The Nigeria Football Federation has terminated Gernot Rohr’s contract as the Super Eagles coach.
Subsequently, the football federation appointed Augustine Eguavoen, currently its Technical Director, as the Technical Adviser of the Super Eagles on an interim basis.
The statement added, “Following a virtual meeting of the NFF Executive Committee on Sunday, it was decided that Eguavoen will work with Salisu Yusuf (Chief Coach); Paul Aigbogun (Assistant Coach); Joseph Yobo (Assistant Coach); Dr Terry Eguaoje (Assistant Coach) and Aloysius Agu (Goalkeeper Trainer).
The statement quoted the General Secretary of the NFF, Dr Mohammed Sanusi, as commending the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports for collaboration and guidance all through.”
The newly elected president of the Cameroon Football Federation (FECAFOOT), Samuel Eto’o, has pledged to return Cameroon football to the top.
Eto’o, four-time African Footballer of the Year defeated rival Seidou Mbombo Njoya, the fourth vice-president at the Confederation of African Football (CAF), and will run Cameroonian football for the next four years.
Eto’o promised a wide range of reforms to revive Cameron football.
The former Barcelona, Inter Milan, and Chelsea star also promised to construct at least 10 stadia during his tenure in office.
304 Lucy, a young Christian lady, is executed for her faith in Syracuse, Sicily, an attempt having been first made to force her into prostitution. Within a century she will be one of the most popular saints, and Scandinavians will later become her strongest followers.
1577 Francis Drake sets sail from England on a circumnavigation of the world.
1636 The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians. Recognized today as the founding of the United States National Guard.
1642 Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sights the South Island of present day New Zealand; initially he calls it Staten Landt and changes it a year later to Nieuw Zeeland [1].
1732 Moravian missionaries first reach St. Thomas Island where they establish a work that, after many difficulties, will produce a church among the island’s slaves.
1920 League of Nations establishes the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
1952John Ajayi Agbona founds the Christ Apostolic Mission Church Oke-Igbala in Nigeria. Many miracles accompany his ministry and the denomination spreads into several other countries.
2002 The European Union announces that Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia will become members from May 1, 2004.
2003 Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit, during Operation Red Dawn by US forces.
More Historical Events Dec 13 in Film & TV 1989 “Driving Miss Daisy” directed by Bruce Beresford and starring Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy is released (Best Picture 1990).
Dec 13 in Music 1961 The Beatles sign a formal agreement to be managed by Brian Epstein.
Dec 13 in Sport 2007 The Mitchell Report is publicly released listing the names of 89 Major League Baseball players that have presumably used anabolic steroids and human growth hormones. Notable players named include Roger Clemens and Miguel Tejada.
Did You Know? 1920 Francis G. Pease’s interferometer at Mount Wilson Observatory is the first to measure the diameter of a star – the Betelgeuse.
Would You Believe? 1294 Saint Celestine V abdicates the papacy after only five months; Celestine hoped to return to his previous life as an ascetic hermit.
627 Battle at Nineveh: Byzantine Emperor Heraclius beats Sassanid forces during Byzantine-Sassanid War.
1901 Guglielmo Marconi sends the first transatlantic radio signal, from Poldhu in Cornwall to Newfoundland, Canada.
1925 Last Qajar Shah of Iran deposed; Rezā Shāh Pahlavi takes over.
1946 UN accepts 6 Manhattan blocks as a gift from John D. Rockefeller Jr.
2000 US Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore, settling the recount dispute in Florida’s 2000 presidential election in George W. Bush’s favor and thus handing him the presidency.
2015 COP21 climate change summit in Paris reaches a deal between 195 countries to limit the rise in the global average temperature to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
2019 British General Election won by Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party in landslide win with 80 seat majority. Scottish National Party also wins 48 of 59 seats in Scotland.
More Historical Events Dec 12 in Film & TV 1966 “A Man for All Seasons” based on the play by Robert Bolt, directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Paul Scofield premieres in New York (Best Picture 1967).
Dec 12 in Music 1792 In Vienna, Ludwig van Beethoven (22) receives 1st lesson in music composition from Franz Joseph Haydn.
Dec 12 in Sport 1930 Baseball Rules Committee greatly revises the rule book, ball bouncing into stands not a HR, now a double.
More On Today’s History 1800 Washington, D.C., established as the capital of the United States of America.
1957 Willem J Kolff and his team at Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic removed the heart from a dog and replaced it with a pneumatic pump which kept the dog alive for 90 minutes, proving the viability of the artificial heart.
Albuquerque city officials are cutting ties and moving on from plans for what they had hoped would be a flagship addition to New Mexico’s burgeoning aerospace industry.
The city announced Friday that the Washington, D.C.-based aerospace company behind the planned Orion Center never signed a lease agreement and has not followed through on its commitments.
Officials said concerns had been raised about Group Orion and its parent company, TGI.
Plans at one point called for building a large campus on city land near the airport — a project that company officials had said could one day employ as many as 2,500 workers.
Group Orion had plans to map and model the Earth’s surface using a network of satellites.
Upon City Council approval of the land and lease agreement in April, the city asked TGI to sign the agreement and make an initial payment of $1 million, which did not happen.
“The proposal seemed a little ‘too good to be true’ but we wanted to at least give it a shot at no risk to the city,” Mayor Tim Keller said in a statement. “After waiting eight months for them to seal the deal, it’s time we move on.”
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Keller said the promise of developing an aviation center is still strong and that the city plans to look for other tenants.
TGI, the parent company of Group Orion, faces financial and legal trouble. In November, a federal court in New York appointed a receiver to take control of TGI’s assets and operations.
The company did not immediately return a message seeking comment on Albuquerque’s announcement.
The city said it did not offer TGI any economic incentives while exploring the lease.
Future space travelers have been warned that no more commercial astronaut wings will be awarded from the Federal Aviation Administration after this year.
The FAA said it’s clipping its astronaut wings because too many people are now launching into space and it’s getting out of the astronaut designation business entirely.
The news comes one day ahead of Blue Origin’s planned liftoff from West Texas with former NFL player and TV celebrity Michael Strahan.
He and his five fellow passengers will still be eligible for wings since the FAA isn’t ending its long-standing program until Jan. 1.
NASA’s astronauts also have nothing to worry about going forward — they’ll still get their pins from the space agency.
All 15 people who rocketed into space for the first time this year on private U.S. flights will be awarded their wings, according to the FAA.
That includes Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson, as well as the other space newbies who accompanied them on their brief up-and-down trips. The companies handed out their own version of astronaut wings after the flights.
American Navy believes that contaminated tap water that went to Hawaii military households came from a one-time spill of jet fuel last month and was not caused by a leak from aging underground fuel storage tanks above an aquifer, a top Navy official told state lawmakers.
Rear Adm. Blake Converse said Navy officials are very confident that the contamination happened on Nov. 20, when 14,000 gallons (52,995 liters) of jet fuel spilled at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility inside an access tunnel that provides fire suppression and service lines for the complex.
The complex supplies fuel for many military planes and ships that operate in the Pacific and its use has been suspended.
The spill was cleaned up, Converse said, but people have complained for weeks of foul-smelling water and some have said they have gone to hospitals because of cramps or vomiting after they drank the water.
Converse said it appears that some of the jet fuel was sent through the Navy’s water distribution system that serves about 93,000 people, including those in military housing.
Converse also told state lawmakers that Navy officials have moved more than 3,000 families to hotels on the island of Oahu and that they will stay there until the problem is solved.
Christmas was banned in Cuba from 1969 until 1998. The then Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, didn’t want any religious celebrations. Christmas was made a public holiday again in 1998 in honor of the Pope visiting the country.
During the time it was banned, some people still celebrated Christmas but only in a very quiet way. Now Christmas celebrations are much more widespread.
Christmas Eve is called ‘Nochebuena’ (which means ‘the good night’) and it’s when families have their main meal and celebration together.
The traditional main dish is roast pork (some families like to roast a whole pig) normally served with fried plantains, rice and vegetables. Dessert is often rice pudding or sweet potato pudding.
More people are now going to a midnight mass church service after eating their Nochebuena meal.
In the town of Remedios there is a very big fiesta and parade on Christmas Eve called ‘Las Parrandas’.
One story says that in the 1820s the priest in the town thought that people might go to sleep after their meal and not go to midnight mass; so he got some children to make a lot of noise to keep people awake!
Now Las Parrandas in Remedios is a very loud parade and party with different neighbourhoods in the town trying to out do each other with their costumes and music!
The festivities start at 10pm when the church bells ring. At midnight there are lots of fireworks and more partying.
Epiphany is also celebrated in Cuba. Before Christmas was banned it was very popular and was when people exchanged presents. Children hope that the Three Kings will bring them presents at Epiphany.
This is still widely celebrated by Cuban communities in places like Miami.
In Croatia, preparations for Christmas start on 25th November which is St Catherine’s day. People also celebrate Advent. Over 85% of people in Croatia are Catholics so Advent is an important time for them.
It’s traditional to have an Advent wreath made of straw or evergreen twigs which has four candles. The wreath symbolizes endlessness and the four candles symbolize different parts of history and life:
First Candle (purple): creation – hope;
Second Candle (purple): embodiment – peace;
Third Candle (pink): redemption – joy;
Fourth Candle (purple): ending – love;
A fifth candle is sometimes added in the center which is lit on Christmas Day! You can buy wreaths, but many people like to make them. People also often have a paper Advent Calendar.
As well as St Catherine’s day, other saints days are celebrated in Advent in Croatia. On the 4th December it’s St Barbara’s Day; on the 6th December it’s St Nicholas’s Day and on 13th December it’s St Lucia’s/Lucy’s day.
On St Lucia’s Day people often sow wheat onto small plates. The grassy sprouts that grow (called Christmas wheat) are put underneath the Christmas Tree on Christmas Eve.
Christmas Trees are very popular and are normally decorated on Christmas Eve but some people put them up and decorate them on St Nicholas’s Day.
In Croatia they’re traditionally decorated with ornaments in the shapes of fruits.
They used to be real fruits or persevered candied fruits that were sometimes covered in gold!
In rural parts of the country, it is still customary to bring straw into the house on Christmas Eve as a symbol of future good crops.
A yule log called a ‘badnjak’ (also the word for Christmas Eve) was traditionally brought into the house and lit on Christmas Eve. But not many people have fireplaces these days!
Presents are normally exchanged on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Many people like to go to a Midnight Mass service.
In Croatian Happy/Merry Christmas is ‘Sretan Božić’. Happy/Merry Christmas in lots more languages.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are mostly celebrated with close family. On Boxing day friends and extended family visit each other.
On Christmas Eve, most people eat dried-cod called ‘bakalar’ or some other kind of fish as it’s considered as meat fast (so you can’t eat meat).
The main Christmas Day is often turkey, goose or duck. A popular side dish is sarma (cabbage rolls filled with minced pork meat).
There’s also always lots of small cookies and cakes to eat with donuts being very popular!
There’s ‘Krafne’ which are filled with jam, jelly, marmalade or chocolate and also ‘fritule’ which are flavored with lemon and rum.
The Christmas celebrations finish on Epiphany (6th January).
1620 Mayflower Pilgrims come ashore at in Plymouth Bay, traditionally thought to be at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts [NS, Dec 21]
1792 France’s King Louis XVI goes on trial, accused of high treason and crimes against the state
1825 Samuel Adjai Crowther is baptized at the age of sixteen. Recently a slave, he will become the first Anglican bishop of West Africa.
1913 “Mona Lisa” recovered 2 years after it was stolen from the Louvre Museum
1931 Statute of Westminster gives complete legislative independence to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland (Free State), and Newfoundland (not then part of Canada)
1936 Edward VIII announces in a radio broadcast that he is abdicating the British throne to marry Wallis Simpson
1946 UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) established (Nobel 1965)
1997 Delegates from 150 industrial nations attending a UN climate conference in Kyoto, Japan, reach agreement to control heat-trapping greenhouse gases
Today’s Historical Events Today in Film & TV 1967 “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”, directed by Stanley Kramer, starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, premieres in NYC (Hepburn – Academy Award for Best Actress 1968)
Today in Music 1946 Hank Williams begins to record on Sterling label
Today in Sport 1951 Joe DiMaggio announces his retirement from baseball
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