Milestones: January 2, 2024

January 2, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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THE TORY ACT — THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS SPELLED OUT HOW TO DEAL WITH COLONIES THAT REMAINED LOYAL TO BRITAIN AND KING GEORGE III, WHEN IT PASSED THE TORY ACT RESOLUTION ON JAN. 2, 1776. The Tory Act called on colonial committees to indoctrinate those “honest and well-meaning, but uninformed people” by enlightening them as to the “origin, nature and extent of the present controversy.” The Congress remained “fully persuaded that the more our right to the enjoyment of our ancient liberties and privileges is examined, the more just and necessary our present opposition to ministerial tyranny will appear.”

Congress, in this resolution, merely offered its “opinion” that dedicated Tories “ought to be disarmed, and the more dangerous among them either kept in safe custody or bound with sufficient sureties to their good behavior.”

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FIRST SENATE CENSURE — THE FIRST U.S. SENATOR TO BE CENSURED WAS TIMOTHY PICKERING, A FEDERALIST FROM MASSACHUSETTS, ON JAN. 2, 1811. The Senate approved a censure motion against Pickering, who was accused of violating Congressional law by publicly revealing secret documents that the president communicated by the president to the Senate. At the time he violated the secrets, Thomas Jefferson had been president. When the Senate on Dec. 31, 1810, introduced the censure motion, James Madison was president. Pickering was censured two days later. Pickering had previously served as General George Washington’s adjutant general; during Washington’s presidency, Pickering was postmaster general, then secretary of war (briefly) before being appointed secretary of state in 1795. Following his censure, he resigned from the Senate. He was an outspoken opponent of the War of 1812.

Pickering was one of nine Senators to be censured in U.S. history. The most famous Senator to undergo this discipline was Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) in 1954 during the Red Scare. Two Democrat Senators from South Carolina got into a brawl in the Senate Chamber in February 1902.

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RUINED THE DÉTENTE — THE SOVIET UNION’S DECEMBER 1979 INVASION OF AFGHANISTAN RUINED A PERIOD OF DÉTENTE, OR WARMING RELATIONS, that it had enjoyed with the other world superpower, The United States. President Jimmy Carter on Jan. 2, 1980, asked the Senate to postpone action on the SALT II nuclear weapons treaty with the Soviet Union and recalled the U.S. ambassador to Moscow back stateside. Carter, by these actions, sent a clear message that the friendlier diplomatic and economic relations that were established between the United States and the Soviet Union during President Richard Nixon’s administration were over. Calling the Afghanistan invasion a “serious threat to peace,” Carter was concerned that the Soviet Union would destabilize strategic countries of Iran and Pakistan and cause the Soviets to monopolize the oil industry.

Perhaps most pronounced, Carter asked the Senate to suspend the ratification talks on SALT II, the nuclear arms treaty that he and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev had already signed.

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THE FALL OF GRANADA — THE MOORS LOST THEIR LAST STRONGHOLD IN SPAIN AT THE FALL OF THE KINGDOM OF GRANADA ON JAN. 2, 1492. This was the start of a year that would see the rise and growing power of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. Granada, a prominent Moorish fortress during the 11th-century reign of Sultan Almoravid, was at the spot where the Darro and Genil rivers converged in southern Spain. A Christian Reconquest in 1238 drove the Spanish Muslims (Moors) farther south, and they made Granada their refuge. The city flourished until the early 15th century when Ferdinand and Isabella strengthened both the monarchy and the Christian powers. The kingdom of Granada fell to the Christian forces of King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I, and the Moors lost their last foothold in Spain.

Ferdinand and Isabella in 1502 forced all Spanish Muslims to convert to Christianity. Their goal was to make Spain a completely Catholic nation.

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DRAMATIC DIVA — THE CELEBRATED SOPRANO MARIA CALLAS HAD A MOMENT OF REAL-LIFE DRAMA ON JAN. 2, 1958 AS SHE WALKED OFF THE STAGE during a performance of Bellini’s opera “Norma,” a part of her repertoire that showcased her coloratura voice. Although not an unusual move for the temperamental Callas, her actions angered the president of Italy and Roman high society who were in the audience that night. Callas claimed she was ill, but her abandonment of the stage that night brought her sharp criticism. The New York-born, Greek American soprano had become “the Divine Callas,” but her talent was often overshadowed by personal crises.

The walk-off happened the year she divorced her husband, who had been managing her career. She had a highly-publicized relationship with Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, who in turn left her to marry the widowed Jaqueline Onassis Kennedy. Callas’ career declined and she died of unstated causes at the age of 53.

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FUEL CONSERVATION — PRESIDENT RICHARD M. NIXON SIGNED THE EMERGENCY HIGHWAY ENERGY CONSERVATION ACT ON JAN, 2, 1974, thus setting a new national maximum speed limit. Previously, individual states set their own speed limits within their boundaries, causing highway speed limits across the country to fluctuate from 40 mph to 80 mph. Although for 22 years the U.S. and other industrialized nations enjoyed easy access to inexpensive Middle Eastern oil the Arab-Israeli conflict dramatically curtailed that trend as the Arab members of the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) protested the West’s support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. OPEC halted oil exports to the U.S., Japan and Western Europe, and also quadrupled prices on the market. Responding to the embargo, Nixon established a fuel conservation and rationing policy, probably for the first time since World War II.

Today speed limits across the country vary between 35 and 40 mph in congested urban areas and 75 mph on long stretches of rural highway.

See previous milestones, here.