The first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was held on
November 27, 1924, in New York City, and was originally
called the Macy’s Christmas Parade.

Organized by Macy’s employees to celebrate the opening
of their new flagship store, the event featured floats,
professional bands, and live animals borrowed from the
Central Park Zoo, concluding with Santa Claus arriving
at Herald Square.

Santa in his Sleigh at the first Macy’s Christmas Parade.

On November 26, 1941, Adm. Chuichi Nagumo lead the
Japanese First Air Fleet, an aircraft carrier strike force,
toward Pearl Harbor, with the understanding that should
“negotiations with the United States reach a successful
conclusion, the task force will immediately put about
and return to the homeland.”

Negotiations had been ongoing for months. Japan
wanted an end to U.S. economic sanctions.       

       
The Americans wanted Japan out of China and
Southeast Asia-and to repudiate the Tripartite “Axis”
Pact with Germany and Italy as conditions to be met
before those sanctions could be lifted.

Neither side was budging. President Roosevelt and
Secretary of State Cordell Hull were anticipating a
Japanese strike as  retaliation—they just didn’t
know where.     

 
Adm. Chūichi Nagumo (1887 – 1944)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt^[
(January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945)

Cordell Hull
(October 2, 1871 – July 23, 1955)

On November 26, 1942, Casablanca, a World War II-era drama
starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premiered in
New York City; it went on to become one of the most beloved
Hollywood movies in history.

On November 26, 1948, the first “Land Camera”—better known
today as the instant Polaroid camera—went on sale at Jordan
Marsh department store in Boston for $89.75.

The invention of Edwin H. Land, who had enrolled at Harvard
to study physics in 1926, but dropped out to conduct his own
research, becomes an instant hit and sells out within minutes
that first day.

The camera, dubbed Model 95A, debuted the technology of
instant photography decades before modern digital photos.

Edwin Herbert Land (May 7, 1909 – March 1, 1991)       
        
        
       

Now, retro-style Polaroid cameras are made and sold
today, for people who love the nostalgic feel of instant-
yet-still-physical photography that pre-dates the internet
and cell phone era.

TIM MAGUIRE