This Day in History: Dec 11

Well, another day, another opportunity to find out about historical events. Today we'll be examining the historical events of December 11th, and following yesterday's exciting events regarding the chartering of Emory College comes today's big event: the chartering of the University of North Carolina by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1789. Today, the University of North Carolina system includes sixteen four-year universities scattered around the state, including Appalachian State University, the school my brother attends. But back in the day, there was just the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, the oldest public university in the United States.

As a child growing up in North Carolina, it seemed to me that there were three ways that kids were raised: as UNC fans, as Duke fans or as NC State fans. Unfortunately, as I quickly realized, I was being raised none of those ways -- I was being raised as a Cavalier fan since my dad when to the University of Virginia. The closest I ever got to rooting for a home state team was cheering on Wake Forest since my dad went to law school there. My mom went to college in North Carolina, but her school wasn't in the same division and as such, my dad's teachings on this matter were prevalent.

Now, I don't want to say my dad "brainwashed" me, but let's just say that the idea of UNC made me very very upset as a child. I seem to remember an embroidered paperweight in his office that said "My two favorite teams are Virginia and whoever's playing North Carolina." So as far as I was concerned, that ram mascot was the scariest thing in the world.

As a very serious and sensitive child, I sometimes had a hard time knowing when people were teasing. My kindergarten teacher Miss Piercy was as big a UNC fan as my dad was a UVA fan, and despite my serious and sensitive nature, I became a pawn in their cruel game. Miss Piercy started sending me home with little UNC mementoes, like cups and keychains, which freaked me out. I cried and hid them in the bottom of my backpack because I didn't want my dad to find out. Then Dad and Miss Piercy made a bet on the UNC/UVA game, and instead of settling it amongst themselves, the winner got to dress me in shirts from the school of their choosing for a week. Since UNC won that year, I had to wear UNC shirts every day for a week. A week! I remember this being a miserable time. Typing this all out it seems miraculous that I made it through kindergarten which such emotional abuse being inflicted all the time.

But here's the crazy thing. I was raised to root against UNC, right? And then all of a sudden, it's time for me to go to college, and all of a sudden UNC starts looking real good to Dad, since it's in-state and tuition would be lower. Now, of course, we spent a lot of time looking at Virginia as well, but I’m just saying that it was quite confusing to be raised one way and then told to look a different way when it came to actually paying for a place.

Anyways, I am incredibly off-topic. Did anything else happen this day in history, you may be asking? Well, Indiana, birthplace of David Letterman and Johnny Cougar Mellencamp, became the 19th state. In World War II news, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States and the United States was all like, I'm rubber and you're glue and turned around and declared war right back. UNICEF was established. The Libertarian Party was formed. John Kerry and Mos Def were born, and Pope Damascus I and Sam Cooke died.