This Day in History: Dec 10

Okay. December 10. Let's see what happened this day in history on December 10. Everyone's favorite melancholy poet, Emily Dickinson was born. Everyone's favorite weird drummer, Meg White, was also born. Clearly a good day for the birth of quiet and retiring women. Though Raven-Symone was also born. Man I hope Raven-Symone becomes this generation's Emily Dickinson.

The Nobel Awards are sort of like the thinking man's Oscars, minus all the fun and glamour and frivolousness. But if you follow the Nobels, you will probably be interested to note that Alfred Nobel died this day in 1896, which is why the Nobel Prizes, except the one for Peace, are always given this day in history. One year, I shall win one for…wait for it….chemistry. The chemistry of blogging. I just googled that phrase and the field looks pretty wide open so that's what I'm going to take up.

Anyways, enough babbling. The big event that happened this day in history was in 1836, when the Georgia General Assembly granted a charter for a Methodist college to be named after Bishop John Emory. That school, Emory College, was built in Oxford, Georgia, but luckily a little drink named Coca-Cola became popular at the turn of the century. The guy who owned Coca-Cola was brothers with a prominent Methodist bishop who had ties to Emory. The family gave some land and some money and voila, Emory College of Oxford became Emory University of Atlanta. Which is where I went to school.

On an interesting side note, that family's last name was Candler, which is also the name of my hometown in North Carolina. As the story was once recounted to me, the people who lived in Candler, NC were given the option to go down to Atlanta to help out with the marketing of this new-fangled Coca-Cola, but they passed, opting to stay in North Carolina. I assume they lived a poor but happy life in their little burrow while the big-city Candlers lived it up with rum and coke and got buildings named after them on Emory's campus. But…I can't say for sure.

Anyways, don't think I'm insane and knew exactly when my college was chartered. I didn't. Wikipedia told me. I did know that the school was founded in 1836 in Oxford because as a tour guide, I used to throw out that fact all the time. Also on the tour, I'd mention that in the 1970's, Emory got even more money from Coca-Cola, a sum that at the time was the largest gift given to a university. That's why you'll frequently hear Emory described as Coke University, though probably not as often as you hear Emory described as the Harvard of the South. That's also why all the buildings on campus are named Woodruff. That was another little joke on the tour.

Also on the tour, I used to tell this anecdote, even though I have no way of knowing if it's true. Apparently one day Pepsi machines were installed on campus, but they'd only been up for about five minutes when the baseball team, fresh from practice, walked by. Since the team knew which side their bread was buttered on, they took bats to the machine and that was the last Pepsi that was ever available at Emory.

Anyways, I especially benefited from that Coke money since the school kindly used some of it to pay for my tuition. Which is why it's an awful awful thing that I prefer Diet Pepsi to Diet Coke, and that I prefer Diet Dr. Pepper to all other soft drinks. I'm an awful awful ungrateful person, I know. But I'd like to think that my rebellious preference is actually a testament to Emory, because any good university will teach you to think critically. And with my critical thinking skills, I can tell you that the other products just taste better.

In any case, pour out a little Coke for the events that transpired on this day in history.