Milestones: December 1, 2023

December 1, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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SPARKED YEARLONG BOYCOTT — ROSA PARKS, AN AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMAN RIDING THE BUS HOME FROM WORK, WAS JAILED ON DEC. 1, 1955 FOR REFUSING TO FORFEIT HER SEAT to a white man. Her actions constituted a violation of the city’s racial segregation laws, even though some news agencies reported that she was seated in the “colored section,” and that the “whites” section was filled up. Parks’ civil disobedience and jailing led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott that a Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, Jr. organized. During the successful boycott, which lasted a year and 15 days, until Dec. 20, 1956, African Americans — some 40% of the ridership revenue — ignored the city’s buses. Ministers publicized the boycott from their pulpits, and Black cab drivers offered 10-cent fares to Black passengers needing to commute.

On Dec. 21, 1956, the city of Montgomery fully integrated the buses.

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ANTARCTICA ESCAPES MILITARIZATION — THE FIRST ARMS CONTROL AGREEMENT SIGNED IN THE COLD WAR PERIOD WAS COMPLETED on Dec. 1, 1959, when 12 nations, including the United States and the Soviet Union, signed the Antarctica Treaty. Among the signers of the treaty, which bans military activity and weapons testing on that continent, were the world’s greatest superpowers at the time, the United States and the Soviet Union, both of which were keenly interested in the icy continent’s potential. One proposal to make Antarctica a trustee of the United Nations failed because none of the interested nations wanted to forfeit their claims. While some U.S. officials aimed to make Antarctica a military testing site, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, himself a five-star general of the U.S. Army and past supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force during World War II, disagreed and instead had American and Soviet diplomats draft a treaty that would ban any kind of military weapon testing — including nuclear.

The treaty helped remedy a history dating back to the 19th century of clashes among countries such as Australia, Norway, and Chile, whose southern border was only 3.7 thousand miles from the Antarctic.

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MODERATE APPROACH TO EMANCIPATION — PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN ON DEC. 1, 1862 DELIVERED A STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS THAT BECAME one of his most memorable speeches in U.S. history. Ten weeks earlier, Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared free any enslaved person in territories that were still in rebellion (the Confederates) as of Jan. 1, 1863. Lincoln’s decree was met with resistance, including in the North, and the people expressed their anger with votes, turning the House of Representatives and the New York governorship Democrat. Lincoln aimed to present a moderate perspective on his policy and in the State of the Union address called for a gradual and compensated emancipation, which he believed many moderates and conservatives actually desired.

However, Lincoln declared that the former slaves whom the Union armies had already liberated would remain free.

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INDUSTRIAL GAME-CHANGER — THE SINGLE-CHASSIS ASSEMBLY LINE, NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR FACTORY MASS PRODUCTION, WAS FORMALLY UNVEILED on Dec. 1, 1913. Automaker Henry Ford sought to improve upon the availability and price of his cars, particularly his Model T released five years earlier, in 1908. This invention reduced the time needed to construct a car from more than 12 hours to just one hour and 33 minutes and more efficiently streamlined the employees’ work. Ford drew inspiration from continuous-flow production methods used in food factories, particularly flour mills and canneries. Two months later, in February 1914, Ford further improved upon the assembly line by adding a mechanized belt that moved at about six feet per minute. Gradually, the assembly line’s pace increased.

Just over ten years later, on June 4, 1924, Ford Motors produced the 10-millionth Model T.

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THE CHUNNEL — WORKERS DRILLED A HOLE INTO A WALL OF ROCK UNDERNEEATH THE ENGLISH CHANNEL ON DEC. 1, 1990 that connected two ends of the underwater tunnel between Great Britain and France that would become known as the Chunnel. Although the idea had been around since the early 19th century, and was even suggested to Napoleon, it took until the late 20th century for the technology to be available. In 1986, Great Britain and France signed the treaty to authorize the construction of a tunnel running between Folkestone, England, and Calais, France. The completed Chunnel, costing $15 billion, was designed to have three interconnected tubes, including one rail track in each direction and one service tunnel.

The Chunnel was finally opened for passenger service on May 6, 1994. Celebs rating the inaugural voyage were Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and France’s President Francois Mitterrand.

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G-55 — THE POPULAR GAME BINGO MARKS ITS BIRTHDAY MONTH FROM DEC. 1-31. Edwin S. Lowe first manufactured the game in 1929, which became a popular church fundraiser, with the players even walking off with cash prizes if they filled the cards accordingly in several pattern sets.

Bingo is said to have originated in early 16th-century Italy, where it was called “Lo Gioco del Lotto d’Italia.” It was played like a lottery, with players placing bets on numbers as they were called out. Starting in the 18th century, paper cards were used to keep track of the called numbers.

See previous milestones, here.