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December 3
Mr. Basketball USA, also known as ESPN RISE National Player of the Year and formerly known as the EA SPORTS National Player of the Year, is an award presented to the United States boys' high school basketball national player of the year by ESPN HS. Before 1996, retroactive recognition has been determined for honorees going back to 1955's selectee Wilt Chamberlain (pictured). From 1996 to 2002 the selections were made by Student Sports and from 2003 to 2009 by EA Sports. According to information posted online by ESPN HS, "Selections are based on high school accomplishment, not future college/pro potential, and are reflective of those that lead their teams to state championships." Furthermore, selection uses "on-the-floor performance" without regard to off-the-court criteria. Current selections are made through a season-long polling process of a 10-member expert panel with a final year-end ballot to determine the winner. The panel is polled weekly for a list of the top seven national player of the year candidates regardless of graduating class. (Full list...)
December 10
The Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration was an era which extended from the end of the 19th century to the early 1920s. During this 25-year period, the Antarctic continent became the focus of an international effort which resulted in intensive scientific and geographical exploration, sixteen major Antarctic expeditions being launched from eight countries. The common factor in these expeditions was the limited nature of the resources available to them before advances in transport and communication technologies revolutionised the work of exploration. Each expedition became a feat of endurance that tested its personnel to physical and mental limits, and sometimes beyond. During the course of these expeditions, the geographical and magnetic poles were both reached. The achievement of being first to the geographical South Pole was a primary object in some expeditions and was the sole rationale for the venture undertaken by Roald Amundsen (pictured). The expeditions also generated large quantities of scientific data and specimens across a wide range of scientific disciplines, the examination and analysis of which would keep the world's scientific communities busy for decades. (Full list...)
December 17
For her entire life, Jane Austen (illustration pictured) lived as part of a family located socially and economically on the lower fringes of the English gentry. She was primarily educated at home by her father and older brothers and through her own reading. Her apprenticeship as a writer lasted from her teenage years until she was about thirty-five years old. During this period, she wrote three major novels and began a fourth. From 1811 until 1815, with the release of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma, she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published after her death in 1817, and began a third, eventually titled Sanditon, but died before it could be completed. Austen published all of her novels in the Regency period, during which King George III was declared permanently insane and his son was appointed as prince regent. Throughout most of Austen's adult life, Britain was at war with revolutionary France. (Full list...)
December 24
The UK Albums Chart Christmas number ones are the records that have been at the top of the UK Albums Chart on Christmas Day. Typically, the Christmas number one is the album that was announced as number one on the Sunday before 25 December. When Christmas Day falls on a Sunday itself, the official number one is the one announced on that day's chart. The most successful act is The Beatles (pictured), who have topped the Christmas chart with seven different albums. With the exception of 1966, they reached number one on every Christmas chart from 1963 to 1969, and also topped the chart in 2000 with their singles collection, 1. The only other act to release more than three Christmas number one albums is British singer Robbie Williams, who topped the chart with three solo albums in the early 2000s, and also featured as part of Take That on their 2010 album, Progress. The 2012 number one album is Our Version of Events by Scottish recording artist Emeli Sandé. (Full list...)
December 31
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The Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office is the unofficial title of the official resident cat of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at 10 Downing Street. Only two cats, Humphrey and Larry (pictured), have been given the title officially; the other cats are given this title affectionately, usually by the British press. There has been a resident Treasury or Downing Street cat employed as a mouser and pet since the reign of Henry VIII when Cardinal Wolsey placed his cat by his side while acting in his judicial capacity as Lord Chancellor. The cat with the longest tenure at Downing Street is Wilberforce, who served under Edward Heath, Harold Wilson, Jim Callaghan and Margaret Thatcher. The departure of the last incumbent, Sybil, was in January 2009. Sybil was owned by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, who lived in 10 Downing Street while the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, lived in the larger 11 Downing Street. (Full list...)