Today is Boxing Day

In many countries, today, December 26, is Boxing Day, celebrated by the giving of gifts by the more priveleged to the less well off. In the USA, today is the day that gift wrap gets marked down to half price and people begin exchanging yesterday's unwanted gifts. I was going to search for a more polite phraseology than "unwanted gifts", but that's what they are, and that's why gift cards and cash, while impersonal, are such easy choices.

Other events that occurred on this day over the years...

1620: Elizabeth Bathory’s crimes were discovered. Lizzie, a Transylvanian countess and the niece of the Polish king Stefan Bathory, was the most prolific female mass murderer in history, with around 600 horrific deaths attributed to her. There was no trial, politics then being like politics always, Liz was simply taken out of circulation. She was eventually bricked into a small room in her castle where she existed for the final four years of her life.

1919: the contract of pitcher/outfielder Babe Ruth is sold by the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees. Speaking of foreshadowing executive brilliance, did you know that George Bush was an owner of the Texas Rangers when that team traded Sammie Sosa to the White Sox?

1933: Nissan Motor company wass founded in Tokyo. That is a 1935 model at the right.

1943: the Siege of Bastogne, which was a part of the Battle of the Bulge. Bastongne is in Belgium, by the way.

1966: the first Kwanzaa celebration. We are all so very grateful to Ron Karenga, the guy credited as having invented Kwanzaa. Yes, it is an invented holiday, and you can't blame Hallmark.

1982: Time Magazine names the personal computer its Machine of the Year. Flush with their newfound celebrity, personal computers around the world begin to conspire, plotting the Millenium problem.

1986: the population of the world reaches 5 billion. China alone was 1 billion something, having exceeded a billion in 1982 and continuing to screw its corrective brains out.

1991: the Soviet Union is formally dissolved. Politicians praise the victory of democracy. Practically speaking, it was simply a function of economics. The USSR went broke.