Today in history—December 29

1800: Charles Goodyear (left)  is born. In 1834, after going bankrupt as a Philadelphia hardware merchant, he will make rubber usable and popular by developing the “vulcanization” process.  He will nevertheless spend much of his life in debtors’ prisons and will die $200,000 in debt.  “I am not disposed to complain that I have planted and others have gathered the fruits,” he will write. “A man has cause for regret only when he sows and no one reaps.”

1827: Seth Wyman, of Wyman v. Fletcher, dies.

1845: The Republic of Texas, independent of Mexico since 1836, joins the Union as the 28th state. It is a defeat for followers of former President Mirabeau B. Lamar, who believe an independent Texas, not the United States, should become the dominant power on the Pacific.

1910: The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States changes its name to the National Collegiate Athletic Association.  The NCAA’s mission is to prevent student athletes from being exploited by anyone except member schools.

1913: The Selig Polyscope Company of Chicago produces the first motion-picture serial cliffhanger, The Adventures of Kathlyn. The picture is a joint production with the Chicago Tribune, whose circulation rises 10 percent when it prints the weekly serial story.

1936: Mary Tyler Moore, whose acting career starts with as gig as “Happy Hotpoint” the little elf who dances around on top of Hotpoint kitchen appliances, is born in Brooklyn.

1945: Music City, USA is born, as actor/singer/comedian Sheb Wooley (left) makes the first commercial recording in Nashville, Tennessee.  It goes nowhere.

1967: Paul Whiteman, whose orchestra made the black music known as “jazz” popular with Americans and who created the big-band sound of the thirties, dies in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.  His first hit, Whispering, sold two million copies in 1920, and his commissioning of George Gershwin to write Rhapsody in Blue made the new music respectable.