Baby New Year
The Baby New Year is a personification of the start of the New Year seen in editorial cartoons. He symbolizes the "passing" of the prior year. Baby New Year's purpose varies by myth, but he performs some sort of ceremonial duty over the course of his year such as chronicling the year's events or presiding over the year as a symbol; the myth most associated with him is that he is a baby at the beginning of his year, but Baby New Year ages until he is elderly at the end of his year. Is the Baby New Year depicted as any age other than a baby or as a old man; some stories those with depictions of years past, will have him bear a strong likeness to key events in his time. At this point, he hands over his duties to the next Baby New Year, while he either dies or remains in this state and retires; the stereotypical representation of Baby New Year is as a baby boy wearing nothing more than a diaper, a top hat and a sash across his torso that shows the year he is representing. He is sometimes depicted holding or associated with an hourglass, a noisemaker, or other item either pertaining to time or New Year's Day festivities.
He is not a complete newborn but instead more resembles a toddler, because he is shown standing on his own, crawling or walking, or having a small amount of hair. In addition to being a mythical figure, the title of "Baby New Year" is sometimes given to living people; the first baby born in any village or city in a certain year may be honored by being labeled as the official Baby New Year for that year. The official Baby New Year can be male or female though the mythical Baby New Year is nearly always male. Attempts to name an official Baby New Year for an entire country have sometimes been made, but there are multiple contenders and no single Baby New Year can be confirmed. There has however been a great deal of several. Numerous hospitals no longer make a Baby New Year public due to concerns that the infant will become a target for criminals. Baby New Year is featured in the TV special Rudolph's Shiny New Year; the featured Baby New Year is named Happy who goes missing before New Year's Eve and Rudolph had to travel to the Archipelago of Last Years to find him before a vulture named Aeon the Terrible gets to him in order to keep the year from ending and stop time, thus preventing his predestined death.
Happy ran away due to being laughed at because of his big ears. Rudolph shows Happy his nose and tells him his own story of being shunned because of his nonconformity before asking Happy to let him see his ears. After Happy's ears played a part in defeating Aeon the Terrible, Happy is returned to Father Time as the year "Nineteen-Wonderful" begins. A parody of Baby New Year, given the name "Big Fat Baby," appears in the animated series Histeria
World War I
World War I known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history, it is one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide. On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb Yugoslav nationalist, assassinated the Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, leading to the July Crisis. In response, on 23 July Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia. Serbia's reply failed to satisfy the Austrians, the two moved to a war footing. A network of interlocking alliances enlarged the crisis from a bilateral issue in the Balkans to one involving most of Europe.
By July 1914, the great powers of Europe were divided into two coalitions: the Triple Entente—consisting of France and Britain—and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. Russia felt it necessary to back Serbia and, after Austria-Hungary shelled the Serbian capital of Belgrade on the 28th, partial mobilisation was approved. General Russian mobilisation was announced on the evening of 30 July; when Russia failed to comply, Germany declared war on 1 August in support of Austria-Hungary, with Austria-Hungary following suit on 6th. German strategy for a war on two fronts against France and Russia was to concentrate the bulk of its army in the West to defeat France within four weeks shift forces to the East before Russia could mobilise. On 2 August, Germany demanded free passage through Belgium, an essential element in achieving a quick victory over France; when this was refused, German forces invaded Belgium on 3 August and declared war on France the same day. On 12 August and France declared war on Austria-Hungary.
In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Alliance, opening fronts in the Caucasus and the Sinai Peninsula. The war was fought in and drew upon each power's colonial empire as well, spreading the conflict to Africa and across the globe; the Entente and its allies would become known as the Allied Powers, while the grouping of Austria-Hungary and their allies would become known as the Central Powers. The German advance into France was halted at the Battle of the Marne and by the end of 1914, the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, marked by a long series of trench lines that changed little until 1917. In 1915, Italy opened a front in the Alps. Bulgaria joined the Central Powers in 1915 and Greece joined the Allies in 1917, expanding the war in the Balkans; the United States remained neutral, although by doing nothing to prevent the Allies from procuring American supplies whilst the Allied blockade prevented the Germans from doing the same the U. S. became an important supplier of war material to the Allies.
After the sinking of American merchant ships by German submarines, the revelation that the Germans were trying to incite Mexico to make war on the United States, the U. S. declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917. Trained American forces would not begin arriving at the front in large numbers until mid-1918, but the American Expeditionary Force would reach some two million troops. Though Serbia was defeated in 1915, Romania joined the Allied Powers in 1916 only to be defeated in 1917, none of the great powers were knocked out of the war until 1918; the 1917 February Revolution in Russia replaced the Tsarist autocracy with the Provisional Government, but continuing discontent at the cost of the war led to the October Revolution, the creation of the Soviet Socialist Republic, the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by the new government in March 1918, ending Russia's involvement in the war. This allowed the transfer of large numbers of German troops from the East to the Western Front, resulting in the German March 1918 Offensive.
This offensive was successful, but the Allies rallied and drove the Germans back in their Hundred Days Offensive. Bulgaria was the first Central Power to sign an armistice—the Armistice of Salonica on 29 September 1918. On 30 October, the Ottoman Empire capitulated. On 4 November, the Austro-Hungarian empire agreed to the Armistice of Villa Giusti after being decisively defeated by Italy in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto. With its allies defeated, revolution at home, the military no longer willing to fight, Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated on 9 November and Germany signed an armistice on 11 November 1918. World War I was a significant turning point in the political, cultural and social climate of the world; the war and its immediate aftermath sparked numerous uprisings. The Big Four (Britain, the United States, It
Howard Van Doren Shaw
Howard Van Doren Shaw AIA was an architect in Chicago, Illinois. Shaw was a leader in the American Craftsman movement, best exemplified in his 1900 remodel of Second Presbyterian Church in Chicago, he designed Clayton Mark's planned worker community in Northwest Indiana. Howard Van Doren Shaw was born in Chicago, Illinois on May 7, 1869, his father Theodore was a successful dry goods businessman and was part of the planning committee for the World's Columbian Exposition. His mother Sarah was a member of the Bohemian Club. Howard had Theodore, Jr.. His family resided at 2124 Calumet Avenue a part of the Prairie Avenue district, the heart of the social fabric of the city. Prairie Avenue was the site of Chicago's most modern residential architecture, including Henry Hobson Richardson's John J. Glessner House. Howard Shaw met Frances Wells, his future wife, in the district's Bournique's dancing school on Twenty-Third Street. Wells was the daughter of a prominent wholesale dry goods merchant. Shaw studied at the Harvard School for Boys in Hyde Park Township.
He was accepted to Yale University, graduating with a bachelor of arts in 1890. While at Yale, Shaw was the lead editor of the world's oldest humor magazine, he was admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that year. MIT was one of the few architectural schools in the country at that time following the rules set forth by the École des Beaux-Arts. Shaw completed the two-year program in one year. Shaw would use the elements of Georgian and neoclassical design he learned from MIT in most of his works. After returning to Chicago in June 1891, he joined the Mundie firm. William Le Baron Jenney was emerging as an innovating designer, his firm was gaining a reputation as a training ground for new architects, such as Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan. Shaw worked directly with emerging architects James Gamble Rogers, Alfred Hoyt Granger, D. Everett Waid. Shaw received his first commission from his wife's parents, who desired a new house in Lakeville, Connecticut. After the completion of the Wells house, he traveled to Europe to study the endemic architecture.
He visited Spain, southern France, Austria-Hungary and England. Shaw spent two months in England before returning to Chicago, he rejoined Jenney & Mundie in early 1893, on April 20, he married Francis Wells. Chicago architecture was receiving new recognition thanks to the success of the "White City" at the World's Columbian Exposition. Shaw worked on one last commission for the firm, the Snitzler house, in 1894. In 1894, Shaw established his own practice while finishing his work for Jenney & Mundie in his father's attic on Calumet Avenue, his first solo commissions were for his father, who wanted one house for his daughter and son-in-law, another for the newlywed Shaws. These two adjacent houses featured a combination of Queen Anne and Romanesque styles; the incorporation of Indiana Limestone set these houses apart from their neighbors. Shaw soon received five other requests for buildings in the Hyde Park neighborhood. Hyde Park annexed by Chicago, was the fastest-growing neighborhood, thanks to the opened University of Chicago.
Shaw received the commissions from individuals who were familiar with his family. Shaw's first major commission was for cofounder of Lakeside Press. Donnelley's son Thomas admired his architecture. Shaw agreed to design a new printing plant for the company in 1897. Lakeside Press published high-quality works, so it was necessary to reflect this in the building's design. Most printing press buildings of the age built from wooden to support the machines. However, Shaw decided to use a more fireproof design, with concrete floors and reinforcement columns; the building was a great success for Lakeside Press, Shaw received several more commissions from Donnelly, including a 1902 addition to this building. As Shaw's business grew, he moved his offices into the Montauk Building. In 1897, Shaw bought a one-third share of a 53-acre farm on Green Bay Road in Lake Forest. Lake Forest had been a rural community to the north of Chicago, but was becoming a retreat site for the wealthy following the completion of the Onwentsia Club in 1895.
Shaw built a house for his family on the farm, built houses for Dr. William E. Casselberry and Dr. Nathan Smith Davis, Jr. the other two owners of the property. These houses exhibited Shaw's first forays into the Arts and Crafts Movement. Shaw's house, Ragdale, is today considered one of the best examples of Arts and Crafts architecture and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Shaw became interested in the movement after holding a joint exhibition for Chicago architecture and Arts and Crafts designers at the Art Institute of Chicago. Although the movement is characterized by designs from all over the world, Shaw focused on American and English styles. Shaw would meet with other Arts and Crafts architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright, in a lunch group known as The Eighteen, an early version of the Prairie School. However, Shaw grew alienated from the Prairie School as he was a firm believer in the value of the old European architecture eschewed by the other architects. Another early commission for Shaw was the rebuilding of the sanctuary of Second Presbyterian Church following a devastating fire in March 1900.
Shaw was just 31 at the time of the commission. The design of the sanctuary reflects Shaw's interest in the Arts and Crafts movement and today it remains as one of the
Blue Lagoon Island
Blue Lagoon Island is a private island located 5 km from Nassau and serves as a local tourist attraction. Prior to the late 19th century the island's lagoon was a salt marsh and was referred to as Salt Cay; the Island became a stopover for pirates and privateers who used the island to cull salt from the lagoon to preserve their food and as a rest stop while they waited for permission to enter Nassau Harbour. In 1875, Charles King-Harman, an Englishman, knighted and became Governor of Cyprus, bought the island from the British Crown for £35, he owned it for 11 years, until he sold it to a Bahamian, Sir Augustus John Adderley, for £105. Adderley kept it for six years. Two Americans who wanted to cultivate corn and vegetables offered him £145; the farming effort failed and in 1902 they sold it to Abraham Van Winkle for a £10 loss. Van Winkle hired hundreds of laborers to dredge out the salt marsh and blasted a cut into the lagoon from the sea, planted 5,000 palm trees and built over a mile of meandering concrete paths.
He imported a zoo of monkeys, turkeys, pheasants and iguanas to populate the paradise garden. He shared the island with the public by bringing guests over on his boat at a rate of $1 per person. From 1916 to 1979 the island was owned by the McCutcheon family. John T. McCutcheon was the chief foreign correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, a Pulitzer Prize winner, political cartoonist, he purchased the island by mail sight unseen for $17,500 from the estate of Van Winkle, a New Jersey manufacturer who had died. He called for decades it was known under that name in The Bahamas. Part of the charm of the island used to be the primitive living conditions. During World War II, the island was requisitioned for a year by the Allies for use as a secret training base for three teams of British and American underwater demolition squads who would swim the seven miles around the island every day. Explosives and depth charges were blown up around the island, in the evenings, just for fun, they would toss hand grenades over the cliff.
It was thought that the concussions weakened the cliff so much that it caused the small fort to collapse. In October 1979, L. A. Meister purchased the island. In 1991, a storm cut the island in two at the northwestern corner of the lagoon where the current bridge is located. On a sunny, windless day, the island experienced 9 metre swells generated by the storm over 2,000 km away. In 1993, Dolphin Encounters, a marine mammal facility, began educational and commercial programs on Blue Lagoon Island. In 1995, Dolphin Encounters on Blue Lagoon Island underwent a multimillion-dollar expansion which enlarged the dolphin habitat to over three acres in surface space and created depths of up to 25-feet. McCutcheon, H. Shaw. A Family Island - A Short History of Salt Cay, Bahamas. Salt Cay Publishing. P. 114. ISBN 0-9715260-0-1
Rube Goldberg
Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg, known best as Rube Goldberg, was an American cartoonist, author and inventor. Goldberg is best known for his popular cartoons depicting complicated gadgets performing simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways; the cartoons led to the expression "Rube Goldberg machines" to describe similar gadgets and processes. Goldberg received many honors in his lifetime, including a Pulitzer Prize for political cartooning in 1948 and the Banshees' Silver Lady Award in 1959. Goldberg was a founding member and first president of the National Cartoonists Society, the namesake of the Reuben Award, which the organization awards to its Cartoonist of the Year, he is the inspiration for international competitions, known as Rube Goldberg Machine Contests, which challenge participants to create a complicated machine to perform a simple task. Goldberg was born July 4, 1883, in San Francisco, California, to Jewish parents Max and Hannah Goldberg, he was the third of seven children. Goldberg began tracing illustrations when he was four years old, first took professional drawing lessons when he was eleven.
Goldberg married Irma Seeman on October 17, 1916. They had two sons named Thomas and George. During World War II Goldberg's sons changed their surname, at Goldberg's insistence, because of the amount of hatred towards him stemming from the political nature of his cartoons. Thomas chose the surname of George. Thomas and George's children now run. John George is assisted by his cousin Jennifer George and John's son Joshua George to keep the family name alive. Goldberg's father was a San Francisco police and fire commissioner, who encouraged the young Reuben to pursue a career in engineering. Rube graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1904 with a degree in Engineering and was hired by the city of San Francisco as an engineer for the Water and Sewers Department. After six months he resigned his position with the city to join the San Francisco Chronicle where he became a sports cartoonist; the following year, he took a job with the San Francisco Bulletin, where he remained until he moved to New York City in 1907, finding employment as a cartoonist with the New York Evening Mail.
The New York Evening Mail was syndicated to the first newspaper syndicate, the McClure Newspaper Syndicate, giving Goldberg's cartoons a wider distribution, by 1915 he was earning $25,000 per year and being billed by the paper as America's most popular cartoonist. Arthur Brisbane had offered Goldberg $2,600 per year in 1911 in an unsuccessful attempt to get him to move to William Randolph Hearst's newspaper chain, in 1915 raised the offer to $50,000 per year. Rather than lose Goldberg to Hearst, the New York Evening Mail matched the salary offer and formed the Evening Mail Syndicate to syndicate Goldberg's cartoons nationally. In 1916, Goldberg created a series of seven short animated films, finding humorous aspects to details of everyday life in the form of an animated newsreel; the seven films were released on these dates in 1916: The Boob Weekly. Goldberg was syndicated by the McNaught Syndicate from 1922 until 1934. A prolific artist, Goldberg produced several cartoon series including Mike and Ike, Boob McNutt, Foolish Questions, What Are You Kicking About, Lala Palooza, The Weekly Meeting of the Tuesday Women's Club, the uncharacteristically serious soap-opera strip, Doc Wright, which ran for 10 months beginning January 29, 1933.
The cartoons that brought him lasting fame involved a character named Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts. In that series, Goldberg drew labeled schematics of the comical "inventions" that would bear his name. Professor Butts was based on a couple of college professors he studied with while earning his degree from the College of Mining and Engineering at the University of California from 1901-1903, Samuel B Christie and Frederick Slate. From 1938 to 1941, Goldberg drew two weekly strips for the Register and Tribune Syndicate: Brad and Dad and Side Show; the popularity of Goldberg's cartoons was such that the term "Goldbergian" was in use in print by 1915, "Rube Goldberg" by 1928. "Rube Goldberg" appeared in the Random House Dictionary of the English Language in 1966 meaning "having a fantastically complicated improvised appearance", or "deviously complex and impractical." The 1915 usage of "Goldbergian" was in reference to Goldberg's early comic strip Foolish Questions which he drew from 1909 to 1934, while use of the terms "Goldbergian", "Rube Goldberg" and "Rube Goldberg machine" refer to the crazy inventions for which he is now best known from his strip The Inventions of Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts, drawn from 1914 to 1964.
The corresponding term in the UK was, still is, "Heath Robinson", after the English illustrator with an equal devotion to odd machinery portraying sequential or chain reaction elements. Goldberg's work was commemorated posthumously in 1995 with the inclusion of Rube Goldberg's Inventions, depicting his 1931 "Self-Operating Napkin" in the Comic Strip Classics series of U. S. postage stamps. Rube Goldberg wrote a feature film featuring his machines and sculptures called Soup to Nuts, which was
George Barr McCutcheon
George Barr McCutcheon was an American popular novelist and playwright. His best known works include the series of novels set in Graustark, a fictional East European country, the novel Brewster's Millions, adapted into a play and several films. McCutcheon was born in Indiana, his father, despite his own lack of formal education, stressed the value of literature and encouraged his sons to write. During McCutcheon's childhood, his father had a number of jobs that required travel around the county. McCutcheon was a roommate of future humorist George Ade. During his college years, he was editor of the Lafayette Daily Courier and wrote a serial novel of satire about Wabash River life. Although McCutcheon became famous for the Graustark series, he hated the characterization of being a Romantic and preferred to be identified with his playwriting, he was the older brother of noted cartoonist John T. McCutcheon and died in Manhattan, New York City, New York. McCutcheon, along with a number of other Indiana writers of the same period, is considered to be part of the Golden Age of Indiana Literature.
Graustark: The Story of a Love Behind a Throne, ISBN 1-4043-5098-5 Beverly of Graustark, ISBN 1-4179-3249-X Truxton King: A Story of Graustark, ISBN 1-4179-0333-3 The Prince of Graustark, ISBN 1-4179-4103-0 East of the Setting Sun, ISBN 1-4179-1787-3 The Inn of the Hawk and the Raven Brewster's Millions, ISBN 0-253-33632-5 Castle Craneycrow The Sherrods The Day of the Dog The Purple Parasol Nedra Jane Cable Cowardice Court The Flyers The Daughter of Anderson Crow The Husbands of Edith The Man from Brodney's The Alternative The Butterfly Man The Rose in the Ring Mary Midthorne What's-His-Name The Hollow of Her Hand 1912 A Fool and His Money 1913 Black is White 1914 Her Weight in Gold Mr. Bingle From the Housetops The Light that Lies Green Fancy Shot with Crimson The City of Masks Sherry Anderson Crow, Detective West Wind Drift Quill's Window 1921 Viola Gwyn Yollop Oliver October Romeo in Moon Village Kindling and Ashes Blades The Merivales Brood House Mary Midthorne Brewster's Millions What's His Name The Circus Man An Opal Ring Graustark Nedra The Prince of Graustark In the Hollow of Her Hand The Mystery Girl Cowardice Court Black Is White A Fool and His Money The Butterfly Man Sherry The City of Masks Brewster's Millions Truxton King The Prisoner The Man from Brodney's The Fast Worker A Fool and His Money Graustark Miss Brewster's Millions Beverly of Graustark A Royal Romance, uncredited Brewster's Millions Brewster's Millions Three on a Spree Brewster's Millions Works by George Barr McCutcheon at Project Gutenberg Works by or about George Barr McCutcheon at Internet Archive Works by George Barr McCutcheon at LibriVox Article on McCutcheon at "Our Land, Our Literature" site Inventory of George Barr McCutcheon papers at Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin Page in a bestsellers database about Graustark, including a short biography of McCutcheon August 1, 1915, New York Times, SERIAL SYSTEM HURTS OUR NOVELS.
