December 31st: National & International Days, Celebrations and Observances

Late December slows down. Through Silent Week, people squeeze in 15-minute walks, counting winter birds while breathing in the cold. At midnight on New Year's Eve, phones get switched off. The kids fall asleep first, leaving parents to enjoy a rare bit of quiet.

• Make Up Your Mind Day fits right in with all the January planning. Why not tackle that one decision you've been putting off? This year's environmental progress got more people involved too - small wins add up.
• Year-end parties don't need to waste resources. Regular glasses beat plastic ones any day. Skip the store decorations - pine cones and winter branches from the yard look better anyway.
• A quiet candle and evening thoughts work too. Write down the good moments outdoors if you want. Just small ways to remember what matters as the year ends.

History's turning points surface in unexpected places. Late December brings several to mind.

• A peculiar dinner took place at London's Crystal Palace Park in 1853. Twenty researchers dined inside a carefully built Iguanodon model. Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins' creation brought prehistoric science directly to public view.
• Night fell differently in Menlo Park on December 31, 1879. Twenty-five electric lights glowed across the laboratory complex and streets, powered by Edison's bamboo filaments. His practical test proved electric lighting could work at scale.
• The moon gained two visitors as 2011 drew to a close. NASA's "Ebb" spacecraft entered lunar orbit, working in tandem with "Flow." The $496 million GRAIL mission produced detailed maps of lunar gravitational fields, revealing the moon's internal structure.

These December discoveries - from Victorian science displays to lunar exploration - show how year-end experiments shaped modern understanding.

A botanist's ink-stained notes still sit in Leiden's archives. Herman Boerhaave spent decades - from 1668 to 1738 - recording every detail of 5,800 plants. His lecture hall overflowed with medical students, including young Carl Linnaeus scribbling in the back row.

Henri Matisse shook up 1900s Paris with splashes of unnatural color. Time and arthritis couldn't stop him - by 1947, when painting became impossible, he turned to scissors. His "Jazz" series emerged from simple paper and determination.

Papers cluttered Simon Wiesenthal's small Vienna desk from 1945 to 2005. Each folder held evidence against Nazi fugitives. His methodical work brought criminals to trial, and eventually led to a Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House.

In Technion's basement lab, Avram Hershko (1937-) asked why cells throw away proteins. The answer - tiny ubiquitin molecules acting as cellular garbage tags - earned his team the 2004 Nobel Prize.

ND Stevenson's pen tells different stories. Through "Nimona" and "Lumberjanes," they draw characters who break rules and find their place.