The last year of the Noughties offers us plenty of anniversaries where we can let our hair down, or at least nod wisely to ourselves, in commemoration
NEXT YEAR will be the International Year of Astronomy, as designated by the UN. It also marks the 50th anniversary of individual years being labelled "International Years" - since 1959 the UN has used the designation "to draw attention to major issues and to encourage international action to address concerns which have global importance". Which is why, for instance, 2008 was picked out as the International Year of the Potato.
Mashing moments may have been to the fore in 2008, but in 2009 it will be wools and Donegal tweed, as it's the International Year of Natural Fibres. As if that weren't excitement enough, several significant anniversaries also take place.
In 1909 environmental issues were to the fore. Dublin streets were tarred for the first time to combat the dust from ever-increasing numbers of motor cars. The authorities were duly delighted with the absence of fumes from horse manure and dust caused by internal combustion engines. A clean and healthy environment seemed assured for the future.
The environment was largely untroubled by air travel in 1909, a situation that was presumed likely to pertain - certainly as far as the Engineering and Scientific Association of Ireland was concerned. On October 25th, 1909, that august body announced that flying through the air was "not yet an accomplished fact", adding that it would never be of any practical use anyway.
Flying in the face of this verdict, Harry Ferguson completed the very first flight in Ireland. On the last day of 1909, Harry - pioneer of the modern tractor - took off from the strand at Newcastle in the shadow of the Mourne mountains.
Then, inexplicably, the intrepid Co Down man turned his back on flying. Instead, turning to tractors, Harry perfected his famous "three hitch system", necessary in the tight drumlin terrain of Co Down. Perhaps had he hailed from a flatter county we would today be flying about in Ferguson 747s, and farmers might be using Massey Boeing tractors.
Despite revolutionising agriculture, Harry Ferguson has been erroneously implicated in the development of four-wheel drive. But Harry is in the clear as regards this climate-changing charge. The true inventor of four-wheel drive is unknown; its history is not well recorded, and blame impossible to apportion.
However, 2009 does see the anniversary of the death of a man whose unwitting actions have had seriously long consequences: step forward Thomas Midgley, from Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. A mechanical engineer turned chemist, Thomas was concerned about the "knocking" or "pinking" effect suffered by early internal combustion engines - so he developed a lead additive to combat it. Having distributed this deadly poison wholesale into our atmosphere, Thomas then turned his attention to fridges. He realised that they, too, could be a lot more efficient, so invented chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and the ozone layer was never the same again.
One historian remarked that Midgley "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth history".
Sadly, Thomas Midgley contracted polio in 1940 at the age of 51. Having lost the use of his legs, he invented a harness to get himself out of bed. November 2nd, 2009, will be the 65th anniversary of Thomas accidentally strangling himself with his invention. Somehow it's hard not to see an awful allegory lurking in there somewhere.
The only speck of comfort in Midgley's tragic story is that the poor, mild-mannered man died without knowing he had become every environmentalist's worst nightmare.
IN RELIGIOUS MATTERS 2009 will be the 1,000th anniversary of popes dispensing with their own name and adopting a papal name. It seems that the first pope to start the trend was Sergius IV (elected in 1009) who needed to get away from his unfortunate nickname Os Porci (Old Pigface). It's not clear if the Vatican plans to mark this in any significant way.
Plenty of other celebrations will be under way during 2009. Barbie is 50, Sleeping Beauty 50, Alaska 50, and the Breathalyser in Ireland 40.
2009 is the 100th anniversary of Ernest Shackleton pinning down the magnetic South Pole; the 50th anniversary of Rev Ian Paisley's fine of £5 for disorderly conduct at a public meeting in Ballymena; and the 25th anniversary of the moving statue of Ballinspittle.
2009 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his magnum opus On the Origin of Species - the story of the two-billion-year process that turned a primitive blob in the primal ooze into a species capable of producing Pop Idol.
Some melancholy moments will be remembered in 2009. In 1959 a plane crash in Iowa killed Buddy Holly. Give yourself an extra point if you knew the name of the plane: American Pie. Have another one if you knew that Buddy was born in 1936, only seven years after Wyatt Earp died - history in context.
Still in the US, John Brown, whose body lies a-mouldering in the grave, died in 1859. Another 150th anniversary will mark the death of Wilhelm Grimm, storyteller. Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, the Austrian statesman and diplomat, also went to his eternal reward in 1859. On his death the French diplomat and Machiavellian schemer Talleyrand is reported to have said, "I wonder what he meant by that."
2009 is the 250th anniversary of the death of composer George Frideric Handel whose Messiah got its first airing in Dublin in 1742 at the Great Musick Hall; presumably in the days before spellcheck. Hallelujah!
Scotland will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns, born in 1759. The author of the national anthem of anniversaries, Auld Lang Syne, his Ode to a Mouse is equally eloquent (and poignant) on the passage of time:
Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But, oh! I backward cast my eye
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!
German writer Friedrich von Schiller, who was born the same year as Robert Burns, also had words to say on the subject of time: "Live with your century; but do not be its creature."
FOOD AND WINE make a showing in 2009 with two memorable anniversaries. Richard "Dick" J McDonald was born in 1909. Along with his brother Mac, Dick heralded in the era of fast food. Seventy-five years later in 1984 Dick served the 50,000,000,000th (50 billionth) McDonald's burger, having cooked the very first one.
American winemaker Ernest Gallo, born in 1909, only died in 2007. So it looks as if wine really is good for you. However, in the same year that Gallo was born, alcohol was on the minds of the authorities in Ireland. So worried were they about excess consumption of alcohol that a Home Office report on drunkenness was commissioned. The survey showed that during one 24-hour period 27,999 children had been counted as they were taken by their parents or other relatives into 22 specified pubs under police observation.
Fortunately, the authorities' fears that Ireland might become a nation of borderline alcoholics proved groundless.
It's generally accepted that May 28th, 585 BC, is the earliest precisely known date in history. On that Tuesday morning the battle between the Lydians and Medes was suddenly called off when a solar eclipse occurred. Both armies were too scared to carry on. In 2009 we'll be celebrating the 2,594th anniversary of that occasion - although it's not clear if the Lydians and the Medians have planned any big events. But should they fail to deliver in significant fashion, at least there are several other anniversaries that will give us the opportunity to let our hair down - or at least nod wisely to ourselves.
From Calvin to Crusoe: Things to remember in 2009
409
1,600th anniversary of the Vandals crossing the Pyrenees, eventually giving rise to the land of the Vandals, Al Andalus, or Andalusia.
1209
800th anniversary of the sacking of Béziers by Simon de Montfort during the crusade against the Cathars.
1309
700th anniversary of a bad day for Venetians, as Pope Clement V excommunicated Venice and all its population.
1509
500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin.
1609
It is the 400th anniversary of the year in which Galileo first observed the heavens through a telescope, and his discoveries proved pivotal in removing human's from the centre of the known universe
1709
200th anniversary of Alexander Selkirk's rescue from a desert island, inspiring Robinson Crusoe.
1809
200th anniversary of the birth of Mendelssohn, on February 3rd.
1859
150th anniversary of The Irish Times (March 29th); also of the birth of Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (May 22nd), and of Jerome K Jerome (May 2nd).
1909
100th anniversary of the opening in Dublin of Ireland's first purpose-built cinema, the Volta, under the management of James Joyce; also the 100th anniversary of the death of John Millington Synge on March 24th, and the 100th anniversary of the birth of painter Francis Bacon in Dublin on October 28th.
1919
The 90th anniversary of the first Dáil Éireann.
1939
70th anniversary of the death of WB Yeats (January 28th).
1949
60th anniversary of Ireland becoming a Republic. A Ford V8 car cost £720 2s/9d, and 9d would buy you 20 State Express 555 cigarettes.
1959
The 50th anniversary of the launch of direct dialling in Ireland.
1969
40th anniversary of the first moon landing.
1984
25th anniversary of the death of Omagh man Jimmy Kennedy, who wrote the lyrics for Teddy Bears' Picnic and South of the Border Down Mexico Way.
1989
20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall
2008
First anniversary of the invention of the motorised ice-cream cone holder, to save you rotating the cone yourself. Science marches on.
