“Warrimoo.” The word seems to come from the Aboriginal Ladjiladji people along the border land of New South Wales and Victoria in South Australia, and translating as ‘Eagle’, or ‘Place of Eagles’.
The SS Warrimoo was a passenger steamer, launched in 1892 to serve the Trans-Tasman route between Australia and New Zealand. Later assigned to a Canada-to-Australia passenger route, she would be taken into service as a troop ship with the advent of the Great War, in 1914.
The first Maori detachment destined for the disastrous Gallipoli campaign of 1915 departed Wellington aboard the SS Warrimoo that February, its motto ‘Te Hokowhitu a Tū’ (the seventy twice-told warriors of the war god).
A list of WW1 troop ship departures from New Zealand shows 113 such passages, on which the Warrimoo appears, three times.
The troop ship met its end on May 17, 1918 on a convoy from Tunisia to Marseille. Warrimoo collided with the escorting French warship Catapulte, dislodging the destroyer’s depth charges and blowing out the bottom plates of both vessels. SS Warrimoo and Catapulte went down together with loss of life, yet this is not why the troop ship is remembered.
Nineteen years earlier, the “War to End all Wars” was part of some unknown and unknowable future. A century begun with the Napoleonic Wars and President Thomas Jefferson’s Corps of Discovery, (better known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition), was drawing to a close on the tranquil, moonlit waters of the world’s largest and deepest Ocean.
On this day in 1899, SS Warrimoo plied the waters of the central Pacific, in transit from Vancouver to Brisbane.
It was warm and clear with the approach of midnight, the Warrimoo’s position LAT 00 31′ N and LON 179 30′ W. Captain John Phillips quietly puffed on a cigar as 1st Mate Payton, broke into his reverie. “Know what this means? We’re only a few miles from the intersection of the Equator and the International Date Line“.
Captain Phillips called his navigators to check the position, and then check it again. It was true.
Captain Phillips was too much of an imp, to miss out on the navigational freak of a lifetime. Course was adjusted and speed fine-tuned, bringing the Warrimoo to just the right place and time.
At precisely midnight on December 31, 1899, the steamer passed through that imaginary point where the international dateline, meets the equator.
The bow of the ship was in the Southern Hemisphere, where it was the middle of summer. The stern was still in the Northern Hemisphere, where it was the middle of winter. The date on the starboard side of the ship was January 1, 1900. On the port side, it was still December 31, 1899.
For that one moment in time, the SS Warrimoo was in two different days, two different months, two different years, two different seasons, and two different centuries. All at the same time.
All the best from the Long family to yours, for a healthy and prosperous New Year. May this be the first of many more.
In the winter of 1937, the Coast Guard cutter USCGC George W. Campell steamed out of New York harbor, patrolling the east coast with a mission of life-saving and national defense. The night before, Chief Boatswain’s Mate A. A. “Blackie” Roth (the name is also given as “Rother”) had given his girlfriend, a puppy. She couldn’t keep him, the landlord wouldn’t allow it. No other crewman could take the small dog. It was either leave him astray and hope for the best, or smuggle the puppy on board.
Sinbad’s favorite toys were the large metal washers which he’d hide, until someone came to play with him. They even built him a hammock, much more comfy to sleep in, in those long Atlantic swells.
D’Estaing sent an ultimatum to British Commander Augustine Prevost on September 16, 1779. He was to surrender the city “To the arms of his Majesty the King of France”, or he would be personally answerable for what was about to happen. It could not have pleased General Benjamin Lincoln or his Patriot allies when d’Estaing added “I have not been able to refuse the army of the United States uniting itself with that of the King. The junction will probably be effected this day. If I have not an answer therefore immediately, you must confer with General Lincoln and me”.
In Mexico as well as Spain and most Latin countries, pranksters practice their craft not on April 1 but on December 28. The custom goes back to the biblical story of King Herod, who is said to have killed all the baby boys in Bethlehem, to rid himself of the future ‘King of the Jews. The “Massacre of the Innocents” is a sad story but the ‘joke’ was on Herod. Mary and Joseph had taken the baby Jesus away, to Egypt.
For two-hundred years now, the citizens of Ibi, Alicante on the Spanish Mediterranean coast have celebrated December 28, with a giant food fight. The practice was suspended for a time following the Spanish Civil War but revived, in 1981. Now, it’s a big tourist attraction, and the event makes a ton of money, for charity.
Marcus and Laura never had much money, but were both inveterate readers who instilled a lifelong love of books in their young son, Ambrose. At 15, Bierce left home to become a “printer’s devil”, fetching type and mixing ink, following in the footsteps of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and his own contemporary, Mark Twain.
Bierce worked for the Hearst Newspaper San Francisco Examiner in 1896, when he was sent to Washington to cover a railroad bill at that time, working its way through Congress.
Bierce’s mocking definitions became so numerous that they were compiled and published in 1906 as “The Cynic’s Word Book”. It is still in print today as the “Devil’s Dictionary”.
an ending to this story as any, as one hundred and five years ago today is as good a day as any on which to end it. The fact is that in that 105 years, there’s never been a trace of what became of him, and probably never will be.
The American Revolution was on its last legs in December 1776. The year had started out well for the Patriot cause but turned into a string of disasters, beginning in August. Food, ammunition and equipment were in short supply by December. Men were deserting as the string of defeats brought morale to a new low. Most of those who remained, ended enlistments at the end of the year.
On the Western Front, it rained for much of November and December that first year. The no man’s land between British and German trenches was a wasteland of mud and barbed wire. Christmas Eve, 1914 dawned cold and clear. The frozen ground allowed men to move about for the first time in weeks. That evening, English soldiers heard singing. The low sound of a Christmas carol, drifting across no man’s land…Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht…Silent Night.
Captain Sir Edward Hulse Bart reported a sing-song which “ended up with ‘Auld lang syne’ which we all, English, Scots, Irish, Prussians, Wurttenbergers, etc, joined in. It was absolutely astounding, and if I had seen it on a cinematograph film I should have sworn that it was faked!”
The Feast of St. Nicholas took hold around the 6th of December. Children and other marginal groups such as old women and slaves could receive gifts, but only by demanding them. The secret giving of gifts appeared sometime around the year 1200.
The unknown genius who published and illustrated 
Be that at it as it may, the animal is a voracious herbivore, spending daylight hours at the bottom of rivers & lakes, happily munching on vegetation.
During the 2nd Boer war, the pair had sworn to kill each other. In 1910, these two men became partners in a mission to bring hippos, to America’s dinner table.
The terrain was considered unsuitable for such an attack. The tactical surprise was complete, British and American forces separated and driven back, their positions forming an inward “bulge” on wartime battle maps.
Historian Stephen Ambrose wrote “Band of Brothers” nearly fifty years later, a non-fiction account later broadcast as an HBO mini-series, of the same name. The story refers to a black nurse named Anna. There is a brief appearance and then she is gone. No one knew who Anna was, or even if she was real.
Augusta Chiwy came back to Belgium when she was nine, one of the luckier of thousands born to European fathers, and African mothers. Back to the doctor’s home in Bastogne, a small town of 9,000 where Augusta was loved and cared for by her father and his sister, whom the girl knew as “aunt Caroline”.
Augusta Chiwy was in a neighboring building at the time. The explosion blew the petite nurse through a wall but, unhurt, she picked herself up and went back to work. There were grisly injuries and many died due to inadequate medical facilities, but many lived, their families reunited thanks to the tireless work of Dr. Jack Prior, and nurse Augusta Chiwy.
Augusta Chiwy suffered symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition poorly understood at that time. She would go long periods without speaking, becoming quiet and withdrawn even years later. She married a Belgian soldier in 1959 and the couple had two children. It would be twenty years, before she resumed her nursing career. She almost never spoke of her experience in Bastogne.
Albert II of Belgium. Six months later she received the U.S. Army’s Civilian Award for Humanitarian Service. And on March 21, 2014, Augusta was recognized by her hometown as a Bastogne Citizen of Honor”. 
Historical Easter Eggs - Today in History 
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