Michael's Date List (Version 2)
This is a list of everyone I've ever dated. No just kidding. That list,
which is shorter, is hidden within this list, but it is encoded in a
sufficiently subtle way that you probably won’t notice it. This is a list
that I wrote in 1998 when it occurred to may that I
had memorized a whole bunch of dates, and maybe it would be amusing to write
them all down. (I should note, since someone asked, that these aren't
necessarily dates I consider important, but merely dates I remember(ed). None of these dates were looked up during the periods
when I was writing the list, although a few were confirmed after being added,
to make sure I wasn’t deluding myself. There are several events on the
list (for example,
3/15/44 BCE: Julius Caesar is killed.
12/25/800: The Pope proclaims Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor.
10/12/1492: Christopher Columbus sees America for the first time.
12/21/1620: The Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock.
1/17/1706*: Benjamin Franklin is born.
2/22/1732: George Washington is born.
4/13/1743*: Thomas Jefferson is born.
4/19/1775: The first shot of the Revolutionary War is fired.
7/2/1776*: A day that John Adams thought would be remembered for a long time, according to a letter he wrote to his wife.
7/4/1776*: The Continental Congress passes the Declaration of Independence.
7/5/1776: The Declaration of Independence is mailed to the colonies.
4/30/1777: Karl Friedrich Gauss is born.
9/17/1787: The Constitution is signed.
4/30/1789: George Washington is inaugurated as the first President of the United States.
3/4/1793: Washington's second inaugural address is the shortest ever.
3/4/1797: John Adams is inaugurated as the second President of the United States.
1/7/1800*: Millard Fillmore is born.
3/4/1801: Thomas Jefferson is inaugurated as the third President of the
2/12/1809**: Abraham Lincoln is born. Charles Darwin is born.
3/4/1809: James Madison is inaugurated as the fourth President of the United States.
3/4/1817: James Monroe is inaugurated as the fifth President of the United States.
3/4/1825: John Quincy Adams is inaugurated as the sixth President of the United States.
7/4/1826: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson die.
3/4/1829: Andrew Jackson is inaugurated as the seventh President of the United States.
3/4/1837: Martin Van Buren is inaugurated as the eighth President of the United States.
3/4/1841: William Henry Harrison is inaugurated as the ninth President of the United States. Harrison gives the longest inaugural address ever.
4/4/1841: President William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia.
3/4/1845: James Knox Polk is inaugurated as the 11th President of the United States.
1/24/1849: Gold is discovered at Sutter's Mill, California, leading to the California Gold Rush.
3/5/1849: Zachary Taylor is inaugurated as the 12th President of the United States.
7/4/1850: Zachary Taylor gets food poisoning.
7/9/1850: Zachary Taylor dies in office.
7/10/1850: Millard Fillmore takes office as the 13th President of the United States.
9/18/1851*: The first edition of the New York Times comes out.
3/4/1853: Franklin Pierce is inaugurated as the 14th President of the United States.
3/4/1857: James Buchanan is inaugurated as the 15th President of the United States.
3/4/1861: Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as the 16th President of the United States.
7/1/1863: The Battle of Gettysburg begins.
7/4/1863: The Battle of Gettysburg ends.
3/4/1865: Lincoln delivers his second inaugural address.
4/14/1865: John Wilkes Booth shoots President Lincoln while Lincoln is watching the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre.
4/15/1865: President Lincoln dies.
3/4/1869: Ulysses Simpson Grant is inaugurated as the 18th President of the United States.
3/4/1877: Rutherford Birchard Hayes is inaugurated as the 19th President of the United States.
6/12/1880: John Richmond pitches the first perfect game in major league history.
6/17/1880: Monte Ward pitches the second perfect game in major league history.
3/4/1881: James Abram Garfield is inaugurated as the 20th President of the United States.
9/19/1881**: President Garfield dies in office from an assassin’s bullet.
3/4/1885: Grover Cleveland is inaugurated as the 22nd President of the United States.
3/4/1889: Benjamin Harrison is inaugurated as the 23rd President of the United States.
3/4/1893: Grover Cleveland is inaugurated as the 24th President of the United States.
6/27/1893: A major financial panic hits the United States.
2/14/1894: Jack Benny is born.
1/20/1896: George Burns is born.
3/4/1897: William McKinley is inaugurated as the 25th President of the United States.
3/4/1909: William Howard Taft is inaugurated as the 27th President of the United States.
4/15/1912: The Titanic sinks.
3/4/1913: Woodrow Wilson is inaugurated as the 28th President of the United States.
6/28/1914*: World War I begins when Archduke Ferdinand is assassinated in Sarajevo.
5/1/1920: Joe Oeschger and Leon Cadore both pitch all 26 innings of a 1-1 tie.
3/4/1921: Warren Gamaliel Harding is inaugurated as the 29th President of the United States.
6/12/1924*: George Herbert Walker Bush is born.
6/1/1925: Lou Gehrig plays in the first of 2,130 consecutive games for the Yankees.
11/18/1928: “Steamboat Willie,” the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, is released.
1/15/1929: Martin Luther King Jr. is born.
3/4/1929: Herbert Clark Hoover is inaugurated as the 31st President of the United States.
7/18/1929*: Dick Button is born.
10/24/1929: Black Thursday.
10/28/1929: The stock market crashes. Percentagewise, this is the second biggest drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
10/29/1929: Black Tuesday. The stock market crashes again. This is the third largest drop by percentage in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
3/4/1933: Franklin Delano Roosevelt is inaugurated as the 32nd President of the United States.
2/5/1934: Hank Aaron is born.
9/7/1937*: Mark McGwire’s father is born.
7/4/1939: The Yankees honor Lou Gehrig at Yankee Stadium. Gehrig makes his famous pronouncement, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth."
9/1/1939*: World War II begins.
2/29/1940*: Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award for acting.
5/15/1941: Joe DiMaggio begins a record 56-game hitting streak.
6/2/1941: Lou Gehrig dies of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease).
12/7/1941: The Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor.
12/8/1941: The United States declares war on Japan. Franklin Roosevelt calls the preceding day "a day that will live in infamy."
6/6/1944: D-Day. Allied forces land in Normandy.
4/12/1945: Franklin Delano Roosevelt dies in office. Harry S Truman succeeds to the Presidency.
5/8/1945: V-E Day. Germany surrenders.
8/6/1945**: The U.S. drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
6/9/1945**: The U.S. drops an atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
10/24/1945*: The United Nations is founded.
1/1/1946*: According to some sources, this rather arbitrarily chosen date is the beginning of the baby boom.
1/31/1947*: Nolan Ryan is born.
4/15/1947: Jackie Robinson makes his debut as the first black player in modern major league baseball.
12/10/1947*: The American Friends Service Committee wins the Nobel Peace Prize. (This is the date of the ceremony, not the announcement.)
8/16/1948: Babe Ruth dies.
10/3/1951*: Bobby Thomson’s ninth-inning home run gives the Giants a come-from-behind victory over the Dodgers and the National League pennant. Dave Winfield is born.
2/21/1952: Dick Button wins his second consecutive Olympic gold medal in men's figure skating. Radio host Kathy O'Connell is born.
2/29/1952: Dick Button wins his fifth consecutive world figure skating championship.
1/20/1953: Dwight David Eisenhower is inaugurated as the 34th President of the United States.
5/6/1954: Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run a mile in under four minutes.
5/17/1954*: The Supreme Court outlaws school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education.
11/12/1955: In the movie Back to the Future, a clock tower is hit by lightning on this day.
12/1/1955: Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
10/8/1956: Don Larsen pitches a perfect game in the World Series. Sal Maglie is the losing pitcher.
2/3/1959*: Something touches Don McLean deep inside.
5/26/1959: The Pittsburgh Pirates' Harvey Haddix pitches 12 perfect innings but loses the game in the 13th. Lew Burdette wins with a shutout.
1/20/1961: John Fitzgerald Kennedy is inaugurated as the 35th President of the United States.
4/12/1961: Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person in space.
5/5/1961: Alan Shephard becomes the first American in space.
10/1/1961: Roger Maris hits his 61st home run of the season, breaking Babe Ruth's record.
10/1/1963*: Mark McGwire is born.
11/22/1963: President Kennedy is killed in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald.
11/24/1963: Jack Ruby fatally shoots Lee Harvey Oswald.
11/17/1964*: Mitch Williams is born.
9/18/1965: The television program "Get Smart" premieres.
1/30/1968: The Tet offensive begins.
4/4/1968: Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated.
6/5/1968: Robert F. Kennedy dies after being shot by Sirhan B. Sirhan.
12/31/1968*: My parents are engaged.
1/20/1969: Richard Milhous Nixon is inaugurated as the 37th President of the United States.
6/15/1969: My parents are married.
7/20/1969: Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin become the first people to walk on the moon.
7/21/1969*: The New York Times runs the headline “MEN WALK ON MOON”, its first headline in 96-point type.
1/1/1970*: Some computer languages store dates as the number of days since this date.
4/10/1970*: The Beatles break up.
4/22/1970: The first Earth Day is observed.
11/20/1970*: “Wall Street Week” premieres on PBS.
8/10/1971: The Society for American Baseball Research is founded.
6/17/1972**: The break-in at the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate that will lead to Nixon's resignation occurs. Title 9 is signed into law.
9/30/1972: The Pirates' Roberto Clemente gets his 3,000th and final hit.
12/31/1972: Roberto Clemente dies in an airplane crash while delivering aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.
10/10/1973: Vice-president Spiro Agnew resigns.
10/20/1973: The Saturday Night Massacre.
4/8/1974: Hank Aaron hits the 715th home run of his career, breaking Babe Ruth's record.
8/8/1974: President Nixon resigns.
8/9/1974: President Nixon leaves office. Gerald Rudolph Ford succeeds to the Presidency.
4/17/1976: Mike Schmidt hits four home runs as the Phillies come from 11 runs down to beat the Cubs, 18-16, in 10 innings at Wrigley Field.
7/4/1976: Tim McCarver hits an apparent grand slam but is out when he passes Garry Maddox on the basepaths.
12/8/1976: Lenny Ng is born.
1/20/1977: James Earl Carter is inaugurated as the 39th President of the United States.
7/20/1978: Carl Bosley is born.
9/24/1978: My cousin, Richard Smolen, is born.
2/4/1979: Josh Nichols-Barrer is born.
4/1/1979*: The television network that will become Nickelodeon goes on the air (but with a different name).
7/20/1979*: Anna Schein is born.
9/5/1979: Eric Hickey, Jason Mann and Ted Mann are born.
9/7/1979**: Geoff Albert-Bolinsky is born. ESPN goes on the air.
9/19/1979: I am born.
9/21/1979: Meghana Bhatt is born.
10/15/1979*: Philip Jablon and Ginny Lewis are born.
12/31/1979*: Nicola Wybar (Thompson) is born.
2/21/1980: Jacob Schultz is born.
2/27/1980: Jen Fields is born.
4/6/1980: David Sachs is born.
5/6/1980: Kara Goldman is born.
5/8/1980*: Dana Gonen is born.
9/3/1980: My cousin, Hilary Smolen, is born.
10/21/1980: The Philadelphia Phillies win their first World Series. Tug McGraw strikes out Kansas City's Willie Wilson for the final out of the Game Six victory.
12/8/1980: John Lennon is killed.
1/20/1981: U.S. hostages are released in Iran. Ronald Wilson Reagan is inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States.
2/3/1981: My sister Lesley is born.
9/19/1981: Melanie Wood is born.
5/30/1982: Cal Ripken begins the longest streak of consecutive games played by any baseball player in history.
6/11/1982: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial is released.
7/14/1982*: Sam Crane is born.
11/23/1982: My brother Danny is born.
4/15/1983: Tokyo Disneyland opens.
7/20/1983*: Emily Runde is born.
9/28/1983: The Phillies clinch the National League Eastern Division championship.
5/13/1985*: The city of Philadelphia bombs a block of Osage Avenue in a strike against MOVE.
7/5/1985*: After relief pitcher Rick Camp hits a game-tying home run with two outs in the bottom of the 18th inning, the Mets defeat the Braves by three runs in 19 innings. (The game had started on 7/4/1985.) When the game ends at 3:55 am, the postgame fireworks display goes on as planned.
9/11/1985*: Pete Rose singles for his 4,192nd hit, breaking Ty Cobb’s supposed record of 4,191. (Prior to the breaking of the record, researchers discovered that 4,191 was probably not the right number, 4,189 being the most accurate estimate.)
1/28/1986*: The space shuttle Challenger disintegrates shortly after liftoff.
10/31/1986*: My all-time favorite Halloween costume (of mine). I wear a suit (or something similar) with a Superman shirt visible under the jacket.
2/13/1987*: The first time in roughly a century that a “Friday the 13th” coincides with a full moon, according to my first grade teacher.
3/13/1987*: My class concludes its study on immigration with a celebration of foods from countries immigrants might come from.
10/19/1987**: The Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 508 points, easily its largest drop to date, and its largest percentage drop (22.6%) ever.
8/8/1988: The first major league night game at Wrigley Field is scheduled for this day, but it is rained out.
8/9/1988: The first major league night game at Wrigley Field is played.
11/8/1988: George Bush is elected President of the United States.
12/21/1988*: Pan Am flight 103 explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland.
1/20/1989: George Herbert Walker Bush is inaugurated as the 41st President of the United States.
4/1/1989**: A. Bartlett Giamatti takes office as baseball commissioner. The television show “Total Panic” premieres.
5/1/1989: The Disney MGM Studios open at Walt Disney World.
5/2/1989: Paul Lindenmaier's class performs its play, "The Wizard of Oz." I play an Oz Tech.
9/1/1989: Baseball commissioner Giamatti dies in office.
9/30/1989: I attend a taping of "The Dr. Fad Show."
12/31/1989*: I spend most of the day watching Nick at Nite’s first annual “rerun countdown” (seriously), but am asleep by the time an episode of “Bewitched” is named the #1 rerun of the year.
4/22/1990: At Grandmom Betty's birthday party, Richard and I tape family members appearing in a game show. Grandmom Betty gets the first question wrong.
5/8/1990: Paul Lindenmaier's class performs its play, "Annie."
6/28/1990: I listen to "Kid's Corner" for the first time. Mike Weilbacher is on in the first half, and the CompuDudes are on in the second half. "U Can't Touch This" beats "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" in the music challenge.
7/11/1990: "Under the Sea" beats "Turtle Power" in the "Kid's Corner" music challenge.
8/2/1990: Iraq invades Kuwait.
10/29/1990: Richard and I interview Kathy O'Connell.
12/21/1990**: "Kid's Corner" counts down its top ten songs of 1990, culminating with the #1 song, “Under the Sea” from the animated Disney movie The Little Mermaid. This is the beginning of my practice of listening to Kid’s Corner song countdowns and keeping running statistics of the most popular songs, a practice I will continue until February 1994.
1/16/1991: The Gulf War begins.
2/27/1991: The Gulf War ends.
4/17/1991: The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 3,000 for the first time.
5/1/1991: The Oakland Athletics' Rickey Henderson breaks Lou Brock's career record for stolen bases. Nolan Ryan pitches his seventh career no-hitter, striking out 16 Blue Jays and walking two.
5/7/1991: Paul Lindenmaier's class performs its play, "The Fantastic Mr. Fox."
6/7/1991: Lower school graduation, but not mine.
7/28/1991: Dennis Martinez pitches the 13th perfect game in major league history.
9/7/1991: Richard's Bar Mitzvah.
10/1/1991: The Kalkstein class leaves on the sixth grade camping trip.
10/2/1991: The Kalkstein class visits the boulder field.
10/3/1991: The Kalkstein class visits a stream.
10/4/1991: The Kalkstein class returns from the sixth grade camping trip.
11/5/1991*: In a major upset, Harris Wofford is elected Senator from Pennsylvania in a special election.
11/7/1991: Magic Johnson announces he has HIV. A character named Scott dies on "Beverly Hills, 90210."
11/8/1991: Rachel Winters wears a hat in memory of Scott.
11/13/1991*: My family moves from Center City, Philadelphia, to Chestnut Hill.
11/16/1991*: We adopt two extraordinary cats: Betsy and Darwin.
11/22/1991: Janet Kalkstein's first contract of the year is due.
12/20/1991**: "Kid's Corner" holds its annual countdown of top songs of the year, with “Under the Sea” ranking first for the second consecutive year.
12/21/1991**: A classmate of mine, Renata King, holds a Christmas party.
12/22/1991*: I begin writing a computer program (for my Apple IIGS) inspired by the previous day’s Christmas party.
12/25/1991: Gorbachev resigns.
1/17/1992: "The Window" is played on "Kid's Corner" for the first time.
2/14/1992*: I do something really funny. Four other people were involved, two of whom are mentioned elsewhere on this list; I wonder if any of them remembers it.
2/21/1992**: Kristi Yamaguchi wins the Olympic gold medal in women's figure skating. Something that is kind of funny in retrospect happens. Thousands of people are aware of it, but only a few (and none of those directly involved) know of my involvement.
2/29/1992*: The New Jersey State Aquarium (later known as the Adventure Aquarium) opens in Camden, New Jersey.
3/6/1992: The much-anticipated Michelangelo virus fails to do much damage to the world's computers.
5/22/1992: Janet Kalkstein's last contract of the year is due. This is also Johnny Carson's last night hosting "The Tonight Show."
7/3/1992*: My team wins the Brain Bowl, a trivia competition at the Summer Institute for the Gifted.
7/10/1992*: I attend a dance of the standard middle/high school variety for the first time.
7/17/1992*: The first time I slow-dance with anyone (Anna Wik).
9/7/1992: Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent resigns.
9/8/1992*: My class leaves on the seventh grade camping trip at Camp Darkwaters.
9/9/1992**: Bud Selig takes over as acting baseball commissioner. End of the seventh grade camping trip.
9/19/1992: My Bar Mitzvah. The Phillies get shut out for the last time for more than a year. If anyone cares, this is also the date of the premiere of the television program "Nickelodeon Guts."
9/20/1992: Phillies second baseman Mickey Morandini completes an unassisted triple play.
11/1/1992*: I begin an attempt to go the whole month of November without uttering the title of a certain song, because I feel I have been mentioning the song too much.
11/3/1992: Bill Clinton is elected President of the United States.
11/7/1992: Michael Wolgin's and Gabe Warren's Bar Mitzvahs.
11/14/1992*: Grandmom Betty, Richard and I visit Washington D.C. for the day, but we lose all of our money except $7.43. Dana Bazelon’s Bat Mitzvah.
1/1/1993*: Czechoslovakia splits into two countries.
1/20/1993: William Jefferson Clinton is inaugurated as the 42nd President of the United States. Audrey Hepburn dies.
2/26/1993: The World Trade Center is bombed.
2/27/1993**: Germantown Friends School wins the annual Philadelphia Chapter MATHCOUNTS Competition for the second consecutive year.
3/26/1993*: My team arrives at the Embers Inn and Convention Center for the State MATHCOUNTS Competition. The first time I encounter David Baron, who tells us how to get to the pool.
3/27/1993: The annual Pennsylvania MATHCOUNTS Competition is held.
3/30/1993*: Charlie Brown hits a game-winning home run in the ninth inning.
4/19/1993: A 51-day cult standoff near Waco, Texas, ends with the Branch Davidians burning their compound.
4/30/1993*: Kansas dominates the tenth National MATHCOUNTS Competition.
5/20/1993: The final episode of "Cheers" airs.
5/22/1993: Julia Cornfield's Bat Mitzvah.
5/28/1993: The movie Super Mario Brothers is released.
6/11/1993: Jurassic Park is released.
6/23/1993: Andrew Wiles announces that he has proved Fermat's Last Theorem.
6/27/1993: The Center for Talented Youth first summer session of the year begins.
6/28/1993*: Tim Schmitz uses the word “recapitulate” twice in the span of a few minutes.
7/3/1993*: After the first game of a Padres-Phillies doubleheader in Philadelphia ends after 1 am, the Phillies win the second game on Mitch Williams’s RBI single in the bottom of the 10th inning at 4:41 am.
7/4/1993*: Nelson Mandela and F.W. DeKlerk receive the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia.
7/7/1993*: Kevin Stocker plays his first game in the major leagues.
7/13/1993*: Terry Mulholland is the starter for the National League in an All-Star Game probably best remembered for John Kruk’s antics while batting against Randy Johnson.
7/18/1993: Mom, Lesley and I write the first annual Barry Letter.
7/20/1993: Bill Clinton appears on "Larry King Live" for the first time since taking office.
7/28/1993: Seattle Mariners outfielder Ken Griffey Jr. ties a major league record by hitting a home run for the eighth consecutive game.
8/1/1993*: Reggie Jackson is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
8/31/1993*: The Phillies send Ruben Amaro to the minor leagues and call up Tony Longmire, making Longmire eligible for their postseason roster.
9/3/1993*: On WCAU (Channel 10) in Philadelphia, Terry Ruggles calls it “ironic” that there is no law in New Jersey against horses jumping off of towers.
9/7/1993: The Cardinals and Reds play one of the most interesting doubleheaders in major league history. In the first game, the two teams combine to use 15 pitchers, a record for a nine-inning game. In the second game, the Cardinals' Mark Whiten ties records with four home runs and 12 runs batted in.
9/13/1993: Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat shake hands on the White House lawn. Ironically, the video game "Mortal Kombat" is released on the same day.
9/18/1993*: Rachel Winters’s Bat Mitzvah.
9/19/1993: The television program "Rocko's Modern Life" premieres.
9/28/1993: The Phillies clinch the NL East championship.
10/3/1993: The San Francisco Giants lose on the last day of the season and fall into second place in the NL West despite having won 103 games.
10/6/1993*: The Phillies win Game One of the National League Championship Series when Kim Batiste enters the game as a defensive replacement, makes an error (leading to the game-tying run), then drives in the winning run in the bottom of the 10th.
10/7/1993*: Lenny Dykstra’s solo home run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning pulls the Phillies to within 11 runs of the Braves, but they lose Game Two of the National League Championship Series anyway.
10/12/1993*: The Toronto Blue Jays win their second consecutive American League pennant, defeating the Chicago White Sox in six games.
10/13/1993*: The Phillies win the National League pennant, defeating the Braves four games to two in the National League Championship Series.
10/16/1993*: Seth Garz’s Bar Mitzvah. After months of attempts, I finally get a DJ at a dance to play a “Weird Al” Yankovic song.
10/20/1993: In the highest-scoring World Series game ever played, the Toronto Blue Jays defeat the Phillies, 15-14, with six runs in the eighth inning.
10/21/1993: In Game Five of the World Series, Curt Schilling pitches a shutout and the Phillies win, 2-0.
10/23/1993: The Phillies come from behind to take the lead in Game Six behind a three-run home run by Lenny Dykstra, but the Blue Jays win the game and the World Series on a ninth-inning home run by Joe Carter off of Mitch Williams.
12/11/1993: I start a graph tracking the condition of Grandmom Betty's foot.
12/29/1993*: “Kid’s Corner” announces that its top song of 1993 is “Jurassic Park” by “Weird Al” Yankovic.
2/5/1994**: Germantown Friends School wins the Philadelphia MATHCOUNTS Competition for the third consecutive year.
2/27/1994*: The Veterans Committee elects Phil Rizzuto to the Hall of Fame.
3/5/1994: Lesley's Bat Mitzvah.
3/12/1994**: GFS wins the Pennsylvania MATHCOUNTS Competition for the second time in three years.
3/14/1994*: The GFS MATHCOUNTS team is recognized in an assembly for its performance in the state competition.
4/6/1994**: The first time I take an exam that is three hours long (or longer).
4/12/1994*: A trip to Harrisburg for the day to meet the Lieutenant Governor, Mark Singel, who talks about “outcome based education.”
5/12/1994*: MATHCOUNTS national competitors arrive in Washington DC and trade pins. The Pennsylvania team does a practice Team Round, which goes badly.
5/13/1994**: The Cleveland Indians lose at Jacobs Field for the last time for more than a month. Will Engel wins the 11th National MATHCOUNTS Competition. That night, the competitors hear a lecture by Dr. Heinz-Otto Peitgen.
5/14/1994: The previous day's MATHCOUNTS winners receive their trophies.
5/16/1994*: Yet more MATHCOUNTS assembly recognition.
6/15/1994: The last day of school, late this year because of snow days.
6/27/1994*: The first day of Number Theory with Pomm and Timmer. Pomm wears a tuxedo to do a formal proof, and we see “both proofs” of the Pythagorean Theorem.
7/15/1994*: On the last day of class, Pomm and Timmer somehow gain access to the board in the F&M dining hall that lists the food offered for lunch, and have it list the theorems from class named after food.
7/20/1994: I get my braces put on.
7/28/1994: Major league baseball players set an August 12 strike date. The Texas Rangers' Kenny Rogers pitches the 14th perfect game in major league history.
7/30/1994*: Phil Rizzuto and Steve Carlton, among others, are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
8/12/1994: Major league baseball players go on strike.
9/18/1994*: Ken Burns’s nine-part documentary “Baseball” premieres on PBS.
9/19/1994: Andrew Wiles has the insight that leads to his fixing his flawed proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
11/8/1994*: Republicans make sweeping gains in midterm elections to take control of both houses of Congress.
2/16/1995: Spring training opens with replacement players. The 46th American High School Mathematics Examination (AHSME) is held, with GFS having the highest team score in Pennsylvania.
2/17/1995*: Matt Zielinski wins the Jeopardy Teen Tournament. (Note: This is the air date, not the tape date.)
3/14/1995*: GFS celebrates Pi Day for the first time.
4/19/1995: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City is bombed. I find out while looking over a copy of the Arbelos for the first time.
4/27/1995: The 24th United States of America Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO) is held.
5/8/1995: I talk to Titu Andreescu for the first time.
5/21/1995: I meet a MOPper for the first time (Johanna Miller).
5/22/1995: The annual Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of Mathematics contest is held in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. Johanna Miller receives a perfect score to win the individual competition.
5/24/1995: The ninth grade at Germantown Friends School (GFS) performs South Pacific. I play the Professor.
5/25/1995: The ninth grade at GFS performs South Pacific, with me playing the Professor again. This time, it rains and there is a power failure in the middle of the play.
6/2/1995*: I arrive at my first ARML, and see some people I know whom I haven’t seen since the preceding summer.
6/3/1995**: Pedro Martinez becomes the second pitcher to lose a perfect game in extra innings when he allows a double to lead off the 10th inning. Daniel Stronger wins the annual American Regions Mathematics League (ARML) competition when he is the only person to get seven individual questions right.
6/13/1995: The 22nd Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program (MOP) begins.
6/16/1995*: According to a fictional story written years after the fact, this is the date on which I seduce someone at a dance at the Springside School using set theory.
6/23/1995*: After taking a four-hour math test on which I am so lost that I do not turn in solutions to any of the problems, I go with a group of people to see Pocahontas on the day of its premiere.
6/24/1995*: The first time I take a test longer than four hours. The question “If I duplicate Swang and eat one of him, will I be as smart as he is?” is first posed.
7/11/1995*: A group of people, including me, goes off in search of a Burger King, finds one (which is closed), then gets lost on the way back to the Illinois Math and Science Academy.
7/12/1995: MOP ends.
7/30/1995*: Richie Ashburn and Mike Schmidt are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
9/5/1995: Cal Ripken plays in his 2,130th consecutive game, tying Lou Gehrig's record. Ripken hits a home run in the game.
9/6/1995: Cal Ripken plays in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking Lou Gehrig's record. Ripken hits a home run in the game, which is stopped by a 22-minute ovation in the middle of the fifth inning.
10/16/1995*: The Million Man March occurs in
10/23/1995*: The original due date of the paper for Pat Reifsnyder’s history class in which students must reconstruct what Mycenean Bronze Age Greece was like, using evidence.
10/26/1995*: The extended due date of the paper originally due 10/23/1995.
10/28/1995*: The Atlanta Braves win the World Series in six games with a 1-0 victory over the Cleveland Indians.
11/4/1995: Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated by Yigal Amir.
12/2/1995*: Danny’s Bar Mitzvah.
12/21/1995*: My family leaves on a trip to Italy. The flight is delayed for an insane number of hours, partly because the crew gets stuck in traffic.
12/23/1995*: I visit Pompeii with my family.
12/25/1995*: Christmas in Rome. Everything is closed, including the synagogue we try to get into. But I do see Trevi Fountain and the outside of the Pantheon.
12/26/1995*: My family visits the Sistine Chapel and the Roman Forum.
12/30/1995*: Return from Italy, on an Alitalia flight so much smoother than the one to Italy that it is hard to believe it is the same airline.
1/8/1996*: According to the National Weather Service, it snows almost four inches in New York City. A car dealership in New York that offered free cars to anyone who bought one during a certain time span if it snowed more than four inches in New York City on January 8 just barely misses having to make good on the offer. (The car dealership was insured.)
1/12/1996*: Philadelphia public schools are closed because of snow for the fifth consecutive day.
1/20/1996*: Brian Finkenstadt’s Bar Mitzvah.
2/15/1996*: The 47th AHSME is held. GFS has the highest team score in Pennsylvania for the second consecutive year.
4/1/1996*: My SABR membership lapses.
4/21/1996: We hold a surprise birthday party for Grandmom Betty, including a tape we made about her.
5/2/1996: The 25th USAMO, the first USAMO to consist of two separate sittings, is held.
5/10/1996: The 13th National MATHCOUNTS Competition is held. The same day, I have a doctor's appointment.
5/12/1996: Valujet flight 592 crashes. I hear from Titu Andreescu for the first time in ten months.
6/1/1996: San Francisco Bay A wins the 21st annual ARML, becoming the first team winner from west of the Mississippi.
6/4/1996: I get my braces taken off.
6/5/1996: MOP begins.
7/3/1996: MOP ends. This is also the last time (as of 12/31/2006, when the date list was completed) that I drink cola.
7/17/1996*: TWA Flight 800 explodes shortly after takeoff.
7/19/1996*: The opening ceremony of the Olympics in Atlanta.
11/1/1996*: Bob Dole announces a final 96-hour all-out push to win the presidential election.
11/5/1996: Bill Clinton is reelected.
1/6/1997*: The first day of my junior project with Dr. Leon Axel at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
1/20/1997*: Curt Flood dies.
1/31/1997: Star Wars is rereleased.
2/13/1997**: The 48th AHSME is held, marking the first time in over a decade that no one gets a perfect score.
2/21/1997: The Empire Strikes Back is rereleased.
3/14/1997: Return of the Jedi is rereleased.
4/1/1997: I decide to stop trafficking in test scores.
4/15/1997: Major league baseball retires Jackie Robinson's uniform number, 42.
5/1/1997**: The 26th USAMO is held, selecting a US IMO team that will consist entirely of 12th grade students.
5/13/1997: I talk to David Baron, a MATHCOUNTS teammate of mine, for the first time in over a year.
5/31/1997: Minnesota wins the 22nd annual ARML.
6/7/1997: The MOP Literature Page goes into existence.
6/13/1997: The GFS class of 1997 graduates.
6/18/1997: MOP begins.
7/4/1997*: Ted Turner receives the Liberty Medal for his work with CNN International.
7/16/1997: MOP ends.
7/20/1997: The US IMO team leaves for Argentina.
8/31/1997: Princess Diana dies in an early-morning car crash.
9/9/1997: Phillies legend Richie Ashburn dies.
9/19/1997*: I register to vote.
9/21/1997*: Senior tea at Dick Wade’s house.
10/26/1997: The Florida Marlins win the World Series in the 11th inning of Game Seven.
10/27/1997**: The Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 554 points, its largest one-day point loss up to that point.
10/28/1997**: The Dow experiences its largest one-day point gain up to that point as a 1.2 billion shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange, easily exceeding the previous volume record.
10/29/1997*: Bill Koons’s “quarter exam.”
11/4/1997*: The first election in which I can vote. The most high-profile race on the ballot is District Attorney.
11/5/1997: Melanie Wood visits me.
11/6/1997: Melanie visits my school.
11/7/1997: Melanie and I visit Mike Korn at Princeton.
11/8/1997: Melanie and I visit the Franklin Institute.
11/9/1997: Melanie leaves.
11/27/1997*: A crossword puzzle by Kiran Kedlaya is published in the New York Times.
12/10/1997*: Germantown Friends School has a required peace vigil.
12/27/1997: Lesley gets her driver's license.
2/10/1998**: The 49th AHSME is given. Someone from my school (not me) gets a 123.
3/4/1998*: GFS holds its first Diversity Day, with Lani Guinier as keynote speaker.
3/8/1998*: Timothy Goebel becomes the first American figure skater to land a quadruple jump in competition.
3/13/1998**: GFS comes in seventh in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Science Olympiad.
4/1/1998: A judge drops Paula Jones's lawsuit against President Clinton.
4/24/1998: The Pennsylvania Science Olympiad is held.
4/28/1998*: Melanie Wood becomes the first girl to gain a spot on the US IMO team. (This is the date the test was given to determine the team, not the date the team was determined or the team members and/or news media were informed.)
5/1/1998: My physics class goes to Great Adventure.
5/6/1998: In what some consider the finest nine-inning pitching performance in history, Chicago Cubs rookie Kerry Wood strikes out 20 of the 29 batters he faces, allowing one hit, no walks and one hit batsman.
5/8/1998: The GFS class of 1998 has lunch with the class of 1948. The ninth grade performs The Pirates of Penzance. Danny plays a pirate and a policeman.
5/9/1998: The ninth grade at GFS performs The Pirates of Penzance again.
5/17/1998**: The New York Yankees' David Wells pitches the 15th perfect game in major league history against the Minnesota Twins on Beanie Baby Day at Yankee Stadium.
5/28/1998: Barry Bonds is intentionally walked with the bases loaded.
5/30/1998: Massachusetts A wins the 23rd annual ARML, the first ARML since the institution of multiple sites in which the individual winner does not compete at Penn State.
6/1/1998: My last day of classes in 12 years at GFS. The electricity goes out and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority strikes.
6/11/1998: A final assembly for the GFS class of 1998 is held. That evening, the class of 1998 parents perform their show.
6/12/1998: The GFS class of 1998 graduates.
7/9/1998: Bud Selig is elected baseball commissioner. Also, MOP ends.
8/7/1998: The U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania are bombed.
8/17/1998: President Clinton testifies before a grand jury about the meaning of “is.”
9/7/1998: Mark McGwire hits his 61st home run of the season, matching Roger Maris’s record.
9/8/1998: At 8:18 pm CDT, Mark McGwire hits his 62nd home run of the season, breaking Roger Maris’s single-season record on a ball that just barely clears the left-field wall.
9/20/1998: After playing in 2,632 consecutive Orioles games, Cal Ripken voluntarily removes himself from the lineup.
9/25/1998: Sammy Sosa becomes the first Major League Baseball player to hit 66 home runs in a single season. He holds sole possession of the record for less than an hour before Mark McGwire ties it.
9/26/1998: Mark McGwire hits his 67th and 68th home runs of the season.
9/27/1998: Mark McGwire hits his 69th and 70th home runs of the season. Blue Jays rookie Roy Halladay loses his no-hitter when Bobby Higginson hits a home run with two outs in the ninth inning. The Cubs and Giants lose just minutes apart to set up a tie for the National League wild card, with only a Mets loss earlier in the day preventing a three-way tie.
9/28/1998: The Cubs win the National League wild card in a tiebreaker game against the Giants.
10/29/1998: John Glenn returns to space.
12/19/1998: Bob Livingston resigns from the House of Representatives. President Clinton is impeached.
3/8/1999: Joe DiMaggio dies.
7/18/1999: David Cone pitches the 16th perfect game in major league history on Yogi Berra Day at Yankee Stadium, with Don Larsen (who had thrown out the first pitch) in attendance.
9/9/1999: The world’s computers react well to a date that some programmers worried could cause problems.
11/2/1999: John Street is elected Mayor of Philadelphia.
11/24/1999: The first time I watch “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”
12/4/1999: My first time taking the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. Also my first visit to the White Dog Cafe, a restaurant on Penn’s campus.
12/31/1999: Boris Yeltsin resigns.
1/1/2000: Millions of people celebrate the coming of the new millennium, even though it is a year away. Worldwide computer systems react surprisingly well to the changeover of the first two digits of the year.
2/15/2000: In my modern algebra class, Dr. Peter Freyd gives a lecture on what the heart symbols on Valentine’s Day cards really mean.
2/29/2000: On the first leap day in a year divisible by 100 under the Gregorian calendar in the history of the English-speaking world, Dr. Peter Freyd notes that the day is a “triple exception” (an exception to an exception to an exception).
5/8/2000: Dr. Dennis DeTurck hires me for the summer to do various things for the math department.
11/7/2000: The first presidential general election in which I can vote. The
major television networks declare Al Gore the winner of
11/8/2000: In the wee hours of the morning, the major networks declare George W. Bush the winner of Florida’s electoral votes and thus the election. Al Gore calls Bush to concede the election. Both the projection and the concession are retracted. Philadelphia Weekly, having pushed back its print deadline several hours to know which cover to run (based on the election results) runs the cover headline “NADER LOSES.”
12/2/2000: Penn fails to field a team for the Putnam Competition, as only two students take it.
1/19/2001: I receive an email stating that my article, “56-Game Hitting Streaks Revisited,” has been accepted for publication in the 2001 Baseball Research Journal.
1/20/2001: George W. Bush is inaugurated.
9/7/2001: The first meeting of Prof. Kathleen Hall Jamieson’s Introduction to Political Communications course, my favorite non-math course in college.
9/10/2001: The first time I have dinner at Penn’s Class of 1920 Commons.
9/13/2001: The first meeting of Math 580 (Combinatorial Analysis and Graph Theory) with Prof. Herbert Wilf, my favorite math course in college.
9/16/2001: All National Football League games are cancelled, as a response to the recent terrorist attacks.
9/17/2001: Major league baseball resumes after a six-day hiatus.
9/20/2001: George W. Bush addresses a joint session of Congress about the response to the recent terrorist attacks.
9/24/2001: The New Yorker runs a haunting cover that, depending on the angle from which it is viewed, looks like blackness or an outline of the World Trade Center. (This is the cover date, not the date the issue was mailed or available on newsstands.)
10/5/2001: Barry Bonds breaks Mark McGwire’s record with his 71st and 72nd home runs of the season.
10/7/2001: Barry Bonds hits his 73rd home run of the season.
10/11/2001: A ceremony with Pat Croce is held on College Green at Penn, where money raised by students is donated to help victims of the recent terrorist attacks.
11/1/2001: Derek Jeter’s after-midnight game-winning hit in the first major league game to extend into November (game started 10/31/2001) causes the media to give him the nickname “Mr. November.”
2/10/2002: Bob Davids dies.
4/19/2002: Hey Day. The members of the Penn class of 2003 process across campus wearing red shirts and funny hats and carrying canes. They end up in front of College Hall, where they are declared seniors by Penn president Judith Rodin.
5/2/2002: Mike Cameron hits four home runs in one game, plus a long fly ball in his final at bat.
5/3/2002: I pass the Preliminary Exam for my Master’s degree, partly because I make up Green’s Theorem on the spot.
5/13/2002: I am informed that I passed the Preliminary Exam.
5/23/2002: I take (and do not pass) the Society of Actuaries’ Course 2 exam. Shawn Green collects an unprecedented 19 total bases in a single game, with four home runs, a double and a single.
6/27/2002: I arrive at my first SABR convention.
6/28/2002: My first visit to Fenway Park. The Red Sox play against the Braves in the baseball game chronicled in the book The Fenway Project.
6/29/2002: Evelyn Begley receives the Bob Davids Award.
6/30/2002: I leave my first SABR convention.
7/5/2002: Ted Williams dies.
7/9/2002: The All-Star Game in Milwaukee is declared a tie after 11 innings when both teams run out of pitchers.
2/1/2003: The space shuttle Columbia disintegrates during its return to Earth.
2/27/2003: Fred Rogers dies.
3/3/2003: The Philadelphia Daily News runs a cover article on the fact that the day’s date is 03/03/03. Melanie Wood reads it on the Internet, and says it is even stupider than she would have guessed.
4/26/2003: The Philadelphia Daily News runs the cover headline “QUAKERS GONE WILD!”
5/17/2003: I attend Ivy Day for the class of 2003, where various awards are given to graduating students other than me, even though it conflicts with the regional SABR meeting.
5/18/2003: Baccalaureate for the class of 2003, with a really good speaker, a high-ranking navy chaplain. Also, the College of Arts and Sciences graduation ceremony where everyone gets to walk across the stage and have his/her name read. The person sitting next to me in the seats on Franklin Field is Josh Rosenberg, who tells me that SABR is “so cool,” even though he is not a member.
5/19/2003: The members of the Penn class of 2003 process across campus wearing funny hats but not carrying canes. They end at Franklin Field where they are addressed by Judith Rodin and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, among others, and declared graduates of the university.
5/27/2003: The National MATHCOUNTS Competition is broadcast on ESPN for the first time. I receive a copy of the 2002 Baseball Research Journal, with my article in it.
7/12/2003: I meet Herm Krabbenhoft, who tells me I am exactly the person he wants to talk to. Also my first visit to Coors Field, where I see Barry Bonds hit a home run.
7/14/2003: Frederick Ivor-Campbell is informed by phone that he is the winner of the 2003 Bob Davids Award.
7/16/2003: I attend a “Baseball Prospectus Pizza Feed.” The last time I see Doug Pappas in person.
12/19/2003: The date on my undergraduate and Master’s diplomas.
2/1/2004: The New England Patriots win Super Bowl XXXVIII, in a game overshadowed by its halftime show.
2/28/2004: Friends Select comes in third in the Philadelphia chapter MATHCOUNTS competition.
3/11/2004: Trains are bombed in Madrid.
4/16/2004: I attend a John Kerry rally at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
5/17/2004: Commencement for me, again (Master’s degree). The speaker is Bono, who begins his speech “My name is Bono and I am a rock star.”
5/18/2004: A family party for my graduation (Indian takeout). Randy Johnson pitches the 17th perfect game in major league history.
6/5/2004: Ronald Reagan dies. Smarty Jones nearly wins the race that would give him the Triple Crown. Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology wins the ARML national championship for the third consecutive year.
6/24/2004: I arrive at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster for CTY orientation and am assigned room 206 in Weis Hall. As a staff ice-breaker activity, we play a large group game of Hoopla, which involves my having to get people to say “soap opera” using only non-verbal cues.
7/16/2004: My first visit to Great American Ballpark.
7/17/2004: Dick Thompson receives the Bob Davids Award, which Fred Ivor-Campbell accepts on his behalf. This is the date when I begin uttering sentences of the form “If I had any sense, I would …”
7/18/2004: I arrive at CTY for my first session as a teaching assistant and invent the word “non-pre-uncollated.” (It means not having the property of being not collated in advance.)
7/19/2004: My first day of Math Sequence. A student tells me he is very reluctant to accept the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra without my proving it. Two students have their shoes break. I see Pomm in the Alumni Sports & Fitness Center at lunch wearing a tuxedo and ask him whether he was doing a formal proof, prompting a comment that he and Timmer didn’t think anyone remembered that joke.
7/20/2004: I explain Kantor’s diagonalization proof to two people at two different events (in different locations), both titled “milk and cookies.”
7/23/2004: My first dance as a CTY staff member, in the Alumni Sports & Fitness Center. A student tries to engage me in conversation about whether I am a person or in fact a machine, and seems to be leaning strongly toward the latter.
7/31/2004: Second Saturday. Adam Roush dresses up as an Amish woman.
8/2/2004: After the faux wine and cheese reception, a team of CTY instructional staff members (Sasha Laundy, Quimby, Stepper and I) dubbing ourselves “NC-17,” defeat “PG,” the winner of the student quiz bowl tournament, in a very close match.
8/6/2004: CTY students leave. The “graduation” speaker is Quimby, who begins his speech “My name is Quimby and I am a nerd.”
11/2/2004: Exit polls from the presidential election are leaked on the Internet, and appear to show a victory for John Kerry.
11/3/2004: John Kerry concedes Ohio’s electoral votes, and therefore the presidential election, to George W. Bush.
11/30/2004: Nancy Zerg defeats Ken Jennings on Jeopardy, ending his streak of 74 consecutive victories. (This is the air date; the tape date was in early September.)
12/31/2004: Regis Philbin substitutes for an ailing Dick Clark on ABC’s annual “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” broadcast.
6/4/2005: Lehigh Valley Fire (which in 2005 subsumes my old team, All Pennsylvania) wins the ARML national championship.
7/3/2005: “Live8 concerts” occur in various cities around the world.
7/9/2005: Students’ activities while enacting part of the Rocky Horror Picture Show on Second Saturday disturb at least one staff member, who finds them CTY-inappropriate.
7/10/2005: I am drafted to play Juan (a plumber) in the National Plumbers skit less than two hours before it begins.
7/22/2005: Quimby arrives to visit Lancaster for a few days and run the annual rock paper scissors tournament.
7/23/2005: The rules for the 10th annual CTY Lancaster staff rock paper scissors tournament are unveiled.
7/24/2005: In the wee hours of the morning, Mork McKerr wins the staff rock paper scissors tournament.
8/4/2005: As a joke, I call Birdie to invite her to not go to the CTY final dance with me, but I am unable to reach her.
8/5/2005: My first time observing (part of) Passionfruit. CTY students leave; the “graduation” speaker is Dr. Ted.
8/6/2005: David Smith wins the Bob Davids Award.
6/22/2006: Chase Utley begins what will become a 35-game hitting streak.
6/29/2006: Ph.D. qualifying exams in Mathematical Statistics and Linear Statistical Models.
6/30/2006: Ph.D. qualifying exams in Probability/Stochastic Processes.
7/14/2006: I arrive at CTY for my third summer on staff. This is the first instance of my making a silly joke about Kantor’s diagonalization argument being flirtatious.
7/16/2006: Placement exams for arriving Math Sequence students. A rough night, as two students get rather upset about how the placement exams go (but end up doing very well by the end of the session). Also, we have one student who is transferred out of the class to one that might be more appropriate.
7/20/2006: The first time I have a CTY student in my class (two, in fact) who wear bathrobes to class.
7/28/2006: In class, we play “Math Jeopardy,” with five serious mathematical categories and one frivolous category, “CTY Trivia,” all five of whose questions are answered by the same student.
7/29/2006: The annual CTY pizza-eating contest is held, this time as a fundraiser for CTY scholarships. The 2007 and 2008 pizza-eating contests are cancelled.
7/30/2006: Richard West wins the 11th annual CTY Lancaster staff rock paper scissors tournament. I play Stuart during the National Plumbers skit/play.
8/1/2006: I tell David Driscoll that I am feeling more like my usual self than I have for a few weeks. He thinks that’s a good thing, but I quickly disabuse him of the notion.
8/2/2006: At the CTY talent show, a student solves a Rubik’s Cube while reciting 200 digits of pi.
8/3/2006: At the “Last Supper” before CTY students leave the program, Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Conqueror Worm” is read in memory of Phil Gunn.
8/4/2006: CTY students leave. Some people climb into the ceiling. Chase Utley’s 35-game hitting streak is broken.
10/20/2006: I leave to visit some CTY friends in the Boston area.
10/21/2006: I attend a cookout held by Dennis Loo. It is the first time I have a chance to eat haggis, but, being a (mostly) vegetarian, I do not seize the opportunity.
10/22/2006: Something that not long before would have been considered ridiculously implausible happens. The Detroit Tigers, three years removed from a 43-119 record, win Game Two of the World Series.
10/23/2006: I return from the Boston trip.
10/28/2006: Andria Schwortz holds her annual Halloween party, encouraging guests to dress in accordance with the theme “Science,” leading multiple guests to dress in creationist garb.
11/3/2006: The annual Statistics Department Halloween party. The most interesting costumes are three students who dress up as the “axis of evil.”
11/7/2006: In midterm elections, Democrats win majorities in both the House and Senate (although the Senate majority is uncertain for several days thereafter).
11/23/2006: A crossword puzzle by Stepper is published in the New York Times.
12/16/2006: Time magazine announces that its Person of the Year is “You.” (This is something I hope I wouldn’t have remembered were it not for its temporal proximity to the time I revised this list.)
12/21/2006: Sam Crane comes to visit (yay silly conversations!).
12/22/2006: Sam leaves. I start writing Version 2 of the date list.
12/31/2006: Version 2 of the date list is completed.