On December 17, 1961 Brian Epstein contacted a local wedding photographer, Albert Marrion, to have him take professional pictures of the group for the first time.
DJ Carroll James
On December 17, 1963 radio DJ Carroll James at Washington. D.C. station WWDC, a U.K. played copy of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” after a 15-year-old girl from Silver Spring, MD wrote to him requesting Beatles music after she saw the CBS-news segment on December 10.
James Carroll became the first disc jockey to broadcast a Beatles record on American radio. He had obtained the record from his stewardess girlfriend, who brought the single back from the UK. Due to listener demand, the song was played daily, every hour.
Capital Records had planned on releasing “I Want to Hold Your Hand” on January 13, 1964 and the next day (Dec 18), the company threatened to sue WWDC to stop playing song. Capital then reversed itself and decided to rush-release “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” Capital cancelled Christmas leaves and pressing plants and staff geared up for rush release.
Busy Beatles December 17
Third Christmas Record
December 17, 1965: “The Beatles Third Christmas Record” released. Several off-key, a cappella versions of “Yesterday” were dispersed throughout the record, alongside Lennon’s “Happy Christmas to Ya List’nas”, “Auld Lang Syne”, a one-and-a-half-line version of the Four Tops’ “It’s the Same Old Song” (which they quickly stop before they violate the copyright) and an original poem titled “Christmas Comes But Once a Year”.
Members of the Beatles’ US fan-club did not receive this (or any) Christmas flexi-disc in 1965. Rather, they received a black and white postcard, with a photo of the Fab Four and the message “Season’s Greetings – Paul, Ringo, George, John.” The Beatle Bulletin, the publication of the US fan-club, explained in its April 1966 edition that the tape arrived too late to prepare the record in time for Christmas.
Busy Beatles December 17
Christmas Time Is Here Again
December 17, 1967: mailing of the 1967 Christmas disc, Christmas Time Is Here Again to fan club members. Their fifth.
The Beatles created an elaborate production around the concept of several groups auditioning for a BBC radio show. The title song serves as a refrain throughout the record. The Beatles portray a multitude of characters, including game show contestants, aspiring musicians (“Plenty of Jam Jars”, by the Ravellers), and actors in a radio drama (“Theatre Hour”). At the end John reads a poem, “When Christmas Time Is Over.” This offering was likely a deliberate homage to/continuation of the broadly similar “Craig Torso” specials produced for BBC Radio 1 that same year by the Beatles’ friends and collaborators the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, and also shares much in common with their then-unreleased track “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)”, recorded six months previously.
For those of you with the interest, the money, and the space, you can order a newly released box set from Apple Corps that includes each Beatles Christmas disc.
December 16, 1945: in Fontana, California, the home of the Short family erupted in flames, killing Mrs Helen Short and her two children, Barry, 9, and Carol Ann, 7. Mr O’day H. Short survived the explosion The Shorts were the first and only black family living in the neighborhood.
Initially organized as a collection of chicken farms and citrus groves in the early twentieth century, by the early 1940s the small San Bernardino County town of Fontana was transformed into an industrial center with the opening of a wartime steel mill. As the community population grew in numbers and diversity, strict segregation lines emerged: black families moving out of the overcrowded Los Angeles area were relegated to living in the rocky plains of “North Fontana,” and working in the dirtiest departments of the mill. Ku Klux Klan activity also surged throughout Southern California during this time period, with white supremacists poised to terrorize black and Chicano veterans of WWII returning with militant ideas of racial equality.
This was reality in fall 1945, when O’day H. Short – a Mississippi native and Los Angeles civil rights activist – purchased a tract of land “in town” with intentions of moving his family to Fontana’s white section. As the Shorts built their modest home and prepared to live in it full time, local forces of all kinds tried to stop them. In early December 1945, “vigilantes” visited Mr. Short and ordered him to move or risk harm to his family; he refused and reported the threats to the FBI and local sheriff. Sheriff’s deputies did not offer protection and instead reiterated the warning that Short should leave before his family was harmed. Shortly after, members of the Fontana Chamber of Commerce visited the home, encouraging Mr. Short to move to the North Fontana area, and offering to buy his home. He refused.
Just days later, an explosion “of unusual intensity” destroyed the home, killing Mr. Short’s wife and children. He survived for two weeks, shielded from the knowledge of the other deaths, but died in January 1946 after the local D.A. bluntly informed him of his family’s fate during an investigative interview.
Local officials initially concluded that the fire was an accident, caused by Mr. Short’s own lighting of an outdoor lamp. After surviving family members, the black press, and the Los Angeles NAACP protested, a formal inquest was held, at which an independent arson investigator obtained by the NAACP testified that the fire had clearly been intentionally set. Despite this testimony, and evidence of the harassment the Short family had endured in the weeks leading to the fire, local officials again concluded it an accident and closed the case. No criminal investigation was ever opened, no arrests or prosecutions were made, and residential segregation persisted in Fontana for over 25 more years.
Women’s Political Council
In 1946, The Women’s Political Councilformed as a civic organization for African-American professional women in Montgomery, Alabama. It was inspired by the Atlanta Neighborhood Union. Many of its middle-class women were active in education; most of WPC’s members were educators at Alabama State College or Montgomery’s public schools. About forty women attended the first organizational meeting. Mary Fair Burks, who was head of Alabama State’s English department, was the group’s first president. (Black History, see Feb 12; Feminism, see July 9, 1947)
Albany Movement
December 16, 1961: New York Times: The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 264 other Negroes and one white youth were arrested today as they marched on City Hall for a prayer demonstration. All were jailed. There was no violence, despite the tension aroused by week-long racial controversy and the breakdown of negotiations between white and Negro leaders aimed at restoring this city of 56,000 persons to normal. (see Albany Movement for the long sad story)
Medgar Evers assassination
December 16, 1992: a divided Mississippi Supreme Court refused to block the trial of Byron De La Beckwith, paving the way for him to be tried for the third time for the 1963 murder of the civil rights leader Medgar Evers. The court voted 4 to 3 to deny Mr. Beckwith’s claim that the case should be dismissed without going to trial. (see Dec 23)
SOUTH AFRICA/APARTHEID
December 16, 1961: Nelson Mandela and other A.N.C. leaders form a military wing called Umkhonto we Sizwe, or Spear of the Nation. Mr. Mandela becomes the first commander in chief of the guerrilla army. He will train to fight, work to obtain weapons for the group, and come to be known as the Black Pimpernel, but he will never see combat. (see August 5, 1962)
December 16, 1999: a NY appellate court ordered a change of venue to Albany, stating that pretrial publicity had made a fair trial in New York City impossible. (see February 25, 2000)
Colin Powell
December 16, 2000: President-elect George W. Bush selected Colin Powellto become the first African-American secretary of state.(see January 21, 2001)
Tulsa “Good Friday” Shootings
December 16, 2013: On April 6, 2012 Jacob England and Alvin Watts had gone on a shooting spree that left three people dead and terrorized Tulsa’s black community. On this date, the two men were each sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. The men were sentenced after pleading guilty to three first-degree murder charges and two shooting with intent to kill charges. England, 19, and Watts, 33, were also sentenced to one year in the county jail for the misdemeanor charge of malicious intimidation, the state of Oklahoma’s equivalent of a hate crime offense.
On December 16, 2013, Jacob England and Alvin Watts, the two suspects in Tulsa’s so-called “Good Friday” murders, were each sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. The men were sentenced after pleading guilty to three first-degree murder charges and two shooting with intent to kill charges. England, 19, and Watts, 33, were also sentenced to one year in the county jail for the misdemeanor charge of malicious intimidation, the state of Oklahoma’s equivalent of a hate crime offense.
BLACK & SHOT
December 16, 2015: Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke was indicted on first-degree murder charges in the shooting of Laquan McDonald. (B & S, see Dec 27; McDonald, see Jan 22)
Emmett Till
December 16, 2016: President Obama signed the Emmett Till Civil Rights Crimes Reauthorization Act of 2016. The Act allowed the Department of Justice and the FBI to reopen unsolved civil rights crimes.committed before 1980. The legislation is an expansion of a previous bill of a similar name signed into law in 2008. (BH, see January 10, 2017; ET, see January 23, 2017)
Trayvon Martin Shooting
December 16, 2017: George Zimmerman took a verbal shot at rapper JAY-Z threatening to “beat” the rapper and feed him to “an alligator” over Jay-Z’s role in a Trayvon Martin documentary.
Zimmerman, said he has a score to settle with JAY-Z over the way a camera crew treated the Zimmerman family. Zimmerman complained that a production team made unannounced visits to the homes of his parents and an uncle in Florida and said JAY-Z and executive producer Michael Gesparro indirectly “harassed” his family.
“I know how to handle people who f–k with me,” Zimmerman added “I have since February 2012.”
Negro Leagues Recognized
December 16, 2020: Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred declared that seven Negro leagues that operated between 1920 and 1948 would be recognized as official major leagues, with their records and statistics counted in baseball’s record books.
“All of us who love baseball have long known that the Negro Leagues produced many of our game’s best players, innovations and triumphs against a backdrop of injustice,” Manfred said in a statement. “We are now grateful to count the players of the Negro Leagues where they belong: as Major Leaguers within the official historical record.” [NYT article] (next BH, see Dec 17)
December 16 Peace Love Art Activism
Cold War
Korea
December 16, 1950: President Harry S. Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency during the Korean War in response to Chinese intervention.
Survival Under Atomic Attack
In 1951, the US Government released a film, “Survival Under Atomic Attack” (NN, see Jan 27; Red Scare, see March 29, 1951)
LSD & the US Government
In 1951: the CIA became aware of and began experimenting with LSD. (next Red Scare, see March 29)
LSD & Al Hubbard
In 1951: Al Hubbard first tried LSD. Hubbard was an early proponent for the drug during the 1950s. He is reputed to have been the “Johnny Appleseed of LSD” and the first person to emphasize LSD’s potential as a visionary or transcendental drug. Hubbard may have introduced more than 6,000 people to LSD, including scientists, politicians, intelligence officials, diplomats, and church figures. Hubbard, then forty-nine years old, eagerly sought out others familiar with hallucinogenic drugs, including Aldous Huxley, the eminent British novelist who for years had been preoccupied with the specter of drug-induced thought control.
“Most people are walking in their sleep,” Hubbard said. “Turn them around, start them in the opposite direction and they wouldn’t even know the difference. [but] give them a good dose of LSD and let them see themselves for what they are.”
LSD & Charles Savage
In 1952: Charles Savage published the first study on the use of LSD to treat depression.
LSD & Dr. Humphry Osmond
In 1953: Dr. Humphry Osmond began treating alcoholics with LSD.
First LSD conferences
In 1955: first conferences focusing on LSD and mescaline took place in Atlantic City and Princeton, N.J.
LSD & Aldous Huxley
In 1955: with Al Hubbard’s assistance, novelist Aldous Huxley first took LSD. (see March 14, 1957)
LSD/relating to Nature
December 16, 2019: the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health published an article in which they said, “We found a strong relationship between the amount of lifetime use of psychedelics and nature relatedness, as well as increases in nature relatedness from before to after psychedelic use.” (next LSD, see November 3, 2020)
December 16 Peace Love Art Activism
LGBTQ
Overt Homosexuality
December 16, 1963: the NY State Liquor Authority announced the revocation of the liquor licenses of two NYC bars. In a NY Times article, NYC Police Commissioner said, “Homosexuality is another one of the many problems confronting law enforcement…the underlying factors in homosexuality are not criminal but rather medical and sociological.” In the same NYT article, a Dr Irvin Bieber stated, “Public acceptance, [of homosexuality] if based on the concept of homosexuality as an illness, could be useful. If, by a magic wand, one could eliminate overnight all the manifestations of hostility I think there would be a gradual, important reduction in the incidence of homosexuality.” (see May 19, 1964)
Rev Frank Schaefer
December 16, 2013: Rev. Frank Schaefer, a United Methodist minister who was suspended for officiating at his son’s gay marriage, said he would not voluntarily surrender his religious credentials even though he cannot uphold his church’s doctrines on issues relating to same-sex marriage.
Schaefer was convicted of violating church doctrine by performing a same-sex marriage when he officiated at his son’s nuptials in 2007 in Massachusetts. On Nov. 19, he was suspended for 30 days and asked to agree to abide by church doctrine, as outlined in the Methodist Book of Discipline, or to surrender his ministerial credentials. (see Dec 19)
December 16 Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam & STUDENT ACTIVISM
December 16, 1965: in Des Moines, Iowa John F. Tinker (15), John’s younger sister Mary Beth Tinker (13), and their friend Christopher Eckhardt (16) decided to wear black armbands to their schools (high school for John and Christopher, junior high for Mary Beth) in protest of the Vietnam War and supporting the Robert Kennedy’s proposed extension of the Viet Cong’s proposed Christmas Eve truce. Two days earlier, the principals of the Des Moines schools adopted a policy that banned the wearing of armbands to school. Any student violating the policy would be suspended and allowed to return to school only after agreeing to comply with the policy. Mary Beth Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt chose to violate this policy, and the next day John Tinker also did so. Both were suspended from school until after January 1, 1966, when their protest had been scheduled to end. (for more, see Tinker v Des Moines; Student Activism, see February 27, 1969; Tinker, see February 24, 1969; Vietnam, see Dec 18)
December 16 Peace Love Art Activism
December 16 Music et al
The Beatles
December 16, 1966: release of Beatles Fourth Christmas Record — Pantomime: Everywhere It’s Christmas to fan club members. (next Beatles, see Dec 18)
John & Yoko
December 16, 1969: John Lennon and Yoko Ono put up eleven billboards in major cities worldwide with the slogan: War Is Over! (Lennon, see Dec 19; Vietnam see February 18, 1970)
December 16 Peace Love Art Activism
INDEPENDENCE DAY
December 16, 1971, Bangladesh war of independence ends in victory. (NYT article)
December 16, 1991: Kazakhstan declared its independence from the Soviet Union. (USSR, see Dec 24; ID, see March 1, 1992)
December 16 Peace Love Art Activism
Sara Jane Moore
December 16, 1975, a federal court accepted Sara Jane Moore’s plea of guilty of attempting to assassinate President Ford. (see Sarah Jane for more)
December 16 Peace Love Art Activism
TERRORISM
December 16, 1989: a powerful explosion killed Federal Judge Robert Vance after he opened a mail bomb in his house near Birmingham, Alabama. His wife, Helen, was seriously injured.
The federal government charged Walter Leroy Moody, Jr., with the murders of Judge Vance and of Robert E. Robinson, a black civil-rights attorney in Savannah, Georgia, who had been killed in a separate explosion at his office on December 18. Moody was also charged with mailing bombs that were defused at the Eleventh Circuit’s headquarters in Atlanta and at the Jacksonville office of the NAACP.
Moody was sentenced to seven federal life terms. (see Dec 18)
December 16 Peace Love Art Activism
IRAQ
Weapon discovery
December 16, 1995: Iraqi scuba divers, under the direction of the United Nations Special Commission, dredge the Tigris near Baghdad. The divers find over 200 prohibited Russian-made missile instruments and components. (see August 31, 1996)
U.S. and British forces attack Iraq v Clinton Impeachment
December 16, 1998: in a coordinated strike, U.S. and British forces attack Iraq in retaliation for its failure to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors. Because of the military action, House Republican leaders delay a planned impeachment debate and vote set to begin Thursday, December 17. (see Clinton Impeachment: Iraq, see October 2, 2002)
December 16 Peace Love Art Activism
Sexual Abuse of Children
December 16, 2006: the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay $60m to settle to 45 cases of alleged sexual abuse by priests. (see January 4, 2007)
December 16 Peace Love Art Activism
STAND YOUR GROUND LAW
December 16, 2012: Tampa, FL. Michael Jock was waiting in line at a Little Caesars when another customer, Randall White, complained about the slow service. The men exchanged words, which turned into a shoving match. Jock pulled out a revolver and fired it at White, striking him in the torso. The two struggled and White was shot a second time. Jock claimed the action was justified under Florida’s “stand your ground” law.
However, according to the Tampa Bay Times, police determined that the incident “did not reach a level where deadly force was required.” The officers charged Jock with aggravated battery with a weapon and shooting within a building. He was later released on $20,000 bail. (see January 3, 2013)
December 16 Peace Love Art Activism
Stop and Frisk Policy
December 16, 2013: the Civilian Complaint Review Board went after officer Roman Goris after an alleged wrongful stop and frisk in 2011. The NYPD disciplinary trial of marked the first time the NYPD’s independent watchdog prosecuted an officer for a stop and frisk violation itself. (see Dec 19)
December 16 Peace Love Art Activism
Cannabis
December 16, 2014: drug Policy Alliance lobbyist Bill Piper told the Los Angeles Times “the war on medical marijuana is over” after President Obama signed the $1.1 trillion “Cromnibus” bill with a small provision tucked away inside that prohibited the federal government from interfering with states that legalized it. (see Dec 18 or see CCC for expanded chronology)
December 16 Peace Love Art Activism
Women’s Health
December 16, 2021: the federal government permanently lifted a major restriction on access to abortion pills. It allowed patients to receive the medication by mail instead of requiring them to obtain the pills in person from specially certified health providers.
The Food and Drug Administration’s action meant that medication abortion, an increasingly common method authorized in the United States for pregnancies up to 10 weeks’ gestation, would become more available to women who found it difficult to travel to an abortion provider or prefer to terminate a pregnancy in their homes. It allowed patients to have a telemedicine appointment with a provider who could prescribe abortion pills and send them to the patient by mail. [NYT article] (next WH, see March 25, 2022)
December 15, 1962 – March 8, 1963: Vaughn Meader’s comedy album, The First Family Billboard #1 album.
On it, Meader and others parodied the President John F Kennedy and the rest of the extended first family. Released in November 1962 (two years after JFK’s election), the album sold at a rate more than one million copies per week for the first 6 1/2 weeks. By January it had sold more than 7 million copies. The two main writers were Bob Booker and Earle Doud. In fact, the actual name of the album is: “Bob Booker & Earle Doud Present The First Family.” Before release, there were some who felt that such comedy was degrading to the Presidency, but its sales hushed those detractors.
The album won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1963. In March 1963 a second album, The First Family Volume Two, had a combination of spoken-word comedy and songs. It peaked at #4 on the album chart in June 1963.
Immediately upon Kennedy’s assassination, Cadence Records pulled both albums from stores and destroyed all unsold copies. Not until 1999 did the albums appear again.
December 15 Music et al
Beatles ’65
On December 15, 1964, Capital released The Beatles Beatles ’65. In two weeks it became the 9th biggest selling album of 1964.
It was the fifth album Capital issued, the Beatles’ seventh American album overall. Like many early Beatle albums, Beatles ’65 was not a UK release, but a collection of songs many of which had already appeared on UK releases.
For Beatles ’65 the songs were mainly from the UK Beatles For Sale, but also the UK Hard Day’s Night. The tracks were:
Side 1
No Reply*
I’m a Loser*
Baby’s In Black*
Rock and Roll Music
I’ll Follow the Sun*
Mr Moonlight
Side 2
Honey Don’t
I’ll Be Back*
She’s a Woman*
I Feel Fine*
Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby
*written by Lennon/McCartney
Beatle success always influenced the music industry even including album titles. During 1965 the following artists released their own ’65 album:
Frank Sinatra, Sinatra ’65
Duke Ellington, Ellington ’65
Sergio Mendes, Brasil ’65
December 15 Music et al
Plastic Ono Band
On December 15, 1969 John Lennon gave what turned out to be his last live performance in England. His Plastic Ono Band played at the UNICEF “Peace for Christmas” charity concert at the Lyceum Ballroom in London.
Surprised by the announcement that UNICEF had scheduled him, but wanted to take advantage of the publicity to promote his War Is Over campaign, Lennon quickly invited those who had participated in September’s Toronto Rock and Roll Revival: Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, and Alan White, and Billy Preston.
On December 15, however, Clapton arrived with almost all of Delaney & Bonnie’s touring band, which at the time included George Harrison. Because of Harrison’s participation, it was the first time since the Beatles last show on August 29, 1966 that Lennon and Harrison performed in a concert together.
The full line-up, playing before a huge “War is over” backdrop, was: Lennon, Harrison, Clapton and Delaney Bramlett, Ono, Bonnie Bramlett, Alan White, im Gordon, Billy Preston, Klaus Voormann, Bobby Keys, and Jim Price. Lennon later referred to it as the Plastic Ono Supergroup.
Don’t Worry Kyoko
The band played two songs. For the first Lennon said, “We’d like to do a number. This song’s about pain” and then played “Cold Turkey.” The second song was “Don’t Worry Kyoko” which lasted nearly 40 minutes. Geoff Emerick recorded the songs and he had to switch tape reels twice. Drummers Alan White and Jimmy Gordon eventually sped up their drumming to the point that the band simply had to run out of steam. Many in the audience had already walked out. Those who remained were, according to Lennon, “in a trance.”
The songs remained unreleased until the 2005 reissue of Lennon’s Some Time in New York City. “Don’t Worry Kyoko” was severely trimmed. (Songfact article)
The concert also featured the Young Rascals, Desmond Dekker and the Aces, and Blue Mink and Black Velvet. Emperor Rosko was the disc jockey between performances.
The next day, John and Yoko flew to Toronto to begin the next stage of their peace campaign.
December 15 Music et al
What's so funny about peace, love, art, and activism?
