Milestones: December 13, 2023

December 13, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

Share this:

‘THE HANGING CHAD’ — ONE OF THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL SUPREME COURT DECISIONS IN U.S. HISTORY on Dec. 13, 2000, handed a victory to the 2000 Republican candidate for President in one of the closest races for that office. Though the incumbent vice president and Democrat nominee, Al Gore, had won the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes, Florida’s vote count was in dispute over “hanging chads,” which became a household word. These were hanging residues of Florida’s punch-card ballots, which caused a 36-day dispute, lawsuits and multiple recounts. With Florida’s electoral vote count still in dispute, the Supreme Court ruled that George W. Bush had won Florida’s electoral vote count and, thus, the Presidency. The final electoral vote count was 271-266.

As the electoral count see-sawed that month, Gore ceded and retracted his concession to Bush more than once. On Dec. 13, Gore said while he was deeply disappointed and sharply disagreed with the Supreme Court verdict that ended his campaign, “Partisan rancor must now be put aside.”

✰✰✰

387TH BIRTHDAY — THE NATIONAL GUARD WAS ESTABLISHED ON DEC. 13, 1636, more than a century and a half before the nation’s founding. The oldest military organization in the U.S., the National Guard, was founded as a citizen force on a local level, organized to protect families and towns from hostile attacks. Today, each state maintains a National Guard unit and the 440,000 soldiers hold civilian jobs or attend college while maintaining their military training part-time. National Guard soldiers are activated during natural disasters and periods of civil unrest but have also been deployed to serve alongside their active-duty Army counterparts, with more than one million deployments since 9/11.

The National Guard and the Fort Hamilton Army base here in Brooklyn have a bond dating back to 1839, when the federal government authorized the 27th Regiment permission to hold drills at the fort, making it the U.S.’ first National Guard training camp. The mission of Fort Hamilton to this day includes being a source of Military Installation support for the United States Army Reserve and the Army National Guard.

✰✰✰

IT TOOK 38 YEARS — NORTH AND SOUTH KOREA OFFICIALLY ENDED THEIR WAR ON DEC. 13, 1991, SOME 38 YEARS AFTER HOSTILITIES CEASED IN 1953. The two Koreas signed a treaty of reconciliation and nonaggression, but it was not defined as a peace treaty. The United Nations and North Korea had signed an armistice on July 27, 1953, that had ended the fighting, but that would remain effective only until a formal peace treaty could be ratified.

Today, the Korean peninsula is still divided between the two separate nations. North Korea is defined as a communist state under a totalitarian dictatorship with limited civil rights for the people. South Korea is a republic with a prime minister as head and with legislative and judicial branches. The two nations maintain political and trade ties, although military tensions continue.

✰✰✰

SADDAM HUSSEIN CAPTURED — FORMER IRAQI DICTATOR SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS CAPTURED 20 YEARS AGO, ON DEC. 13, 2003, after being in hiding for the nine months after the U.S.-led Mar. 20, invasion into Iraq. During his time in power, Saddam Hussein had empowered his secret police to terrorize the public and ignore citizens’ human rights. The U.S. began an intensive hunt for Hussein, and, on July 22, his sons Uday and Qusay were killed in a raid that exposed the opulence of the ruling family, contrasted with the poverty of the Iraqi population.

Five months later, on Dec. 13, 2003, U.S. soldiers found Saddam Hussein hiding in a six-to-eight-foot deep hole nine miles outside his hometown of Tikrit. He stood trial for crimes against humanity and was executed by hanging on Dec. 30, 2006.

✰✰✰

SWEDES CELEBRATE AN ITALIAN SAINT — SWEDEN AND FAMILIES OF SWEDISH HERITAGE CELEBRATE SANTA LUCIA DAY each year on Dec. 13. This Scandinavian festival of light is a feast day on which a 4th-century Italian saint was martyred for her religious beliefs. Held close to the winter solstice at a time when daylight is brief, St. Lucia Day carries many traditions, with the youngest girl in a family or a community attired in a long flowing gown and a crown of lights. She has the honor of serving coffee and lussekatter (saffron buns) early in the morning.

Swedes are not the only people who celebrate St. Lucia Day, which is popular among other Scandinavian nations and in parts of the United States as well.

✰✰✰

YOUNGEST ‘PERSON OF THE YEAR’ — ONE SWEDISH GIRL OF THE CURRENT CENTURY MADE HER MARK ON ST. LUCIA DAY, WHEN SHE WAS NAMED Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. Time-honored 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, who became the first Person of the Year to be born in the 21st century and the youngest ever to receive the honor for her activism to protect the environment, avoiding flying and reducing her carbon footprint. She even persuaded her parents to become vegans. Greta was inspired by teenage gun control activists in the U.S., and she soon became an international face of climate activism. In Aug. 2019, Thunberg sailed a solar-powered racing yacht across the Atlantic Ocean to promote carbon-neutral transit. She testified before the United States Congress and the U.N. Climate Action Summit.

The teen’s words rebuked those in power: “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet, I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”

See previous milestones, here.