Dec. 5, 1908: Fire Chief William Green sets out for the movies at Phenix Hall, but even though the same show played at the nearby Opera House for more than a year, the Phenix is filled. There are plans to convert yet another building in the Durgin block into a theater. “Verily, the people are moving picture mad,” Mayor Charles Corning writes in his diary.
Dec. 5, 1976: Gov. Mel Thomson says he would agree to let his state be used as a site for underground storage of radioactive nuclear waste under certain conditions. He calls U.S. Sen. John Durkin’s unqualified opposition “unfortunate.”
Dec. 6, 1999: The Concord School Board agrees to increase the salaries of permanent substitute teachers and hire two more for the middle school and high school to share. School officials say that because of the strong economy they’ve had to scramble on occasion to find coverage.
Dec. 6, 2001: The New Hampshire Technical Institute has been accredited as a two-year community college by the New England Association of Schools and College’s Commission on Institutions of Higher Learning, the same group that assesses the University of New Hampshire and the state colleges in Keene and Plymouth, the Monitor reports. “This is one of the most significant moments in the history of NHTI,” said President Bill Simonton. “It will probably set the stage for the next 40 years of college.”
Dec. 7, 1790: The Concord Herald reports: “No Boston post is arrived; all news we believe is frozen up by the cold weather; we have not even a report with which we can serve up a paragraph for our news-hungry customers.”
Dec. 7, 1941: While dining with U.S. ambassador John G. Winant of Concord, Winston Churchill learns of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The silver lining for Churchill: The United States will at last enter the war.
Dec. 7, 1972: New Hampshire officials announce that elderly skiers will get reduced rates at two state-owned ski areas. Those 65 and older will get a discount at Cannon and Sunapee. Those over 70 will ski free.
Dec. 8, 1979: Concord City Manager Jim Smith rescinds the fire department’s ban on live Christmas trees in public buildings.
Dec. 8, 1991: James Carville, an adviser to Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, speaks confidently about his man in an interview with the Monitor: “I have no doubt if we could spend 10 minutes with everybody in the state, we’d win this campaign.” Clinton will finish second to Paul Tsongas but call himself “The Comeback Kid.”
Dec. 8, 1998: The federal government holds a hearing in Concord to discuss removing the peregrine falcon from the nation’s endangered species list. The raptor has made a remarkable comeback in New Hampshire, which boasts 12 nesting pairs.
Dec. 9, 1976: Republican Gov. Mel Thomson ignores a meeting of Northeastern governors with Democratic President-elect Jimmy Carter. John McDuffee, Thomson’s spokesman, says: “Instead of going to Washington to peek into the bag dangled by our federal Santa Claus,” Thomson is “participating with industrial entrepreneurs of our free enterprise system.” Translation: Thomson attends groundbreaking ceremonies for a new factory in Salem.
Dec. 9, 1979: Concord School Superintendent Calvin Cleveland says a group of Gideons will not be allowed to distribute Bibles in the schools, saying it would open the “floodgate” to all religions.
Dec. 10, 1991: At St. Paul’s School in Concord, Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas tells students that if he were a nominee for president, he would not stand for attacks on his character.
“Nobody’s going to question my patriotism, my devotion to this country or my values without paying a price if I can extract it,” he says.
Dec. 10, 1991: In Concord, Pat Buchanan announces that he will challenge President Bush in the New Hampshire Republican primary. America’s Judeo-Christian heritage must be passed on to a new generation, Buchanan says, not “dumped on some landfill called multiculturalism.”
Dec. 10, 1993: Barry Stem’s 967 acres on Concord’s Broken Ground, proposed over the years as a site for a golf course, a luxury housing project, a hotel and conference center and an office park, are sold at a foreclosure auction for $286,501.
Dec. 10, 2001: For the first time in the state’s history, a group of Concord-area agencies is trying to cooperate on transportation, the Monitor reports. After nearly two years of talks, CAT and some members of the Community Providers Network of Central New Hampshire, a group of 23 human service agencies, are on the brink of pooling their assets.
