Milestones: December 26, 2023

December 26, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

Share this:

VICTORY AT TRENTON — GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON’S CONTINENTAL ARMY WON ITS FIRST BATTLE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR AT TRENTON, NEW JERSEY, ON DEC. 26, 1776. Using the element of surprise, exploiting the Hessian army’s drunken revelry on Christmas Day, the Continental Army soldiers quickly overpowered the groggy Hessians, who had grown complacent after successive victories by the British army, for whom they were also fighting. But in this case, the victors had to withdraw after surrounding Trenton, due to a shortage of artillery and troops, after the Patriots’ retreat across the Delaware River on Christmas.

Washington’s victory boosted the soldiers’ morale, especially since their enlistments were about to expire in five days.

✰✰✰

RAILROADS NATIONALIZED DURING WARTIME — AMERICA’S CASH-STRAPPED RAILROADS WERE NATIONALIZED ON DEC. 26, 1917, AFTER PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON SIGNED INTO LAW the Federal Possession and Control Act. Eight months earlier, the United States had just entered World War I to support the Allies, and the railroads were struggling financially. Moreover, Wilson had ordered railroad management companies to accept union demands for better pay, yet the number of workers hemorrhaged as people sought jobs in the prospering armaments industry. Nationalizing the railroads organized the system into three divisions (East, West and South), passenger services were streamlined. The system also gained an inventory of more than 100,000 new railroad cars and 1,930 steam engines.

However, the March 1918 Railroad Control Act stated that the railroads would be returned by the government to their owners within 21 months of a peace treaty, with owners being compensated for the use of the property.

✰✰✰

BOXING DAY TRADITION — DEC. 26 IS CELEBRATED AS BOXING DAY IN ENGLAND AND MANY PARTS OF THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH. This holiday is unrelated to the sport of pugilistics, however; and instead got its name from the boxes of basic supplies and gifts that were left at churches for the poor. Boxing Day was also the occasion on which household servants were presented with their Christmas gifts from the families who employed them, and then given the day off. Traditionally, the servants would be on duty for their employers’ Christmas Day feasts.

Boxing Day also falls on the Feast of Stephen (St. Stephen, the first martyr), who is the patron saint of horses. Thus, sporting events with horses, like fox hunts, have become a Boxing Day tradition in some places.

✰✰✰

THANKSGIVING AFTER CHRISTMAS? — PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT’S DEC. 26, 1941 proclamation declaring the fourth Sunday in November as Thanksgiving Day was not exactly popular. It was a revision of an earlier proclamation by 19th century President Abraham Lincoln, who had set the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving; but sometimes the month had five Thursdays. In the previous century, President George Washington had established a Thanksgiving holiday for Nov. 26, which fell on a Thursday the year this proclamation took effect. The holiday’s purpose was to give thanks for the United States Constitution.

The custom of hosting a Thanksgiving feast dates back to 1621 when Plymouth colony’s Governor William Bradford invited local members of the Wampanoag tribe to join the Pilgrims in a festival honoring the season’s bountiful harvest.

✰✰✰

CELEBRATES BLACK CULTURE — KWANZAA, A FESTIVAL OF AFRICAN AMERICAN IDENTITY, CULTURE, AND FAMILY was established on Dec. 26, 1966. Maulana Karenga, the chair of Black Studies at California State University at Long Beach created the holiday as a way to restore joy and pride in the lives of Black Americans after a deadly 1965 riot. Kwanzaa marries aspects of several different harvest celebrations, for example, those of the Ashanti and the Zulu. The name Kwanzaa has its origins in the phrase matunda ya kwanza, which means “first fruits” in Swahili. The weeklong non-religious festival magnifies a different principle each day that builds and reinforces community among African Americans: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, economic cooperation, purpose, creativity and faith.

Millions of Black Americans celebrate Kwanzaa in North American nations of the United States and Canada.

See previous milestones, here.