Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, a play by J. M. Barrie, made its theater debut on this date in 1904 at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London.

It introduced audiences to Neverland, Peter Pan, Wendy Darling and her brothers, Captain Hook, the Lost Boys, and Tinker Bell. (A playbill from the first production is at top.)
Read More

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR, ceased to exist at midnight on this date in 1991. The constituent republics became independent nations. The Soviet Union existed for almost 69 years when it dissolved, an event that did not seem possible even a few months earlier. The moment ended the decades-long Cold War not with an exclamation point but a question mark.

The Cold War: Us versus them. On both sides, it was served with our breakfast cereal, our school lunches, and the nightly news watched during dinner. The Cold War was a fact, a background noise, a tinnitus-like hum heard 24/7, sometimes from far away and sometimes next door. Its removal seemed to make us aware that it had always been there, how loud it was, and that it had been driving us all insane.

As it ended (video after the jump):
Read More

Today is Christmas Day.

In a book that is known to have been compiled in the year 354 A.D., these words appear in an entry for the year 336: “25 Dec.: natus Christus in Betleem Judeae.” (Translated: December 25, Christ born in Bethlehem, Judea.) Thus, since some time in the 4th Century, Christians have celebrated the mass of Christ’s birth on December 25.

By the 6th Century, the December 25 date for the birth of Christ was common knowledge, so common that the monk who is credited with inventing the concept of the B.C./A.D. calendar, Dionysus Exiguus, wrote that “December 25 in the year 1” was the date of Christ’s birth.
Read More