The Chinese called it the Year of the Horse. The United Nations dubbed 2014 the International Year of Small Island Developing States (SIDS). UNESCO calls it the their International Year of Family Farming. It was the year that Ford’s Mustang and the Sugar Bear turned 50. The concept of an 8-hour workday turned 100 years old. It was introduced by Henry Ford to offset monotony induced high turnover rates experienced on the assembly lines he introduced the year before. 2014 also marked the 100th anniversary of:
- the opening of the Panama Canal
- the 1st major oil discovery in western Canada (at Turner Valley)
- the Coleman Lamp
- the Tinkertoy Construction Set
- Wrigley Doublemint gum
- Babe Ruth’s 1st major league baseball game
- Charlie Chaplin‘s 1st motion picture
- the sinking of the RMS Empress of Ireland in the Gulf of St. Lawrence; (1,012 lives are lost).
- Green Beer (on St. Patrick’s Day)
- the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria:
- the commencement of World War I
- the 1st ship to be torpedoed & sunk by a submarine
- Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade is the 1st fully mechanized unit in the British Army
Sadly we lost more than we found in 2014.
The world lost a couple Asian airplanes and over 300 (and counting) Nigerian school girls. Scotland lost its bid for independence. I’ll stop there because its a long list that runs on and on (and fortunately I lost that too).
The finds were few and far between but Canada did manage to find the wreck of one of two ships that have been missing for over a century and a half.
The only thing I found this year is a new “black” whisky muse to help lubricate my unhinged recollection of the last year’s events. Don’t worry though, I will try not to let its color spill over into my memories of the past year. I am still the boss of me and a glass half full (so I don’t spill any) kind of guy, so relax while I try to spin something positive into an otherwise dark, no news is good news kind of year.
