Milestones: December 9, 2023

December 9, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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FLASH-FREEZE — THE INVENTOR OF COMMERCIALLY DEEP-FREEZING FOODS WAS BORN IN BROOKLYN. CLARENCE BIRDSEYE, BORN ON DEC. 9, 1886, was a scientist and industrialist who may have learned more about food from the indigenous peoples of the Arctic region than as a biology major at Amherst. Quitting college, he worked as a naturalist for the U.S. government. While in the Arctic, he observed that when the local people caught fish, the climactic synergy of ice, wind and air instantly froze the seafood before it could form ice crystals and affect the molecular structure. Moreover, he experienced no appreciable difference in flavor between frozen and freshly-cooked fish — once cooked. Birdseye then set out to adapt the natural phenomenon into a technique, thus inventing a system of packing packed dressed fish, meat, or vegetables into waxed cardboard cartons, which were flash-frozen under high pressure. Birdseye’s business acumen told him that the frozen foods would be in high demand.

He founded Birdseye Seafoods Inc. in 1924. The company, which will mark its centennial this coming year, has expanded to frozen vegetables and even 90-second rice dishes that one steams in the microwave.

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MATH PROFESSOR AND REAR ADMIRAL — GRACE BREWSTER HOPPER WAS BORN AS GRACE MURRAY ON DEC. 9, 1906. A mathematician, she became one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer and the first to devise the theory of machine-independent programming languages. Hopper created a FLOW-MATIC programming language that others later adapted to develop COBOL, which is still used in the 21st century. Earning her Ph.D. in both mathematics and mathematical physics from Yale, Hopper became a professor in that field at Vassar College. She aspired to join the Navy, but the government declined her on several grounds, including the fact that her work in mathematics at Vassar was vital to the war effort. Tenacious in her goal to join the Navy, she obtained a leave of absence from Vassar to join the U.S. Navy Reserve and volunteered to serve in the WAVES (women’s auxiliary). Hopper became the namesake of the U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Hopper and the Cray XE6 “Hopper” supercomputer at NERSC. In addition to her earned doctorate, she received 40 honorary degrees from universities worldwide during her lifetime. President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 2016.

Hopper’s curiosity and inventiveness led her during her youth to dismantle the family’s alarm clocks to find out, quite literally, what made them tick. Later in life, she was known for keeping a clock that ran counter-clockwise, just to be open to change.

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U.S. TOOK FOUR DECADES TO RATIFY — THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY ON DEC. 9, 1948 unanimously approved the Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The policy is “an instrument of international law that codified for the first time the crime of genocide,” according to the U.N. website. The Genocide Convention was the first human rights treaty that the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted, underscoring the international community’s commitment to ‘never again’ after the atrocities committed during the Second World War. Although enough nations ratified the convention so that it took effect, with President Truman sending it to the Senate for approval in 1949, it took 37 years for the Senate to approve the law, notwithstanding support from six consecutive Presidents, from Kennedy to Reagan.

The United States had feared that international covenants would lead to the loss of losing national sovereignty but instead found its place as a leader in the fight against genocide.

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NEW YORK SENATOR’S BIRTHDAY — THE CURRENT JUNIOR SENATOR FROM NEW YORK, KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, CELEBRATES A BIRTHDAY ON DEC. 9. Born in 1966, she came from a family of political organizers; among them, her grandmother who did door-to-door canvassing for the New York State Legislature, to encourage people to vote. Her father was a public defender. After winning the election to the House of Representatives, Gillibrand took the initiative in posting daily reports of her official meetings, and other information for her constituents, becoming the first member of Congress to do so. Gillibrand won a special election to succeed then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, whom President-elect Barack Obama tapped for Secretary of State, and whom the Senate confirmed the day after Obama’s inauguration.

Working for transparency, Gillibrand authored the STOCK Act to ban members of Congress and their families from insider trading; which Congress passed and President Obama signed into law in 2012. During her first term in the Senate, she led the campaign to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” military policy on gay people as service personnel. She also helped pass the historic 9/11 health bill, which ensured that first responders and 9/11 survivors obtained much-needed medical care.

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C.S. LEWIS IN FILM — THE MOVIE VERSION OF C.S. LEWIS’ CLASSIC BOOK, ‘THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE,’ WAS RELEASED ON DEC. 9, 2005. Starring Liam Neeson (“Schindler’s List” title role), and Skandar Keynes and Georgie Henley as the children Edmund and Lucy, the film unfolded the story of four children who enter the magical world of Narnia through a wardrobe cabinet. The kids discover that a one-harmonic land was placed under a spell and turned into a perpetual winter by the evil White Witch. The children encounter a wise lion named Aslan, who helps them undo the witch’s spell.

The film, which grossed more than $744 million, became the first installment in the Chronicles of Narnia movie adaptations.

See previous milestones, here.