Check out This Day in History for Dec. 31, in MainStream’s daily look at significant progressive, intersectional historical events.
1862: Black Christians in America gather at their churches in “Watch Night” services, awaiting President Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, which will abolish slavery in the Confederate States. More than 160 years later, many Black churches still have traditions of Watch Nights to celebrate perseverance.
1907: The Times Square Ball is dropped for the first time in celebration of the new year. Adloph Ochs, owner of the New York Times, organized the first ball drop to replace yearly fireworks celebrations he started after purchasing One Times Square in 1904. 200,000 people filled Times Square for this first ball drop. The original ball, made of iron and wood, has been replaced six times, with the newest ball now ready for its first drop.
The Times Square Ball for othis year, suffragette Maud Malone; former Commerce official Amanda Simpson; and a member of the Cockettes.
Also in 1907, suffragettes in New York City hold their first open-air meeting on a street corner, under the leadership of Maud Malone. This was a change from their previous events in meeting halls and homes, and a shift in suffragette strategy to more direct action and community engagement instead of more detached methods of previous decades.
1969: The Cockettes, a flamboyant hippie theatre troupe, perform for the first time. Their members are artists, gay and trans people, early drag performers, and fringe musicians. Their glittery performances deliberately go against gender and social norms, involving vulgarity, and attract both praise and criticism. The Cockettes last only 3 years, but inspire splinter groups and spin-offs, and many of its former members remain involved in drag and theatre.
1999: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin becomes Acting President of Russia after President Boris Yeltsin resigns. Putin is elected to a full term a few months later, and continues to serve as President following a second stint as Prime Minister from 2008 to 2012. Putin has presided over several wars with other former Soviet states over his 26 years in high office, most recently the ongoing invasion of Ukraine that started in 2022.
Panamanians celebrate 25 years of owning the Panama Canal earlier this year.
Also in 1999, the United States hands control of the Panama Canal to Panama. The canal, a shipping route that made trade across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans safer and faster, was built by the US between 1903 and 1914 after a land purchase. Between 13,000 and 14,000 vessels use the canal every year.
2009: Amanda Simpson becomes the first transgender presidential appointee. Simpson was appointed by President Obama to be Senior Technical Advisor to the Department of Commerce. Reposted to the Department of Defense, in 2015, she also becomes the first transgender person to lead a DoD office and serves until the end of the Obama administration.
2019: The WHO receives the first reports of people with breathing problems and shortness of breath near the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. A local agency also issues an emergency virus alerg. Within a week, the WHO would begin releasing guidelines about COVID-19, the fast-spreading, constantly mutating respiratory virus that would go on to kill more than 7 million people worldwide. Scientists still aren’t sure whether COVID started through bat bites, exposure to an infected animal at the market, or through a leak from a research laboratory.
Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons, and The Cockettes.
