December 31, 2007

150 years ago
1857

Canadiana
Queen Victoria chose Ottawa as the capital of Canada, bypassing such contenders as Toronto, Kingston, Montreal, and Quebec.

80 years ago
1927

Journalism
Auto magnate Henry Ford's newspaper The Dearborn Independent published its final edition. From its inception in 1920, the Independent became infamous as a vehicle for the spread of anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. Ford should have stuck to making cars.

40 years ago
1967

Died on this date
Rodger Penzabene, 23. U.S. songwriter. Mr. Penzabene wrote lyrics for several Motown hits in the late 1960s, including The End of Our Road for Gladys Knight & the Pips, and You're My Everything for the Temptations. In 1967 Mr. Penzabene found out that his wife, whom he loved very much, was cheating on him. The pain he felt led him to write the lyrics to I Wish it Would Rain and I Could Never Love Another (After Loving You), which became hit singles for the Temptations in 1968. Mr. Penzabene was in tears as he sat in the studio listening to David Ruffin sing I Wish it Would Rain. I Wish it Would Rain was released as a single on December 21, 1967; Rodger Penzabene committed suicide ten days later, and didn't live long enough to see the song hit #1 on the Billboard rhythm and blues chart (and #4 on the Hot 100).

War
Shortly after nine American soldiers were killed in a Viet Cong ambush, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces in Vietnam began a 36-hour cease-fire.

Football
NFL
Championship
Dallas 17 @ Green Bay 21

Bart Starr's 1-yard quarterback sneak for a touchdown in the final seconds gave the Packers their win over the Dallas Cowboys in one of the most famous games in NFL history (see video). Mr. Starr's touchdown finished a 68-yard, four-minute drive. The temperature at game time was -13 F., with an estimated windchill of -46, resulting in the game being nicknamed "The Ice Bowl." 50,861 fans braved the conditions at Lambeau Field. An underground "electric blanket" of heated coils purchased by Vince Lombardi for just such an occasion failed to work, leaving the field rock-hard. The Packers took an early 14-0 lead on two touchdown passes from Starr to Boyd Dowler, before George Andrie returned a Starr fumble for a Dallas touchdown to get the Cowboys back into the game. Danny Villanueva kicked a field goal for the Cowboys to make it 14-10, before Dan Reeves connected on an option pass to Lance Rentzel for a 50-yard score to give the Cowboys a 17-14 lead in the 4th quarter. The game turned out to be the last home game for Vince Lombardi as head coach of the Packers.

AFL
Championship
Houston 7 @ Oakland 40

Daryle Lamonica threw touchdown passes to Dave Kocourek (on a fake field goal) and Bill Miller, Hewritt Dixon rushed 69 yards for another Raider score, and George Blanda added four field goals as the Raiders routed the Oilers before 53,330 fans at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Houston scored on a pass from Pete Beathard to Charley Frazier. John Rauch, the victorious head coach, had led the Raiders to a 13-1 regular season record.



30 years ago
1977

Hit parade
#1 single in the U.S.A. (Billboard): How Deep is Your Love--Bee Gees (2nd week at #1)

Music
Guy Lombardo's Royal Canadians played at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, the band's first New Year's Eve performance since Lombardo's death (he died on November 5, 1977).

25 years ago
1982

On the radio
The CBS Radio Mystery Theater signed off after almost 9 years and 1399 episodes. The last show was a rebroadcast of Resident Killer, starring Mason Adams, which had originally aired on October 25.

At the movies
The God Makers, produced by Jeremiah Films, premiered at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. The film is a hard-hitting expose of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, better known as the Mormons.

Ed Decker and Dick Baer, former members of the Mormon Melchizededk priesthood, attempted to persuade a Los Angeles law firm to launch a class-action suit against the LDS on behalf of people like themselves who had seen their marriages and families destroyed. The film is centred around a reenactment of Mr. Decker and Mr. Baer's presentation to the law firm, which paints a very different picture of the Mormon Church from that which the church presents to the public. Despite overwhelming evidence to support the complaints against the church, the law firm decided against pursuing the matter because they didn't believe that the complainants had enough money to offset the deep pockets of the Mormon Church.

According to Grace Community Church pastor John MacArthur, "This film is dynamite, the most powerful thing I've seen! Get your Mormon friends to view it!"

The film was followed in 1984 by a book of the same title authored by Ed Decker and Dave Hunt, and by a subsequent documentary and book (written by Ed Decker and Caryl Matrisciana) titled The God Makers II in 1988.

10 years ago
1997

Weather
In the early afternoon, it was above freezing with no snow in Edmonton, and it was so warm that I saw someone raking leaves. In typical Alberta fashion, by evening the snow had moved in, and the windchill had dropped to about -20. The weather stayed that way for a couple of weeks before warming up nicely. We were still better off than people in the eastern parts of Canada and the United States, who suffered through a disastrous ice storm in the early days of 1998.