Washington Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin skates in a game against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Credit: © Andy Martin Jr, Alamy Images

GOAL! In December, professional hockey player Alex Ovechkin, who plays for the Washington Capitals, became the player with the second most goals in NHL history with 802 goals. He passed Gordie Howe’s record of 801 points. Hockey star Wayne Gretzky holds the number one record with 894 goals. However, Ovechkin isn’t retiring anytime soon!

He scored two goals in a game against the Winnipeg Jets on Friday, December 23rd, 2022. His first goal of the game tied him with Howe in the first quarter. With one minute left in the third quarter, he gracefully shot the puck into the goal to beat Howe’s record. The Capitals defeated the Jets 4 to 1.

Alexander Ovechkin is a Russian-born hockey player. He is one of the stars of the National Hockey League (NHL). Ovechkin, a left wing for the Washington Capitals, led the NHL in scoring with 112 points (65 goals and 47 assists) in the 2007-2008 season. He has led the league in goals scored nine times (2007-2008, 2008-2009, 2012-2013, 2013-2014, 2014-2015, 2015-2016, 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2019-2020).

Ovechkin won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s Most Valuable Player for the 2007-2008, 2008-2009, and 2012-2013 seasons. He also won the Lester B. Pearson Award (now the Ted Lindsay Award) for the 2007-2008, 2008-2009, and 2009-2010 seasons. The award is given to the most outstanding player in the NHL as voted by the league’s players. In 2018, Ovechkin led Washington to its first Stanley Cup championship. He was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Most Valuable Player in the 2018 playoffs.

Ovechkin was born on September 17th, 1985, in Moscow, U.S.S.R. (now Russia). He began playing hockey with Dynamo Moscow in the Russian Super League in 2001 at the age of 16 and spent four seasons with the team. Ovechkin was chosen by Washington as the first player selected in the 2004 NHL draft. However, he did not play with the Capitals until 2005, because the 2004-2005 NHL season was canceled due to a labor dispute between the players and owners. Ovechkin won the Calder Memorial Trophy in 2006 as the NHL Rookie of the Year. His 65 goals in 2007-2008 set an NHL record for left wingers.

Ovechkin helped the Russian national team win the men’s world championship in 2008. He played for Russia in the 2006 and 2010 Olympic Games.

Christopher Robin plays with Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet in this illustration by the English artist Ernest H. Shepard for Now We Are Six , (1927), a poetry collection by the English author A. A. Milne. 
Credit: © Fototeca Gilardi/Marka/SuperStock

Gather your friends, we are going for a picnic in the Hundred Acre Wood to celebrate. Today is A. A. Milne’s birthday! Milne was an English author who wrote Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928). While he wrote other stories and poems, his books about the legendary Pooh Bear are considered masterpieces of children’s literature. Have you ever read about Pooh and his friends and misadventures?

A. A. Milne
Credit: © Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

Milne based the characters in the Pooh stories on his son, Christopher Robin, and the young boy’s stuffed animals. Milne’s stories describe the adventures of Christopher Robin and his animal friends in a forest called the Hundred Acre Wood. Some of the characters in the Pooh stories include Winnie-the-Pooh, a bear; Piglet, a small pig; and Eeyore, an old donkey. In his autobiography, It’s Too Late Now (1939), Milne told how his son’s stuffed animals led to the creation of the characters in the Pooh stories.

In addition to the Pooh stories, Milne wrote two classic collections of children’s poems, When We Were Very Young (1924) and Now We Are Six (1927). He wrote the children’s play Make-Believe (1918) and adapted Kenneth Grahame’s children’s book The Wind in the Willows into a play, Toad of Toad Hall (1929). Milne also created novels, short stories, and plays for adults. He wrote a famous detective novel, The Red House Mystery (1922), and a book of short stories called A Table Near the Band (1950). His comic plays include Mr. Pim Passes By (1919), The Truth About Blayds (1921), and The Dover Road (1922). He also wrote his Autobiography (1939).

No, his full name wasn’t A. A.! Alan Alexander Milne was born on January 18th, 1882, in London. He graduated from Cambridge University in 1903. From 1906 to 1914, he served as assistant editor of Punch, a humor magazine. Milne contributed many comic essays and poems to the magazine. He died on January 31st, 1956.

A chamber lift in the National Ignition Facility.
Credit: Damien Jemison, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Limitless, pollution-free energy is one step closer to becoming a reality. On Dec. 5, 2022, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, conducted a controlled nuclear fusion reaction that produced more energy than it consumed.

Nuclear fusion is the combining of two atomic nuclei to form the nucleus of a heavier element. Fusion reactions between low-mass (light) nuclei release a great amount of energy. Fusion produces the energy of the sun and other stars and the explosive force of thermonuclear weapons.

Nuclear fusion releases large amounts of radiation. Fusion occurs when the nuclei of two lightweight elements join to form the nucleus of a heavier one. In the example shown here, nuclei of deuterium and tritium unite and form a helium nucleus.
Credit: World Book illustration by Mark Swindle

The NIF uses a technique called inertial confinement fusion (ICF). In ICF, several extremely powerful lasers hit a fuel pellet about the size of a pencil eraser. The lasers heat the pellet to millions of degrees, causing the nuclei within it to undergo fusion and release energy. In this experiment, the lasers heated the pellet with 2.05 megajoules of energy and the pellet released 3.5 megajoules. NIF scientists and engineers improved the design of the fuel pellet and increased the power of the lasers to make this breakthrough.

If the NIF experiment produced energy, why can’t the facility simply be rebuilt all over the world to provide unlimited power? Although the reaction produced more energy than the energy in the laser light, the lasers themselves are too inefficient for a power plant. The lasers used hundreds of megajoules to produce those 2.05 megajoules of energy in the form of laser light. Furthermore, NIF can only perform up to 3 shots per day in its current configuration. Scientists and engineers estimate that a similar ICF facility will need to perform 10 shots per second to become profitable.

Where, then, does this leave fusion development? NIF scientists and engineers will work to improve their energy gains through fine-tuning their fuel pellets and laser output. But the facility was never meant to be a power plant. NIF was designed for research, particularly into the effects of nuclear weapons. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty prohibits the testing of nuclear weapons, but with NIF, scientists can mimic the conditions of a nuclear blast to develop more efficient nuclear weapons.

Many environmentalists have an uneasy relationship with fusion, in part due to its connection with nuclear weapons research. Some also think that functional fusion power plants will come too late to help slow the progression of global warming. Even with this breakthrough, experts predict that commercial fusion plants are likely at least 40 years away. People also worry that fusion research is taking resources away from research into grid energy storage and is detracting from such financially viable alternatives as wind and solar power.

But the prospective benefits of fusion are too great to ignore. Limitless, pollution-free energy is closer than it ever has been—even though it’s still pretty far away. What will people do with all that power?

Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Dončić protects the basketball in a game against the Washington Wizards.
Credit: © Tony Quinn, Sipa USA/Alamy Images

On Tuesday, December 27th, Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Dončić did not disappoint. He scored the highest stats in a triple-double in NBA history, scoring 60 points, grabbing 21 rebounds, and setting up 10 assists against the New York Knicks. Those are high numbers! This combination of double digits in points, rebounds, and assists is called a triple-double in basketball. Dončić joins Philadelphia 76ers player James Harden as the only player who has reached a 60-point triple-double in NBA history. Dončić stands 6 feet 7 inches (201 centimeters) in height. Born in the southern European nation of Slovenia, Dončić has gained attention for his advanced playmaking skills since he was a boy.

Dončić was born on Feb. 28, 1999, in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. His father, Saša (Sasha), played professional basketball for 18 seasons and later became a coach. At Ljubljana’s Olimpija Basketball School, young Luka regularly dominated games playing against boys a few years older.

In 2012, at the age of 13, he joined the basketball academy for the Real Madrid professional team in Spain. He started playing for Real Madrid’s top-level team in 2015. In 2017, Dončić helped lead the Slovenian national team to its first victory in the European Basketball Championship, a competition also known as EuroBasket. In both 2017 and 2018, he won the Rising Star award in Spain’s ACB professional league. In 2018, Dončić helped lead Real Madrid to the Euroleague championship. He was named the Most Valuable Player of both the league and its championship tournament.

In 2018, the Atlanta Hawks selected Dončić with the third pick in the NBA Draft. Under a prearranged agreement, the Hawks immediately traded him to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for the fifth pick—guard Trae Young—and a future draft pick. During the 2018-2019 NBA season, Dončić averaged about 21 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists per game. He won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award. Dončić increased his scoring, rebounding, and assist averages in his second season and was named a starter in the 2020 All-Star game.

University of Georgia tight end Brock Bowers against Texas Christian University in the second quarter of the NCAA College Football National Championship in California, on January 9, 2023.
Credit: © Mike Goulding, UPI/Alamy Images

On Monday, January 9th, 2023, the University of Georgia Bulldogs showed up to play against the Texas Christian University (TCU) Horned Frogs at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Georgia, the number one seed, only allowed the number three seed, TCU, one touchdown during the entire game. Georgia won the NCAA National Championship last year and now holds the title for two years in a row. Georgia not only won with a final score of 65 to 7, but with the 58-point lead, Georgia also secured the largest defeat in a bowl game in the history of college football.

Throughout the game, surrounded by thousands of fans, Georgia overwhelmed TCU. Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett IV, nicknamed “the mailman,” made four passing touchdowns and two rushing touchdowns to tie with former Louisiana State University quarterback Joe Burrow’s most touchdowns scored in a game. Bennett became the first player to score at least two passing touchdowns and two rushing touchdowns in a national title game in recent history.

The game began with Georgia quickly shutting down TCU’s opening drive and answering with a rushing touchdown by Bennett. Quickly the Bulldogs regained the ball and scored a field goal to raise the score to double digits. Horned Frogs quarterback Max Duggan marched 75 yards to score TCU’s first and only touchdown of the game. It was still in the first quarter. Georgia secured three more touchdowns, unanswered, before halftime. The teams retreated to their huddles with the scoreboard displaying 38 to 7. Georgia had scored on all six of its possessions in the first half.

Soon after halftime, it became apparent that the Bulldogs had the title in the bag with a 52 to 7 lead. With such a lead, Bennett stepped out of the game at the beginning of the fourth quarter, allowing backup Branson Robinson to score two touchdowns. The Bulldogs celebrated their monumental win and senior quarterback Bennett as he moves his sights to the NFL draft.

Representative Hakeem Jeffries
Credit: © lev radin/Shutterstock

On Tuesday, January 3, 2023, Hakeem Jeffries became the first Black person to lead a party in the United States Congress. As the leader of the Democratic Party in Congress, Jeffries will fill the role formerly held by Representative Nancy Pelosi, who was speaker and minority leader of the House of Representatives since 2003. His success was overshadowed by the dramatic chaos of Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy’s campaign to be elected Speaker of the House, which continued for days for the first time in a century. In 2022, the Democratic Caucus of the House of Representatives elected Jeffries minority leader. Jeffries became a member of the House in 2013. He represents a district of New York that includes the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens.

A Brooklyn native, Hakeem Sekou Jeffries was born on Aug. 4, 1970. His father was a substance abuse counselor, and his mother was a social worker. Jeffries graduated from New York’s Binghamton University in 1992 with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He continued his studies, earning a master’s degree in public policy at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Jeffries returned to New York City to enroll in the New York University School of Law, graduating with honors in 1997.

After law school, Jeffries clerked for Judge Harold Baer, Jr., of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. He then practiced law at a private firm. He later served as litigation counsel for the media companies Viacom Inc. and CBS. Jeffries ran for the New York State Assembly in 2000 and 2002, losing to the incumbent Roger Green. When Green vacated the post in 2006, Jeffries ran and won the election, serving in the role for three terms.

In 2012, Jeffries was elected to his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives. He served on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Budget Committee. In 2018, Jeffries was appointed to serve as the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus for the 116th Congress. In 2020, he served as impeachment manager for the Senate trial of former President Donald Trump. Jeffries’s political priorities include criminal justice reform and economic and health care security.

African American writer Zora Neale Hurston
Credit: Library of Congress

Born on January 7, 1891, in Eatonville, Florida, Zora Neale Hurston grew up to become a legendary writer. Hurston was an African American writer known for her novels and collections of folklore. Hurston’s best-known novel is Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). The story sensitively portrays a young African American woman’s realization of her identity and independence.

Hurston studied anthropology at Barnard College, graduating in 1928. Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity and of human culture. Hurston recognized the significance of the folklore of the Southern United States and the Caribbean countries. She collected Florida folk tales and descriptions of Louisiana folk customs in Mules and Men (1935). In Tell My Horse (1938), she described folk customs of Haiti and Jamaica.

Hurston wrote three other novels—Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934), Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), and Seraph on the Suwanee (1948). All her novels display the author’s gift for storytelling, her interest in Southern Black folk customs, her metaphorical language, and her robust sense of humor. Hurston also wrote an autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road (1942). She died on Jan. 28, 1960.

In 1995, the Library of America published two volumes of Hurston’s writings, Novels & Stories and Folklore, Memoirs, & Other Writings. A collection of her folk tales from the rural South was published for the first time in 2001, after Hurston’s death, as Every Tongue Got to Confess. Her account of the life of the last survivor of the last American slave ship, titled Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” was published in 2018. Hurston had interviewed the 86-year-old formerly enslaved man in 1927. A number of her early stories were collected for the first time in Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick (2020). Some of her essays were collected in You Don’t Know Us Negroes and Other Essays (2022).

Brazilian soccer star Pelé
Credit: © Nelson Antoine, Shutterstock

World-renowned soccer star, Pelé passed away in São Paulo, Brazil, on Thursday, December 29th. Despite retiring in 1974, Pelé still held world records for the sport. Pelé a Brazilian athlete, won fame as the greatest soccer player of his time and the most recognized athlete in world sports.

A forward, Pelé electrified crowds with his daring dribbling, perfect passing, and accurate shooting. He holds every major scoring record in Brazil, and scored 1,281 goals in 1,363 games during his professional career. Pelé is the only professional soccer player to score 1,000 goals in a career.

Pelé, a Brazilian athlete, won fame as the greatest soccer player of his time and became one of the most recognized athletes in the world. A forward, Pelé thrilled crowds with his daring dribbling, perfect passing, and accurate shooting.
Credit: © AFP/Getty Images

Pelé was born on Oct. 23, 1940, in Tres Coracoes, Brazil. His real name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento. Pelé joined the Santos (Brazil) Football Club in 1956 and led Santos to world club titles in 1962 and 1963. He is the only soccer player to have played on three world championship teams, leading the Brazilian national team to World Cup championships in 1958, 1962, and 1970. Pelé is the only player in the world who has won three World Cup championships.

In the 1958 World Cup, Pelé was 17 years old. He scored six goals in the tournament, including two in the final to defeat Sweden. His skill landed Brazil their first of five World Cups.

Pelé retired as a player in 1974 but returned to competition in 1975 with the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League (N.A.S.L.). Pelé retired again after leading the Cosmos to the N.A.S.L. championship in 1977. He is known for popularizing soccer in the United States. He wrote a children’s book about his life in soccer, For the Love of Soccer! (2010).

Benedict XVI, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 2005 to 2013
Credit: © Philip Chidell, Shutterstock

On Saturday, December 31st, former Pope Benedict XVI passed away at the age of 95. Many people worldwide will gather and tune in to watch his funeral on Thursday, January 5th, at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. Nearly 40,000 people visited the Basilica to pay respects to the late pope on Monday. Benedict was pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 2005 to 2013, when he resigned. Benedict succeeded Pope John Paul II. Benedict, a German, was only the second non-Italian pope since Adrian VI of the Netherlands, who held the office from 1522 to 1523. John Paul II of Poland was the first non-Italian pope since Adrian.

Benedict XVI was born Joseph Alois Ratzinger on April 16, 1927, in Marktl am Inn in the German state of Bavaria. He began his religious life at the age of 12 by entering St. Michael’s Seminary in the Bavarian city of Traunstein. During World War II (1939-1945), he was drafted into the German army, serving from 1943 until he deserted in the spring of 1945. He was held for a short time by American forces as a prisoner of war. He began preparing for the priesthood in November 1945.

Ratzinger was ordained a priest in 1951. He earned a Ph.D. in theology at Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich in 1953. As a young theologian, Ratzinger contributed to the work of Vatican Council II (1962-1965). He taught for several years at the universities of Bonn, Munster, and Tubingen, before serving as professor of dogmatic theology and the history of dogma at the University of Regensburg from 1969 to 1977. In March 1977, he became archbishop of Munich and Freising, and three months later, Pope Paul VI appointed him a cardinal.

The daily life of the pope includes meeting with groups of Roman Catholics who visit Rome. In this picture, Benedict XVI greets a gathering of people in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City.
Credit: © Patrick Hertzog, AFP/Getty Images

Ratzinger resigned as archbishop in 1982 after John Paul II appointed him prefect of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith in 1981. In this position, the cardinal was responsible for reinforcing Catholic orthodoxy—that is, upholding accepted beliefs. In 2002, Ratzinger was elected dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals.

By choosing the name Benedict, the pope placed his pontificate under the inspiration of Saint Benedict of Nursia, the founder of the Benedictine Order. The Benedictines played a major role in the religious and cultural revival of Europe after the West Roman Empire ended in the late 400′s.

Benedict wrote numerous books on theology. They include Introduction to Christianity (1968, new edition 2000), In the Beginning (1990), Called to Communion (1996), Many Religions, One Covenant (1999), The Spirit of the Liturgy (2000), and Values in Times of Upheaval (2005). He discussed his views on the church and related topics in two volumes of interviews, The Ratzinger Report (1985) and Salt of the Earth (1997). He also wrote an autobiography, Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977 (1998).

Benedict resigned as pope in 2013, stating that because of his age, he no longer had the strength to fulfill his duties. He was the first pope to resign in nearly 600 years. He kept the name Benedict XVI and became pope emeritus.

J. R. R. Tolkien was an English author and scholar. He wrote a popular series of novels about imaginary creatures distantly related to humans called hobbits . Tolkien introduced the characters in The Hobbit (1937).
Credit: © Haywood Magee, Getty Images

Prepare yourself for Gandalf’s fireworks, second breakfast with the hobbits, and an adventure, it is J.R.R. Tolkien’s birthday! Tolkien’s character Bilbo Baggins celebrated his “eleventy-first” (111th) birthday in the books, but we are celebrating what would have been Tolkien’s 131st birthday today. J.R.R. Tolkien was an English author and scholar. He is the famous author of The Hobbit (1937) and “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. The three novels in the trilogy are The Fellowship of the Ring (1954), The Two Towers (1954), and The Return of the King (1955).

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on Jan. 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein, South Africa, of English parents. From 1925 to 1959, he taught at Oxford University in England. He specialized in medieval languages and literature and wrote several scholarly works in this field. Tolkien’s hobbit stories show the influence of medieval English, German, and Scandinavian languages and literature.

His novels feature wrote an imaginary people called hobbits. Tolkien introduced the short, hairy-footed hobbits in The Hobbit (1937). He continued their story in three related novels called “The Lord of the Rings.” Hobbits are industrious and good-natured. They live in a world called Middle-earth, along with elves, goblins, wizards, and human beings. In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit, discovers a ring that conveys the power of invisibility but also corrupts the user. The hero of “The Lord of the Rings” is Frodo Baggins, Bilbo’s cousin. After many adventures, Frodo destroys the ring so that Sauron, the evil Dark Lord, cannot use it against the people of Middle-earth. Many critics have interpreted “The Lord of the Rings” as a symbolic moral or religious story about the battle between good and evil. But Tolkien insisted that he wrote the novels only as fantasies to entertain readers.

“The Lord of the Rings” consists of three epic motion pictures adapted from fantasy novels by the British author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. The filmed trilogy consists of The Fellowship of the Ring (2001); The Two Towers (2002); and The Return of the King (2003), shown here.
Credit: Everett Collection

The three novels of “The Lord of the Rings” were adapted into three immensely popular motion pictures released in 2001, 2002, and 2003. The Hobbit was also adapted into a trilogy of motion pictures that were “prequels” to “The Lord of the Rings.” These films were released in 2012, 2013, and 2014. A television series called “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” premiered in 2022. Set thousands of years before the events in The Hobbit, the series was based on some of the background history that Tolkien described in the books.

In 1917, Tolkien began to write The Silmarillion, a history of Middle-earth before the hobbits appeared. He worked on the book occasionally for the rest of his life but died before completing it. His son Christopher finished the novel, and it was published in 1977. A collection of previously unpublished material about Middle-earth and the legendary island of Numenor appeared in 1980 as Unfinished Tales. During the 1920′s and 1930′s, Tolkien wrote The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrún, the story of a Norse hero and his wife. The book was published in 2009. Christopher Tolkien edited a 12-volume series of his father’s writings called The History of Middle-earth (1983-1996). Christopher also edited three stories of Middle-earth assembled from drafts his father left at his death. They are The Children of Húrin (2007), Beren and Lúthien (2017), and The Fall of Gondolin (2018). In addition, Christopher edited The Fall of Arthur (2013), a narrative poem about the legendary King Arthur that his father had left unfinished. Tolkien died on Sept. 2, 1973.