Thursday, December 31, 2009

Old School Thursday: Get Your Champers On Edition

Today, New Year’s Eve, is also known as National Champagne Day – and that’s as it should be, since it’s likely that more champagne bottles will be opened tonight than any other single night of the year.

We’ll be ringing in the new year with dinner at Crush, possibly followed by drinks at Grand Cru, which was also the site of a crazy New Year’s Eve celebration back in 2005. Crazy not because of the drinking, but because Cooper ate a bunch of espresso beans and, well, there’s a reason why “Caffeine Cooper” is always an entertaining hit.

But enough about our personal December 31st history. Lots of other things happened on this date.

To start, all the way back in 1600, the British East India Company was incorporated by royal charter, giving Britian a stake in the very busy international spice trade.

Two and a half centuries later, in 1853, England was in the news again, when a dinner party for scientists was held inside a life-sized model of an Iguanodon dinosaur. The dinosaur was part of an exhibit of 2 dozen dinosaur models, created by sculptor Benjamin W. Hawkins and paleontologist Richard Owen, at the Crystal Palace in London. No word on what was served at the party, but it sounds kind of awesome and trippy, doesn’t it?

Finally, today in 1938, the breathalyzer’s predecssor, the Harger “Drunkometer,” was introduced in Indiana. Good timing, Indiana! Also, “Drunkometer?” What a great name.

And that’s it for 2009! Hope everyone has a fun, safe night, whatever you’re doing. I’ll be taking a break tomorrow and over the weekend, then will be back, rarin’ to go, on Monday, January 4, 2010!

[Photo by Flickr user Oskay. Used under the Creative Commons license.]

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