Cookeville History Museum

💡FUN FACT FRIDAY💡
To celebrate the Opry's recent centennial, we will share GOO history for the next few weeks!
In 1925, a radio-loving founder of National Life and Accident Insurance Company convinced the company to launch its own radio station: WSM – named after their slogan “We Shield Millions." National Life built a small studio with a window in its downtown Nashville office and WSM went live for the first time on October 5, 1925. A month after WSM’s first show, National Life hired George D. Hay, a prominent announcer and program director known for his National Barn Dance program at WLS in Chicago. Hay launched the WSM Barn Dance with Uncle Jimmy Thompson, a 77-year-old fiddle player, on November 28, 1925 – widely known as the day the Grand Ole Opry was born. In December of 1927, following an NBC broadcast of Walter Damrosch's Music Appreciation Hour, George D. Hay proclaimed on-air, "For the past hour we have been listening to the music taken largely from the Grand Opera, but from now on we will present the Grand Ole Opry.” The new name for the WSM Barn Dance stuck.
To be continued...

💡FUN FACT FRIDAY💡
The Twelve Days of Christmas are a festive Christian season from December 25th (Christmas Day) to January 6th (Epiphany), celebrating Jesus's birth and the arrival of the Three Wise Men in Bethlehem, with traditions including feasts, songs and religious observance.
The Magi's Journey: The 12 days represent the journey of the Three Wise Men to Bethlehem to present gifts to baby Jesus, ending on Epiphany.
Feast Days: It's a series of religious feast days, honoring saints like St. Stephen (Dec. 26) and St. John (Dec. 27).
Pagan Roots & Church Adaptation: Some believe the dates were chosen to align with older pagan winter solstice celebrations, with the Church marking key events around this time.
A Memory Game: The song likely originated as a cumulative memory game for children, with the gifts adding up.

💡FUN FACT FRIDAY💡
Kwanzaa is a secular, Pan-African cultural holiday observed annually from December 26th to January 1st. Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the Nguzo Saba (seven principles in Swahili), which are considered core values of African culture. These principles are:
Umoja (Unity)
Kujichagulia (Self-Determination)
Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility)
Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics)
Nia (Purpose)
Kuumba (Creativity)
Imani (Faith)
Happy Kwanzaa!!! ❤️🖤💚