Month: December 2016

By the end of the 1960s, the production team of Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass had a well-established niche in the annual holiday TV schedule. Their “Animagic” stop-animation specials like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and The Little Drummer Boy were eagerly anticipated each December and were well on their way to “classic” status. In 1969, the Rankin/Bass team introduced yet another holiday-themed special based on a song, Frosty the Snowman. The special premiered on Sunday, December 7, following the network’s annual revival of 1965’s A Charlie Brown Christmas. Here are a few things you might not have known about the legendary animated special.

1. IT WAS A HIT SONG LONG BEFORE IT WAS A TV SPECIAL.

The song “Frosty the Snowman” was written by Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson in 1950 (with a melody that is strikingly similar to 1932’s “Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee”) specifically as a means of capitalizing on the success of Gene Autry’s “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” The record wasn’t as huge as “Rudolph,” sales-wise, but Frosty’s story was nevertheless perpetuated via Little Golden Books and Dell Comics.

2. RANKIN/BASS WASN’T THE FIRST TEAM TO ANIMATE FROSTY.

In 1954, United Productions of America (UPA) brought Frosty to life in a short cartoon that is little more than an animated music video for a jazzy version of the song. It introduced the characters mentioned in the lyrics visually, from Frosty himself to the traffic cop. The three-minute, black-and-white piece quickly became a holiday tradition in various markets, particularly in Chicago, where it’s been broadcast annually on WGN since 1955.

3. FROSTY WAS VOICED BY A NOT-SO-FAMILY-FRIENDLY STAND-UP COMEDIAN.

Deadpan comic Jackie Vernon was known for his “slideshow” routines, where he’d narrate slides (unseen by the audience) and “change” them with a handheld clicker. Quite often his routines ended with a graphic description of some sexual perversion that he’d innocently stumbled onto via the recommendation of some stranger, about whom he’d always comment “… and I thought, ‘Gee, what a neat guy!’”

4. THE NARRATOR WAS UNIVERSALLY REGARDED AS A NICE GUY.

Jimmy Durante was a jazz pianist, singer, and comedian whose career spanned a little over 50 years. In the 1950s, he was a regular not only at Las Vegas’ Desert Inn, but also at the Guardian Angel Cathedral, where he stood outside and greeted fellow parishioners with the priest after Sunday mass each week. Durante loved children, and is famous for turning down a performance fee at the Eagles International Convention in 1961. When asked by the organizers “What can we do, then?” Durante replied in his trademark Brooklynese: “Help da kids.”

5. LEGENDARY VOICE ACTORS JUNE FORAY AND PAUL FREES WERE REPLACED AFTER THE ORIGINAL AIRING.

The original film featured June Foray performing the voices of both the schoolteacher and young Karen, who accompanied Frosty to the North Pole. Paul Frees was the Traffic Cop and Santa Claus, and the two combined to voice the remaining schoolchildren. For reasons unknown (even to Foray herself), nearly all the children’s voices—including Karen’s—were redubbed by unidentified child actors for the 1970 airing. All subsequent TV appearances and video releases contain this new soundtrack. The original is only available on the 1970 soundtrack LP and a 2002 CD release by Rhino.

6. FROSTY WAS PARTIALLY MADE IN JAPAN.

Frosty the Snowman was the first Rankin/Bass Christmas special to utilize traditional animation (versus the stop-motion method used in their other projects). Paul Coker, Jr., a long-time MAD Magazine illustrator, provided both the main character and background drawings. The animation was done by Mushi Studio, the Japanese company founded by Osamu Tezuka to produce Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion cartoons.

7. FROSTY’S HOMETOWN IS ARMONK, NEW YORK.

Lyricist Steve Nelson lived in nearby White Plains and loved to visit the historic hamlet of Armonk as a young man. The Village Square mentioned in the lyrics of the song is now the Armonk Historic District in the town of North Castle. Local historians also claim that the traffic cop who hollers “Stop!” is based on former chief of police John Hergenhan. Armonk hosts an annual Frosty Day parade and celebration that is officially listed as one of the “10 Best Things To Do in Westchester County.”

8. FROSTY HAS MAGIC FINGERS AS WELL AS A MAGIC HAT!

Watch carefully when Frosty attempts to count to 10: He has five fingers on one hand for a brief moment, then when he clasps his hand and flexes his digits, he’s down to four fingers. Maybe that falls under the category of “animation blooper” rather than “magic.”

What’s the opposite of disgruntled? Chances are you’re thinking the answer should rightly be gruntled—but is that really a word you recognize? The problem here is that disgruntled, alongside the likes of uncouth, disheveled, distraught, inert, and intrepid, is an example of an unpaired word, namely one that looks like it should have an apparently straightforward opposite, but in practice really doesn’t.

Words like these tend to come about either when a prefixed or suffixed form of a word is adopted into the language while its root is not, or when the inflected or affixed form of a word survives, while its uninflected root form falls out of use. This was the case with disgruntled, which derives from an ancient Middle English word, gruntel, meaning “to grumble” or “complain,” which has long since fallen from use—although the gap left by disgruntled has led some dictionaries to list gruntled as a modern-day back-formation.

Some words and phrases, however, do have clear opposite forms, but they’re so rare or unfamiliar that they tend to remain forgotten. Eleven examples of precisely that are listed here.

1. AMBIDEXTROUS

If you’re ambidextrous then you’re equally skillful in using both hands (although perhaps not as successfully as President James Garfield). If you’re ambilevous however you’re equally clumsy using either hand—or, as Noah Webster defined it, “left handed on both sides.”

2. ANONYMOUS

Anonymous literally means “without a name.” Its opposite is onymous, which is typically used to refer to books, legal papers, artworks, musical compositions, and similar documents the authorship of which is known without doubt.

3. AUTOMATON

If an automaton is a machine capable of moving itself, then the opposite is called a heteromaton—a device that relies solely on external forces for movement.

4. CATASTROPHE

If a catastrophe is a sudden, unpredictable, and devastating event, then an equally sudden or unexpected event of sheer joy or good fortune is a eucatastrophe. This term was coined by Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien in 1944, who originally used it to describe a sudden or fortuitous event in the plot of a story that turns around the protagonist’s chances or prospects, and brings about the resolution of the narrative. 

5. DÉJÀ VU

Over the years, psychologists have identified a number of different phenomena similar to déjà vu (literally “already seen” in French). Among them is presque vu (“almost seen”), the tip-of-the-tongue feeling that you’re about to remember something you’ve forgotten; déjà vécu (“already experienced”), a particularly intense form of déjà vu that makes it almost impossible to discern the present from the past; and déjà visité (“already visited”), which describes a person’s surprising foreknowledge of a place they’ve never actually been to before—like unthinkingly knowing your way around a foreign town or city while on holiday. The opposite of déjà vu, however, is usually said to be jamais vu (“never seen”): so if déjà vu describes the eerie sensation that something new has actually taken place before, in the case of jamais vu a person believes that a situation that is actually very familiar and has happened before is entirely new.

6. DISTRESS

If you’ve been through a difficult or disturbing situation that left you upset or shaken up, then you’ve suffered distress. If you’ve been through a difficult or stressful situation that left you energized and compelled you to work or act better than you might otherwise do, then you’ve experienced eustress.

7. EUPHEMISM

If a euphemism involves the use of a politer word or phrase in place of a more distasteful or objectionable one, a dysphemism is the deliberate use of an impolite or unpleasant term in place of a perfectly inoffensive one. Dysphemism is often used for rhetorical effect, in order to shock or shake up an audience, or simply for comic effect.

8. OPTIMUM

Just as optimist is opposed to pessimist, optimum is the opposite of pessimum. So while the optimum conditions are those that are most favorable and suitable for doing something, the pessimum would be the worst or least favorable conditions.  

9. PLACEBO

Placebo literally means “I shall please” in Latin, and the placebo effect refers to an apparent improvement or amelioration in a patient’s condition despite them deliberately being given entirely ineffectual “dummy” medication. The opposite phenomenon is called the nocebo effect, which describes a patient reporting that they feel worse despite being given an entirely harmless treatment; it might sound like a made-up name, but nocebo actually means “I shall harm” in Latin.

10. POSTPONE

To bring a date forward in time rather than postponing it is to prepone it.

11. STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

Taking its name from a hostage situation that unfolded after a bank robbery in Sweden in 1973, Stockholm syndrome refers to the psychological phenomenon of hostages becoming sympathetic towards their captors. An opposite phenomenon is called Lima syndrome, in which it is the hostage-takers who gain sympathy for their hostages. And just like Stockholm syndrome, Lima syndrome too has its roots in a real-life hostage situation that occurred after a local militia stormed a party being held at the Japanese Embassy in the Peruvian capital in 1996.

A gingerbread house can be just a house, or it can be a medium for fantastic creations, from mansions to spaceships. Check out these wildly creative gingerbread sculptures that go beyond just four walls and a roof.

1. FANTASY CASTLE

Christine McConnell constructed this huge gingerbread castle for a Christmas photo spread at Food.com. The entire castle is edible, with the exception of the lights. That means all the structural supports are made of edible materials, and the window glass is just sugar. You can see an album of the castle, its construction, and the intricate details here.

2. HOGWARTS

I made Hogwarts out of Gingerbread!

Redditor louisesiuol and her sister made an amazing gingerbread version of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in 2013 for a competition, which they obviously won. You can see more pictures of the gingerbread school here.

Also in 2013, Mimicafe Union in New York made a gingerbread version of Hogwarts’s Great Hall for the Bake Christmas Wish Fundraiser for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. You can check out photographs of that house here.

3. GRAND FLORIDIAN RESORT

Walt Disney World’s Grand Floridian Resort displays a grand gingerbread house every year, and here’s the 2016 version. Creating the 16-foot-tall house required 800 pounds of flour and over a thousand pounds of honey.

4. FALLINGWATER

This gingerbread replica of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater was an entry in Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay’s Gingerbread House Contest in 2007. Another 2007 version of the same house comes with pictures of the building process, while still another was spotted at a Utah competition in 2010.

5. ST. FRANCIS ENCHANTED CASTLE

The St. Francis Enchanted Castle is one of two castles on display now at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco. The other one is a castle made of sugar—both of which were crafted by Executive Pastry Chef Jean-Francois Houdré and his team.

6. AT-AT

Rachel Klemek at Black Market Bakery is responsible for this awesome gingerbread AT-AT, which is perfectly posed to look like it’s trudging through the snowy planet Hoth from 1980’s Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. The creation was exhibited at the Discovery Science Museum for Christmas 2011.

7. MENGER SPONGE

Here’s a delicious project for a hands-on lesson in geometry! Instructables user fungus amungus built this fractal gingerbread structure in the shape of a Menger sponge. Best of all, the directions are detailed so you can attempt your own version.

8. EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

New York pastry chef Mark Tasker built this replica of the Empire State Building with gingerbread for the 2007 Christmas display at the New York Botanical Garden.

9. UP HOUSE

Dave King added Dum-Dums to his gingerbread house to recreate the balloon house from the 2009 Pixar movie Up! He posted pictures at Instructables, but there’s a cautionary tale to learn from King’s piece: Always build your gingerbread house in the location it will be displayed, because moving it can cause a disaster, especially when there are heavy candies attached.

10. ROBOTZILLA GINGERBREAD HOUSE

Instructables member boston09 entered a competition a few years ago with a gingerbread cottage featuring icing icicles and gumdrop shrubbery. One extra detail made this creation stand out: The house is about to be attacked by a giant graham cracker robot!

11. THE WINCHESTER MYSTERY HOUSE

Pam Sheridan won a gingerbread house contest in 1990 with this replica of the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. As of 2013, the durable confection was still on display.

12. EWOK VILLAGE

Star wars gingerbread preview pic.twitter.com/szcoHdJd

— Darcy Yums (@theinfiniteyums) November 29, 2011

On the forest moon of Endor, under a canopy of trees, lies a village made of chocolate, breakfast cereal, and gingerbread! Darcy Yums constructed an entire Ewok village to display at a Christmas charity fundraiser. You can see pictures of the building process and the finished product at The Infinite Yums.

13. GINGERPRISE II

USS Gingerprise https://t.co/IAN0dkLxl5 #StarTrek pic.twitter.com/xQu6Lw2sS9

— Trek news and Views (@Treknewsviews) December 15, 2016

Redditor ejustice brings us a highly detailed gingerbread USS Enterprise (dubbed the Gingerprise) that is posed to look like it is crashing through the clouds. The ship got a viral boost when DuckPop edited it into a scene from 1994’s Star Trek Generations. Tastiest. Space disaster. Ever.

14. GRAND AMERICA HOTEL

Pastry chef Xavier Baudinet constructed a 2-foot-tall house of gingerbread and Rice Krispies for the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City. It contains 500 pounds of sugar, 800 pounds of royal icing, and 600 pounds of chocolate. Oh, and it’s completely decorated inside with furniture made of chocolate! Check out this video report on the house.

15. FLYNN’S ARCADE

Instructables member GeekFilter built a gingerbread version of the arcade from the 1982 movie Tron for their gingerbread contest in 2010. On the submission page, you’ll see more pictures, including how this science-fiction gingerbread building stacks up against the real building used for the film.

16. DINE-IN GINGERBREAD HOUSE

Great Wolf Lodge has a life-size gingerbread house built every year, at all 13 locations! Every inch is edible, and families can make reservations to eat inside. Unfortunately, you have to order off the real menu instead of just munching on the walls. Reservation fees go to charity, and the gingerbread dining rooms will only be up until January 1.

17. THE WHITE HOUSE

Part of the White House’s extravagant Christmas display is the annual gingerbread replica of the executive mansion. This year’s gingerbread White House was constructed by pastry chef Susie Morrison and her team. It contains 150 pounds of gingerbread and 20 pounds of icing. The State Dining Room also has a display of 56 other gingerbread houses, representing each state and U.S. territory.

Portions of this list were originally published in three posts from 2010 and 2012.

Christmas trees are everywhere this time of year—in the mall, in the town square, in your living room. However, some cities around the world get creative and jettison the idea of what a traditional holiday tree looks like. After seeing the following 15 trees, you’ll never look at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree the same way again.

1. FLOATING TREE // RIO DE JANEIRO

In the summer of 2016, Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas’s lagoon in Rio de Janeiro was the site of the Olympic rowing competitions, but in the winter it houses a 27-story Christmas tree weighing 542 tons. Every minute, the nearly 3 million lights (75 miles worth) change colors. The tree appears to float above the lagoon, because it’s attached to 11 floats. During the weekends, the lagoon sets off fireworks and creates a carnival atmosphere around the tree.

2. GODZILLA TREE // TOKYO

In 2011, Aqua City Odaiba mall in Tokyo created a Godzilla-shaped tree, replete with glowing red eyes and steam billowing out of its mouth. ‘Zilla donned a Santa hat and had white lights strewn all over its green body. If the tree actually came to life, the mall—and Tokyo—would be in deep trouble.

3. LEGO TREES // WINDSOR, ENGLAND; SYDNEY

Every holiday season, LEGOLAND in Windsor, Berkshire, England, builds its resort tree out of LEGOs as part of its Christmas Bricktacular celebration. The 26-foot tree is made from 300,000 LEGO bricks and takes four weeks to build. In 2015, an angel made from 4550 LEGO bricks topped the tree. Over in Sydney, in 2014, a LEGO tree was displayed in Pitt Street Mall. It was built from half a million LEGO bricks, weighed 3.5 tons, towered at 32 feet, and took 1200 hours to amass, becoming the largest LEGO Christmas tree in the Southern Hemisphere. But the largest LEGO Christmas tree ever award goes to London’s St Pancras Station, whose 2011 tree measured 40 feet in height.

4. POINTE SHOES TREE // LONDON

Each winter, the English National Ballet performs The Nutcracker at the London Coliseum. For the 2015 season, dancer Amber Hunt had a brainstorm. “It all started by people asking me how many pairs of shoes dancers would use in a year,” she said. Turns out, it took 40 hours to stack 588 pointe shoes into the shape of a tree. “We had to drill over 1000 holes into the shoes so we could tie and hold them together on wires, and then we plated all the ribbons around the tree,” Hunt said. “We also added a pointe shoe star at the top.” It took 40 hours to complete the project.

5. EMIRATES PALACE HOTEL // ABU DHABI

In 2010, the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi created what’s supposedly the world’s most expensive Christmas tree. The artificial tree cost only $10,000, but the jewels that decorated it bumped the tree’s value to $11 million. Necklaces and earrings adorned the tree: 181 diamonds, pearls, emeralds, and sapphires. This year, though, the hotel’s gone back to a more subdued (a.k.a. jewel-free) tree.

6. GOLD DISNEY TREE // TOKYO

Not quite as expensive as the Dubai tree, in 2012 jewelry store Ginza Tanaka in Tokyo offered for sale a “tree” containing 88 pounds of gold, that stood eight feet high and three feet in diameter. The store hired 10 craftsmen to create 50 gold cutouts of Disney characters that were engraved on the tree like ornaments. The whole tree, which was created to celebrate Walt Disney’s 110th birthday, was worth 350 million yen, or $4.2 million.

7. CHURCHILL ARMS TREES // LONDON

During the spring and summer, the Churchill Arms pub in Kensington, London—which pays respect to Winston Churchill—covers its rooftop, windows, and exterior pub with an overwhelming array of 90 flowers and plants, like an unwieldy garden. For the holidays, though, they exhibit a swath of pine trees—80 to be exact. Several years ago they started with 30 trees, but this year have a record 80 trees and 18,000 lights. The pub’s interior is also filled with a lot of Christmas decorations, and random objects hanging from the ceiling. In 2013, Arms manager Gerry O’Brien told Daily Mail, “There’s no room for any more [trees],” but he apparently found more space.

8. MOUNT INGINO TREE // GUBBIO, ITALY

Since 1981, instead of assembling one large tree, Gubbio, Umbria, Italy, has taken advantage of its trees on the slopes of Mount Ingino and outlined them with 300 green lights. The lighting display covers 130,000 square meters; the base is 450 meters wide and reaches 750 meters, or 2460 feet up the hillside. In recent years, Pope Benedict XVI has initiated the lighting ceremony remotely in Vatican City via an Android tablet.

9. UPSIDE-DOWN TREES // BOSTON

The next best thing to an upright tree is an upside-down one. Every holiday season, the Liberty Hotel in Boston installs six inverted trees in its 90-foot rotunda lobby. The artful trees hang from beams, and are decorated with glowing lights.

10. CIRQUE DU SOLEIL TREE // LONDON

In 2015, the St Pancras rail station/shopping center in London displayed a Christmas tree made from plush Disney toys, such as Mickey Mouse, Marie the cat from The Aristocats, and Dumbo. This year, the station presented a Cirque du Soleil tree as a means to raise money for Oxfam. The Amaluna Christmas Tree, which is named after Cirque’s show Amaluna (based on The Tempest), stands nearly 40 feet tall and includes a water bowl orb with moving underwater projections, showing bits of the show.

11. SHOPPING CART TREE // SANTA MONICA

One of the more unusual trees, Santa Monica’s shopping cart Christmas tree is just that—a tree-shaped structure built from 86 carts that reach 33 feet. Anthony Schmitt founded the tradition in 1995 so he could communicate ideas of abundance, commercialism, and homelessness. The “tree” can be found on Main Street, in front of Edgemar, a mixed-used retail center.

12. ABSTRACT TREE // BRUSSELS

In 2012, Brussels’s main square, La Grand Place, strayed from its customary pine Christmas tree and instead opted for something abstract—and controversial. The 78-foot tree was a light installation made out of steel-framed boxes. At night, the square treated people to a laser show. The cost of the tree was one-third less than a real tree, so it seemed like a win-win situation. But some people were outraged about the non-religious tree—named Xmas 3—with 25,000 people signing a petition to have it removed (it was taken down on December 28). “For people who want a traditional religious symbol, we have the nativity scene here in the square,” Brussels tourism councillor Philippe Close told the BBC. “For people who want modernity, we have this new tree.” Since then, La Grand Place has stuck with conventional trees.  

13. LOBSTER POT TREE // PROVINCETOWN

Provincetown, Massachusetts is home to a lot of lobsters, so it makes sense to use lobster pots to form a tree. Artist Julian Popko started the annual event 12 years ago when he borrowed lobster pots from local fisheries and displayed the tree in Lopes Square. Today, 112 lobster pots make up the two-story tree, which also contains 3400 LED lights, 120 red bows, and 46 plastic lobsters.

14. PUFF PASTRY TREE // JAKARTA

Being the “The World’s Tallest Choux Pastry Christmas Tree” seems like a strange accolade, but that’s how hotel The Park Lane Jakarta rolls. (MURI—the Indonesia World Records Museum—anointed the hotel the coveted title). Last year, Park Lane debuted the tree, made from 18,000 choux pastries (croquembouche). The tree stood 29 feet tall, and the hotel staff used more than 250 pounds of flour, 169 pounds of butter, 2112 eggs, and 12.6 pounds of sugar to make the pastries.

15. WINE GLASS TREE // SEATTLE

The boutique-y Kimpton Hotel Vintage Seattle specializes in wine, with vineyard-themed rooms, vinos from local wineries, and, of course, a Christmas tree in the lobby constructed from wine glasses. The tree will probably make guests thirsty, so luckily the hotel hosts a daily wine reception for its guests, to squelch their thirst until they can reach Washington State’s wine country, which is comprised of 700 wineries.

On December 24, 1929, all was not calm at the White House—though it certainly was bright.

President and First Lady Herbert and Lou Hoover were hosting a Christmas party for children of White House staffers when White House Chief Usher Ike Hoover (no relation) delivered a quiet message to the president: The West Wing was ablaze.

Hoover immediately grabbed his son and members of his Cabinet and led them to the executive office, where they crawled through a window and began hauling out steel cabinets full of important files. Hoover’s secretaries grabbed his desk drawers while Secret Service agents saved the desk chair and the presidential flag.

With the critical documents and important politicians out of the way, firefighters broke the skylight and chopped holes in the roof to let smoke out and water in. As they battled the blaze, the children’s party continued and the Marine Band played on. When the kids left around 10 p.m., the First Lady and her sister joined the president on the West Terrace of the White House to keep an eye on the progress. The flames were finally doused around 10:30 p.m.

According to Lt. Col. Ulysses S. Grant III—the former president’s grandson—the inferno started when 200,000 government pamphlets that were being stored in an attic fell victim to faulty wiring or a blocked chimney. (Obviously, fire investigation forensics have since improved.)

Though 19 engine companies, four truck companies, and 130 firefighters acted quickly and heroically, the West Wing still suffered extensive water, smoke, and fire damage. It was unavailable for more than four months, not opening again for business until April 14, 1930. And though the children at the party that night were blissfully unaware that anything had happened, Hoover made it up to them the next Christmas anyway—with toy fire trucks.

By the way, if you find this pyro-presidential history particularly charming, you’re in luck: The 2016 Christmas ornament being sold by the White House Historical Association commemorates the occasion.

Amid the whirl of the holiday season, many are vaguely aware of the approach of the winter solstice, but how much do you really know about it? Whether you’re a fan of winter or just wish it would go away, here are 10 things to note—or even celebrate—about the solstice.

1. IT HAPPENS ON DECEMBER 21 UTC THIS YEAR.

The date of the winter solstice varies from year to year, and can fall anywhere between December 20 and December 23, with the 21st or 22nd being the most common dates. The reason for this is because the tropical year—the time it takes for the sun to return to the same spot relative to Earth—is different from the calendar year. The next solstice occurring on December 20 will not happen until 2080, and the next December 23 solstice will not occur until 2303.

2. IT HAPPENS AT A SPECIFIC, BRIEF MOMENT.

Not only does the solstice occur on a specific day, but it also occurs at a specific time of day, corresponding to the instant the North Pole is aimed furthest away from the sun on the 23.5 degree tilt of the Earth’s axis. This is also the time when the sun shines directly over the Tropic of Capricorn. In 2016, this moment occurs at 10:44 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). For those of us on Eastern Standard Time, the solstice will occur at 5:44 PM on December 21. And regardless of where you live, the solstice happens at the same moment for everyone on the planet (you can check what time it will occur for you here).

3. IT MARKS THE LONGEST NIGHT AND SHORTEST DAY OF THE YEAR FOR THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE.

As most are keenly aware, daylight hours grow shorter and shorter as the solstice approaches, and begin to slowly lengthen afterward. It’s no wonder that the day of the solstice is referred to in some cultures as the “shortest day” or “extreme of winter.” New York City will experience 9 hours and 15 minutes of sunlight, compared to 15 hours and 6 minutes on the summer solstice. Helsinki, Finland, will get 5 hours and 49 minutes of light. Barrow, Alaska, will not have a sunrise at all, while the North Pole has had no sunrise since October. The South Pole, though, will be basking in the glow of the midnight sun, which won’t set until March.

4. ANCIENT CULTURES VIEWED THE WINTER SOLSTICE AS A TIME OF DEATH AND REBIRTH.

The seeming death of the light and very real threat of starvation over the winter months would have weighed heavily on early societies, who held varied solstice celebrations and rites meant to herald the return of the Sun and hope for new life. Scandinavian and Germanic pagans lit fires and may have burned Yule logs as a symbolic means of welcoming back the light. Cattle and other animals were slaughtered around midwinter, followed by feasting on what was the last fresh meat for several months. The modern Druidic celebration Alban Arthan reveres the death of the Old Sun and birth of the New Sun.

5. THE DAY MARKS THE DISCOVERY OF NEW AND STRANGE WORLDS.

The Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth on December 21, 1620, to found a society that would allow them to worship freely. On the same day in 1898, Pierre and Marie Curie discovered radium, ushering in an atomic age. And on December 21, 1968, the Apollo 8 spacecraft launched, becoming the first manned moon mission.

6. THE WORD SOLSTICE TRANSLATES ROUGHLY TO “SUN STANDS STILL.”

Solstice derives from the Latin scientific term solstitium, containing sol, which means “sun,” and the past participle stem of sistere, meaning “to make stand.” This comes from the fact that the sun’s position in the sky relative to the horizon at noon, which increases and decreases throughout the year, appears to pause in the days surrounding the solstice. In modern times, we view the phenomenon of the solstice from the position of space, and of the Earth relative to the Sun. Earlier people, however, were thinking about the Sun’s trajectory, how long it stayed in the sky and what sort of light it cast.

7. STONEHENGE IS ALIGNED TO THE SUNSET ON WINTER SOLSTICE.

The primary axis of the megalithic monument is oriented to the setting sun, while Newgrange, another structure built around the same time as Stonehenge, lines up with the winter solstice sunrise. Some have theorized that the position of the Sun was of religious significance to the people who built Stonehenge, while other theories hold that the monument is constructed along natural features that happen to align with it. The purpose of Stonehenge is still subject to debate, but its importance on the winter solstice continues into the modern era, as thousands of hippies, pagans, and other types of enthusiasts gather there every year to celebrate the occasion.

8. ANCIENT ROMANS CELEBRATED REVERSALS AT THE MIDWINTER FESTIVAL OF SATURNALIA.

The holiday, which began as a festival to honor the agricultural god Saturn, was held to commemorate the dedication of his temple in 497 BCE. It quickly became a time of widespread revelry and debauchery in which societal roles were overturned, with masters serving their slaves and servants being allowed to insult their masters. Mask-wearing and play-acting were also part of Saturnalia’s reversals, with each household electing a King of Misrule. Saturnalia was gradually replaced by Christmas throughout the Roman Empire, but many of its customs survive as Christmas traditions.

9. SOME TRADITIONS HOLD THAT DARK SPIRITS WALK THE EARTH ON THE WINTER SOLSTICE.

The Iranian festival of Yalda is celebrated on the longest night of the year. In pre-Islamic times, it heralded the birth of Mithra, the ancient sun god, and his triumph over darkness. Zoroastrian lore holds that evil spirits wander the earth and the forces of the destructive spirit Ahriman are strongest on this long night. People are encouraged to stay up most of the night in the company of one another, eating, talking, and sharing poetry and stories, in order to avoid any brushes with dark entities. Beliefs about the presence of evil on the longest night are also echoed in Celtic and Germanic folklore.

10. SOME THOUGHT THE WORLD WOULD END ON THE 2012 WINTER SOLSTICE.

December 21, 2012 corresponds to the date 13.0.0.0.0 in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar used by the ancient Mayans, marking the end of a 5126-year cycle. Some people feared this juncture would bring about the end of the world or some other cataclysmic event. Others took a more New Age-y view (literally) and believed it heralded the birth of a new era of deep transformation for Earth and its inhabitants. In the end, neither of these things appeared to occur, leaving the world to turn through winter solstices indefinitely, or at least as long as the Sun lasts.

All images from iStock unless otherwise noted.

A version of this story originally ran in 2015.

The latest institution investing in autonomous road travel is Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. According to Fortune, the new-and-improved version of their driverless bus is set to hit campus in early 2017.

For the next-gen minibus, the French firm Navya took the design of its 2013 model and added a few upgrades. Called the Arma, the bus is capable of shuttling up to 15 passengers between the NTU campus and the CleanTech eco-business park, close to a mile away. The interior is air-conditioned and features touchscreen displays, while the exterior is equipped with sensors for detecting obstacles on the road. GPS technology and on-board cameras allow humans to remotely track each journey while the bus travels autonomously. Depending on how far it travels, the electric vehicle can run on a single charge for half a day.

Driverless buses are slowly rolling out around the world. The technology has been tested in Zhengzho, China and around Washington, D.C., and last May a fully realized version of the concept launched on public roads in the Netherlands.

In October, Singapore’s Land Transport Authority announced it was, in conjunction with NTU, working to outfit two regular-sized electric hybrid buses with self-driving technology. Those vehicles will also be tested along the NTU-CleanTech route.

[h/t Fortune]