigned for a speedy military rearmament. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty for a second time, and in May of 1940, Churchill became the Prime Minister after Neville Chamberlain’s resignation. An inspirational leader during the difficult days of 1940–1941, he led Britain until victory had been secured. In 1955 Churchill suffered a serious of strokes. Stepping down as Prime Minister he however remained a Member of Parliament until 1964. In 1965, upon his death at ninety years of age, Queen Elizabeth II granted him a state funeral, which was one of the largest gatherings of representatives and statesmen in history.

Born John Paul in Arbigland, Scotland on July 6, 1747, he started his seagoing career as an apprentice aboard the sail ship Friendship, commanded by Captain Benson. Paul sailed aboard British merchant ships as well as slave ships and there was even talk that he was even engaged in piracy. Up until now Paul sailed as a watch standing mate, but became the master of the Brig John after the Captain and Chief Mate died of yellow fever. On his second voyage as captain he had one of his seamen flogged so viciously that the man died. This led to his arrest; however he was later released on bail. John Paul skipped bail and left Scotland sailing as Captain on an English ship that had 22 guns, but again ran into trouble when he killed another seaman in a dispute over wages. With this he fled to Fredericksburg, Virginia leaving everything behind. To avoid capture he changed his name by tacking the name Jones onto his given name and joined the American Continental Navy. In December of 1775, now known as John Paul Jones and with the help of some political friends, Jones was commissioned a Lieutenant aboard the 24-gun frigate Alfred. Less than a year later he became the Captain of the Alfred.

For the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, eight days before the kalends of January [December 25th], the 4th day of the week [Wednesday], while Augustus was in his forty-second year, [2 or 3BC] but from Adam five thousand and five hundred years. He suffered in the thirty third year, 8 days before the kalends of April [March 25th], the Day of Preparation, the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar [29 or 30 AD], while Rufus and Roubellion and Gaius Caesar, for the 4th time, and Gaius Cestius Saturninus were Consuls.” (tr. Tom Schmidt). Ἡ γὰρ πρώτη παρουσία τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν ἡ ἔνσαρκος, ἐν ᾗ γεγέννηται ἐν Βηθλεέμ, ἐγένετο πρὸ ὀκτὼ καλανδῶν ἰανουαρίων, ἡμέρᾳ τετράδι, βασιλεύοντος Αὐγούστου τεσσαρακοστὸν καὶ δεύτερον ἔτος, ἀπὸ δὲ Ἀδὰμ πεντακισχιλιοστῷ καὶ πεντακοσιοστῷ ἔτει ἔπαθεν δὲ τριακοστῷ τρίτῳ ἔτει πρὸ ὀκτὼ καλανδῶν ἀπριλίων, ἡμέρᾳ παρασκευῇ, ὀκτωκαιδεκάτῳ ἔτει Τιβερίου Καίσαρος, ὑπατεύοντος ούφου καὶ Ῥουβελλίωνος. Commentary on Daniel of Hippolytus - n 4.23.3

marlow martin | January 1, 2016 Noted Ring Names: Dean Ambrose, Jon Moxley From: Cincinnati, Ohio Date of Birth: December 7, 1985 WWE Debut: Survivor Series 2012 WWE Titles Held: United States Championship, Intercontinental Championship Born: December 7, 1985 (age 30), Cincinnati, OH Height: 6′ 4″ Weight: 225 lbs Nationality: American Trained by: Les Thatcher Movies and TV shows: WWE Raw, 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown Dean Ambrose started his career back in 2004 under the name of Jon Moxley. Earning high praise from independent companies around the world, he became a household name for the hardcore, holding championship gold in companies such as Combat Zone Wrestling. With his name capturing the attention of wrestling fans across the globe, Jon soon earned a developmental contract with the WWE. He then took on the name of Dean Ambrose and began the process of cementing his name in stone. Feuding with William Regal and Seth Rollins most notably on NXT, Ambrose went on to make his much anticipated main roster debut at Survivor Series 2012, coming in alongside Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns to make a massive impact in the main event, aiding CM Punk in retaining his WWE Championship. The Shield have torn an unstoppable path through the WWE and at Extreme Rules 2013, Dean laid claim to his first taste of WWE gold, capturing the

Tomás Estrada Palma was a Cuban-born American citizen, who was a moderate and had worked with José Martí in New York. He became the leader of the Cuban Revolutionary Party after Marti’s death. On December 31, 1901, Tomás Estrada Palma was duly elected to become the first President of Cuba. Estrada Palma and the Cuban Congress assumed governance on May 20, 1902, which then became the official birthdate of the Cuban Republic. In 1906, Estrada Palma appealed to the United States to intervene in the revolt that threatened his second term. As Secretary of War during the Roosevelt administration, William Howard Taft was sent to Cuba, after having been the first civilian Governor-General of the Philippines. For the short period of time from September 29, 1906, until October 13, 1906, Taft was the Provisional Governor of Cuba. During this time, 5,600 U.S. Army troops were sent to Cuba to reassert American authority, giving Taft the muscle to set up another provisional government. Later, on March 4, 1909, Taft was elected the 27th President of the United States.

As it turned out, Moss and the Patriots were hotter than the game-time temperature of 84 degrees. They ran the Jets off the field in a 38–14 rout highlighted by Moss’s 51-yard touchdown against triple coverage and 183 receiving yards on nine catches. “He was born to play football,” Brady said of his newest and most lethal weapon. The quarterback had it all now. He was getting serious with his relatively new girlfriend, Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen (his ex-girlfriend, actress Bridget Moynahan, had just given birth to their son, Jack), and now he was being paired on the field with a perfect partner of a different kind. Brady wasn’t seeing the Oakland Randy Moss. He was seeing the Minnesota Moss, the vintage Moss, the 6´4˝ receiver who ran past defenders and jumped over them with ease. Brady had all day to throw to Moss and Welker, who caught the first of the quarterback’s three touchdown passes. He wasn’t sacked while posting a quarterback rating of 146.6, his best in nearly five years. Man, this was a great day for the winning coach all around. On the other sideline, Eric Mangini had made a big mistake by sticking with his quarterback, Chad Pennington, a former teammate of Moss’s at Marshall, when the outcome was no longer in doubt, subjecting his starter to some unnecessary hits as he played on an injured ankle. Pennington was annoyed enough to pull himself from the game with 6:51 left and New England leading by 17. “That was the first time I’ve ever done that,” Pennington said. Mangini played the fool on this Sunday, and Belichick surely got the biggest kick out of that. But the losing coach actually won a game within the game in the first half that the overwhelming majority of people inside Giants Stadium knew absolutely nothing about. It had started in the days before this opener, when Mangini informed his former boss that the Jets would not tolerate in their own stadium an illegal yet common Patriots practice: the videotaping of opposing coaches’ signals from the sideline. The message to Belichick was simple: Don’t do it in our house. It was something of an open secret that New England had been illegally taping opposing coaches during games for some time, and yet the first public mention of improper spying involving Belichick’s Patriots actually assigned them the collective role of victim. Following a 21–0 Miami victory in December 2006, a couple of Dolphins told the Palm Beach Post that the team had “bought” past game tapes that included audio of Brady making calls at the line, and that the information taken from those tapes had helped them shut out Brady and sack him four times. “I’ve never seen him so flustered,” said Miami linebacker Zach Thomas.

Some of the most amazing people I know are born in December

I’d like anyone who was born on March 22nd to stand up.” Two students stand up. They link eyes from across the room, and smile. The room laughs. “Now, anyone born on June 14th.” Another two stand up. The room laughs again. “Now, anyone born on August 2nd.” Two more: the class is laughing at each pair, and re-examining their original takes on how low the probability was likely to be. They are learning through experience about human fallibility with estimating probabilities, and at the same time learning something about their classmates. “How about December 21st?” This time, three students stand up. This gets a big laugh for two reasons: firstly, it is unexpected, and secondly, it helps to ram home the idea that in a class that size (there are about 3,000 pairs in a class of 80), there are likely to be “coincidences” everywhere.

In the mid-1970s, their leader, Claude Vorilhon (born December 30, 1946) began lecturing in the United States and abroad about his remarkable contact with extraterrestrials.

Buddha, who lived over 500 years before Jesus, was born of the Virgin Maya, which is the same as Mary. Maya conceived by the Holy Ghost, and thus Buddha was of the nature of God and man combined. Buddha was born on December 25, his birth was announced in the heavens by a star, and angels sang. He stood upon his feet and spoke at the moment of his birth; at five months of age he sat unsupported in the air; and at the moment of his conversion he was attacked by a legion of demons. He was visited by wise men, he was baptized, transfigured, performed miracles, rose from the dead, and on his ascension through the air to heaven, he left his footprint on a mountain in Ceylon.

There is not a word in the Scriptures about the precise day of His birth, or the time of the year when He was born. What is recorded there, implies that at what time soever His birth took place, it could not have been on the 25th of December. At the time that the angel announced His birth to the shepherds of Bethlehem, they were feeding their flocks by night in the open fields. Now, no doubt, the climate of Palestine is not so severe as the climate of this country; but even there, though the heat of the day be considerable, the cold of the night, from December to February, is very piercing, and it was not the custom for the shepherds of Judea to watch their flocks in the open fields later than about the end of October. It is in the last degree incredible, then, that the birth of Christ could have taken place at the end of December.

That festival, called Lady-day, is celebrated at Rome on the 25th of March, in alleged commemoration of the miraculous conception of our Lord in the womb of the Virgin, on the day when the angel was sent to announce to her the distinguished honour that was to be bestowed upon her as the mother of the Messiah. But who could tell when this annunciation was made? The Scripture gives no clue at all in regard to the time. But it mattered not. But our Lord was either conceived or born, that very day now set down in the Popish calendar for the "Annunciation of the Virgin" was observed in Pagan Rome in honour of Cybele, the Mother of the Babylonian Messiah. Now, it is manifest that Lady-day and Christmas-day stand in intimate relation to one another. Between the 25th of March and the 25th of December there are exactly nine months.

On Christmas Day, December 25, 1991, Gorbachev read his resignation speech on national television. The red banner of the Soviet Union was run down the flagpole of the Kremlin’s senate building, to be replaced with the Russian tricolor—red, blue, and white. Kyiv’s colors were blue and yellow. There was no longer a symbolic link between Moscow and Kyiv. After four unsuccessful attempts, undertaken by different political forces under various circumstances, Ukraine was now not only united but also independent and free to go its own way. What had seemed impossible only a few months earlier had become a reality: the empire was gone, and a new country had been born. The old communist elites and the leaders of the young and ambitious national democrats had joined forces to make history, with Ukraine as the gravedigger of the last European empire. They now had to find a way to create the future.

JD was born in Poland in 1894. When he was eighteen years old, he immigrated to the United States, where he worked in a ball-bearing factory. In August 1940, a severe form of lymphoma invaded the entire right side of his neck. He could barely open his mouth, turn his head, swallow, or sleep. In February 1941, he was referred to the Yale Medical Center for radiation therapy. After two weeks of daily radiation, he improved. But the improvement was short-lived. By August 1942, he had trouble breathing, couldn’t eat, and had lost a substantial amount of weight. On August 27 at 10 a.m., JD became the first person in history to receive a medicine to treat cancer. Every day, for ten consecutive days, he received an injection of nitrogen mustard. After the fifth dose, his tumor regressed; finally, he was able to move his head and eat. One month later, however, his tumor came back, necessitating another three-day course of nitrogen mustard; again, the response was short-lived. So, he received a six-day course, without effect. On December 1, 1942, ninety-six days after he had received his first dose of nitrogen mustard, JD died. Because this was a covert operation run by the OSRD, the phrase “nitrogen mustard” never appeared in his medical chart. Instead, doctors referred to it as “substance X.” The first paper describing nitrogen mustard’s effects on cancer wasn’t published until 1946, four years after JD was treated. On October 6, 1946, the New York Times, under the headline “War Gases Tried in Cancer Therapy,” wrote, “The possibility that deadly blister gases prepared for wartime use may aid victims of cancer will be investigated by the Army Chemical Corps’ Medical Division.” Nitrogen mustard had provided the first ray of hope in the fight against cancer. The modern age of chemotherapy had begun.

Cambridge... the place bowled me over. Leeds, where I had been born and brought up... but though I was not blind to its architectural splendours... I was famished for antiquity. I had never been in a place of such continuous and unfolding beauty as Cambridge and, December 1951 being exceptionally cold, the Cam was frozen and a thick hoarfrost covered every court and quadrangle giving the whole city an unreal and celestial beauty. And it was empty, as provincial places in those days were.

On December 24, 2011—Christmas Eve—Muslims in Christian-majority Uganda threw acid on a church pastor outside his church, severely disfiguring him, blinding one eye and damaging the other. Pastor of the ten-thousand-strong Gospel Life International Pentecostal church, Umar Mulinde, formerly a Muslim, explained his ordeal: “I was attacked by a man who claimed to be a Christian. He called out to me shouting ‘pastor, pastor,’ and as I turned to see who he was, he poured acid which burnt part of my face. As I turned away from the attacker, another man poured the liquid on my back and ran away shouting ‘Allah Akbar.’” Mulinde originally “came from a strict Muslim family and his father was an imam.” Umar was the fifty-second child to be born to the polygamist Muslim leader. The son went on to become a sheikh himself before converting to Christianity in 1993,

Pope Francis is a San Lorenzo fan, of course. He was born in December 1936 in Flores, the barrio immediately to the west of Almagro, where Father Lorenzo had founded the club three decades earlier. His father played for San Lorenzo’s basketball team, and as a child he would go with his mother to watch matches. There’s always a suspicion with public figures that their professed support for soccer clubs is skin deep, but not with Francis. If he sees somebody wearing a San Lorenzo shirt or carrying San Lorenzo colors in the crowds in Saint Peter’s Square, he makes a point of acknowledging them. If San Lorenzo have won their previous game, he will usually signal the score with his fingers. At his public audiences, there are always groups draped in Argentinian flags, looking less like pilgrims than a soccer crowd. Those who work regularly with Francis roll their eyes when asked about his love of the game; apparently, he talks incessantly about soccer.

If seven plus seven equals seven and I’m on the bus with a blonde seven does that mean that our first offspring is going to be born in a car at seven? Poem - Numbers Don't Mean Nothing. December 8, 2022.

headed for Victoria Street and Petty France to pick up my new passport. Filling in the form the day before – born in London, 11 February 1915; height 5' 9¾"; eyes, brown; hair, brown; distinguishing marks, none – I had left the top space empty, not knowing what to write. Profession? ‘Well, what shall we say?’ the Passport Official had asked, pointing to the void. My mind remained empty. A few years earlier, an American hobo song called Hallelujah I’m a bum! had been on many lips; during the last days it had been haunting me like a private leitmotif and without realizing I must have been humming the tune as I pondered, for the Official laughed. ‘You can’t very well put that,’ he said. After a moment he added: ‘I should just write “student”’; so I did. With the stiff new document in my pocket, stamped ‘8 December 1933’, I struck north over the Green Park under a dark massing of cloud.

She was born at Linlithgow Palace, some seventeen miles west of Edinburgh, on Friday, December 8, 1542.

When Fibber would say, “I was born in a little white house on top of Kickapoo Hill back in Peoria of poor but honest parents,” he could have been speaking about James Jordan who was born near Peoria on November 16, 1896. (On the December 12, 1939 episode of Fibber McGee and Molly Teeny correctly guesses Fibber’s birthday of November 16th.) Marian Driscoll was born not far away from Jim’s birthplace on April 15, 1898. The couple dated in their teens and were married on August 31, 1918. After Jim returned from brief service with the army at the end of World War I (which, Fibber would always insist, was the big war), the pair began touring as a musical act with Marian as pianist and Jim assisting on the singing.

Later in the day 'Gulen' gave in; it seemed to be a case of complete exhaustion, he could hardly stand on his legs, reeled over, and when we placed him on one of the loads he lay quite still without moving. We had already decided to kill him that day. Poor beast; faithfully he worked for us, good-tempered and willing to the end, and then, for thanks, when he could do no more, to be killed for provender! He was born on the Fram on December 13, 1893, and, true child of the polar night, never saw aught but ice and snow.

True theologians who encounter christ knows that christ wasn't born in December

Some of the most amazing people I know are born in December.

I WAS BORN on the eighteenth of December, 1935, in the town Bourg-en-Bresse, about thirty miles northeast of Lyon, the second of three sons of Jeanne and Jean-Victor Pépin. Weighing only two and one half pounds, I nearly died at birth. The midwife lined a shoebox with dishtowels and put me inside, placing the makeshift incubator between two bricks that had been warmed on the stove.

On a frosty December morning, with her best handbag, hat, and a small suitcase she handed over the keys to their flat to her maid and asked her to keep their most precious belongings safe there... Then she joined the disorderly progression of Jews heading for the Veletržní palác. Instead of taking something necessary and useful like tinned fish or packet soup, Anka carried a large hat box tied with string. In it were three dozen of her maid's delicious sugar-coated donuts, [her husband's] favorite treat... The young bride kept brushing her hair and reapplying her makeup. [The people around her] were even more intrigued when she knelt on the floor in her fine stockings to use her eyelash curlers. "I just wanted to look my best for the man I loved." A passage about Anka Bergman, a Czech Holocaust survivor, being transferred to the Theresienstadt ghetto

Brilliant. And how do you know he’s a saint?” “He’s got a halo?” “Excellent, and does that golden halo remind you of anything?” Hitzrot broke into a smile. “Yeah! Those Egyptian things we studied last term. Those . . . um . . . sun disks!” “Thank you, Hitzrot. Go back to sleep.” Langdon turned back to the class. “Halos, like much of Christian symbology, were borrowed from the ancient Egyptian religion of sun worship. Christianity is filled with examples of sun worship.” “Excuse me?” the girl in front said. “I go to church all the time, and I don’t see much sun worshiping going on!” “Really? What do you celebrate on December twenty-fifth?” “Christmas. The birth of Jesus Christ.” “And yet according to the Bible, Christ was born in March, so what are we doing celebrating in late December?” Silence. Langdon smiled. “December twenty-fifth, my friends, is the ancient pagan holiday of sol invictus—Unconquered Sun—coinciding with the winter solstice. It’s that wonderful time of year when the sun returns, and the days start getting longer.” Langdon took another bite of apple. “Conquering religions,” he continued, “often adopt existing holidays to make conversion less shocking. It’s called transmutation. It helps people acclimatize to the new faith. Worshipers keep the same holy dates, pray in the same sacred locations, use a similar symbology . . . and they simply substitute a different god.” Now the girl in front looked furious. “You’re implying Christianity is just some kind of . . . repackaged sun worship!” “Not at all. Christianity did not borrow only from sun worship. The ritual of Christian canonization is taken from the ancient ‘god-making’ rite of Euhemerus. The practice of ‘god-eating’—that is, Holy Communion—was borrowed from the Aztecs. Even the concept of Christ dying for our sins is arguably not exclusively Christian; the self-sacrifice of a young man to absolve the sins of his people appears in the earliest tradition of the Quetzalcoatl.” The girl glared. “So, is anything in Christianity original?” “Very little in any organized faith is truly original. Religions are not born from scratch. They grow from one another. Modern religion is a collage . . . an assimilated historical record of man’s quest to understand the divine.

January brings the snow, Makes our feet and fingers glow. February brings the rain, Thaws the frozen lake again. March brings breezes, loud and shrill, To stir the dancing daffodil. April brings out the primrose sweet, Scatters daisies at our feet. May brings flock of pretty lambs, Skipping by their fleecy dams, June brings tulips, lilies, roses, Fills the children's hands with posies. Hot July brings cooling showers, Apricots, and gillyflowers. August brings the sheaves of corn, Then the harvest home is borne. Warm September brings the fruit; Sportsmen then begin to shoot. Fresh October brings the pheasant; Then to gather nuts is pleasant. Dull November brings the blast; Then the leaves are whirling fast. Chill December brings the sleet, Blazing fire, and Christmas treat.

December 6 “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.” Isaiah 43:2 BRIDGE there is none: we must go through the waters, and feel the rush of the rivers. The presence of God in the flood is better than a ferry-boat. Tried we must be, but triumphant we shall be; for Jehovah himself, who is mightier than many waters, shall be with us. Whenever else he may be away from his people, the Lord will surely be with them in difficulties and dangers. The sorrows of life may rise to an extraordinary height, but the Lord is equal to every occasion. The enemies of God can put in our way dangers of their own making, namely, persecutions and cruel mockings, which are like a burning fiery furnace. What then? We shall walk through the fires. God being with us, we shall not be burned; nay, not even the smell of fire shall remain upon us. Oh, the wonderful security of the Heaven-born and Heaven-bound pilgrim! Floods cannot drown him, nor fires burn him. Thy presence, O Lord, is the protection of thy saints from the varied perils of the road. Behold, in faith I commit myself unto thee, and my spirit enters into rest.

I have said earlier that the typical attention span of a child is his age in minutes. If a parent or teacher expects that a ten-year-old should be able to focus uninterrupted for twenty or thirty minutes, those are unrealistic expectations. When the adult gets to the part of the questionnaire that says, “Often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities,” she has to check off one of the following modifiers: always, often, sometimes, rarely, or never. Because of her expectation that a ten-year-old boy should be able to focus for twenty or thirty minutes, she is likely to check off always or often. Is this realistic? Will these kinds of answers lead to a diagnosis of ADD in a boy whose behaviour is perfectly normal? Two other statements on the questionnaire are, “Often leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining seated is expected,” and “Often has difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities quietly.” Let’s imagine a December-born boy in grade one sitting with a January-born girl on each side of him. How will he appear? Does he have ADD? I have heard it suggested, and I completely agree, that no child should be assessed for ADD before the age of seven, and even that is pretty young. The “clay” is still very soft. In our modern schools, where we are in the business of making kids “normal” and measuring normalcy, our yardsticks may be flawed. Our standards for normal have two aspects: the tools we use for measuring, and the attitudes and expectations we bring to interpreting the results. We should have great humility when it comes to diagnosing kids. Are our tools accurate and our expectations realistic?

Malcolm Gladwell book, Outliers. In it, he notes a well-documented Canadian study that shows kids born in January tend to make better grades and score more goals in sports than those born later in the year. The reason, he deduces, is that grade-school kids who were born just after the cut-off date for the school year (January) are always a year older than the kids who were born just before it (December), thus having a full year of mental and physical advantages.   The January kids aren’t naturally brighter and more physically capable than kids born in November and December. They’re just a year older. In elementary school, one year is a lot.   The school system doesn’t see that, so the January kids get labeled as gifted, while the December kids are called slow. Once established, those categories are hard to break out of. The gifted kids get enrolled in advanced classes, increasing the pace of their education and making the gap between them and the December kids bigger.   The physically larger January kids are recruited by better PeeWee teams, then better High Schools and colleges. That’s why, as shown in Gladwell’s book, professional sports leagues – and hockey leagues in particular – have an inordinately high percentage of athletes that were born in the first three months of the year and a much lower percentage of December birthdays.

a timid smile as she held up an astronomy award for her asteroid discoveries. Exactly how long had this woman worked at NASA? I wondered. Did women even work at NASA as scientists during the 1950s? Unfortunately it looked like I might never find out. Helin had passed away a year before, in 2009. When my daughter was born, in the last hours of December 14, 2010, we

Mario García Menocal was born on December 17, 1866, in the town of Jagüey, located southeast of Havana in the Matanzas Province of Cuba. As a young man, he was a partisan in Cuba's fight for independence and he later became a prominent conservative politician. Menocal was elected to the presidency of Cuba in 1912 and assumed the office in 1913. During his administration, he strongly supported business and corporations, as he had promised in his platform. While in office, Cuba also established its own currency, but the United States dollar continued to be the only paper money in circulation on the island until 1934. During his second term as president of Cuba, the United States entered into World War I. During the war, due in part to his close ties to the United States and the escalating prices of sugar, Cuba experienced an economic resurgence. However, once the war ended, the sugar market plunged and the country slid into a severe recession. While in office, García Menoca, a graduate of Cornell University, hosted the 1920 Delta Kappa Epsilon National Convention in Havana. When his presidency ended on May 20, 1921, Menocal unsuccessfully attempted to remain in politics. He died in Santiago de Cuba on September 7, 1941.

The world is like a man; he is born, he grows up, he ages and he dies … In old age a man is filled with complaints and in old age the world, too, is filled with troubles … Christ says to you, ‘The world is passing away, the world is old, the world is going under, the world is already gasping with the breathing of old age, but be not afraid, your youth shall be renewed like the eagle’s.’” SAINT AUGUSTINE Sermon 81, paragraph 8, December 419

You can tell a lot about someone's personality if you know his star sign. Jesus was born on December 25th, fed five thousand, and walked on water --typical Capricorn.

THE LIFE OF Björnstjerne Björnson was so full and active, and involves to such a degree the intellectual and political history of his country in the second half of the nineteenth century, that it is impossible in a short sketch to do more than indicate its main outlines. He was born, the son of a pastor, in Kvikne, Osterdal, Norway, on December 8, 1832, but his youth was spent mainly in the picturesque district of Romsdal. He was educated in Molde and Christiania, and early began a career as a journalist and dramatic critic. His first book of importance was “Synnöve Solbakken” (1857), and it was followed by “Arne,” “A Happy Boy” (1860), and “The Fisher Maiden.” These works deal with the Norwegian peasant, portrayed with understanding and sympathy, and, though true to nature, have an idyllic quality which separates them from much of the fiction of rural life that was being written elsewhere in Europe at that time.

The CIA was born out of the disaster at Pearl Harbor. Despite warning signals, Japan achieved complete and overwhelming surprise in the December 7, 1941, attack that took the lives of more than twenty-four hundred Americans, sunk or damaged twenty-one ships in the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and thrust the United States into war.

Being born into this world gives us a reason for living.