2024 Year-End Review

The Chinese called it the Year of the Dragon. The United Nations dubbed 2024 the International Year of Camelids. It was the year that U.S President Nixon’s Watergate Resignation and Rubik’s Cube turned 50. Kleenex turned 100 years old in 2024 which also marked the 100^th anniversary of:

• a German court handing Adolf Hitler 5 year sentence to Landsberg Prison for his participation in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch ^{(he serves less than 9 months)}

• the electoral victory of Mussolini’s fascist party in Italy with a two-thirds majority ^{(he throws off all pretence of democracy and becomes dictator in 1925)}

• the death of thousands in a Georgian uprising against rule by the Soviet Union

• a failed Soviet-backed communist coup d’état in Estonia

• the Dawes Plan is signed in Paris, temporarily resolving the German war reparations dispute.

• the strongest tornado to ever hit Europe (an F4) kills 9 in Hungary

• Edgar Hoover’s appointment as head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

• the end of the American Indian Wars after 315 years

• the Indian Citizenship Act granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.

• the end of S. occupation of the Dominican Republic ^1916–24.

• the 1^st female governor in the United States ^{(Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming)}

• Mongolia’s independence from China

• a flash fire at a Christmas celebration in a one-room schoolhouse in Babbs, Oklahoma ^{(36 mostly small children die)}.

• the Kohat riots break out in India ^{(23 dead, 109 injured, 13 missing)}

• the formation of the Royal Canadian Air Force

• Prince Edward Island changing from driving on the left to the right side of the road

• a fire that burned the Chateau Lake Louise down

• Harry Grindell Matthews’ attempt to demonstrate his “death ray” to the War Office in the United Kingdom

• Radiofax, the forerunner of today’s “fax” machines

• last sighting of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine “going strong for the top” of Mount Everest

• the 1^st aerial circumnavigation of the globe ^{S. Army pilots John Harding and Erik Nelson (175 days, 74 stops)}

• American astronomer Edwin Hubble announcement that the Milky Way is only one of many galaxies in the universe

• the world’s 1^st radio play, Danger being broadcast on BBC radio in London

• Wheaties breakfast cereal

• the 1^st appearance of Iodized table salt in the U.S. at grocers in Michigan

• the 1^st Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

• the formation of Mercedes-Benz after merger of companies owned by Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz.

• the Little Orphan Annie comic strip

• the premier of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue at a NYC concert entitled An Experiment In Modern Music

• Clark Gable’s movie debut in White Man

• the words: Bible Belt, cosmetician, domino effect, dump truck, fan mail, finagle, Geiger counter, license plate, nuclear family, penis envy, radiation sickness, sexploitation, slap shot, super billionaire, triathlon, watchband, zipper

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But that was then and this is now (and with the exception of the odd ill douche being convicted and/or winning an election, Russia still dick^[tat]ing with how their neighbours should elect to live, and Canadian national treasures burning down in Alberta) the future looks like it’s going to be so great again that everyone (outside of N. Korea) needs to wear shades.  That said, feel free to appreciate and/or ignore another wreckedrospective of the year we survived as dismembered by the voices in my head with a lot of help from their whisky muse.