AWC is going meta today, celebrating the anniversary of...celebrating anniversaries. Forgive the self-indulgence, but it was two years ago that this series took its first trembling steps on March 6, 2013. The first post was an ode to the humble Oreo, which Nabisco claims to have developed at its factory in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood on this date 103 years ago on March 6, 1912. The Oreo was actually an imitation of the older Hydrox cookie, but after its introduction a funny thing happened. Nabisco did such a good job copying Hydrox that they ended up making a better cookie, and Hydrox came to be seen as the cheap knockoff.

If you’re celebrating a birthday or anniversary, Oreos aren’t a bad choice to have on hand. You can make a cake with them, or skip the middleman and just try the Birthday Cake flavored variants, one of dozens of flavors Nabisco has introduced over the years. (Others have included Red Velvet, Pumpkin Spice, Peanut Butter, Gingerbread, and Watermelon, because sure, why not?)

Since starting with cookies, this series has spent two years traveling far and wide to find anniversaries worth celebrating. (Your humble correspondent took a year-long break starting on June 2, 2013 and picked up right where we left off on the same date last summer.) In that time, we’ve covered everything from sliced bread to Superman. We’ve gone from the banks of the Halys River in modern-day Turkey in 585 BC (the earliest date on our anniversary quest) to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 (the most recent). The 1960s seemed to be AWC’s favorite decade. With its mix of milestones in civil rights and space exploration, along with great music, pro football, and heart surgery, the ‘60s accounted for 34 posts – nearly one in 10 of the total.

Recurring characters on our journey included Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, and Elvis Presley. And then there was baseball, a game with a past that makes it irresistible as a prism for history. It showed up at least 17 times in posts that ranged from on-field achievements, to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, to “Casey at the Bat.” All of these choices reflect the biases of one person, namely me. But hopefully in a year’s worth of milestones in sports, entertainment, politics, science, and whatever weird stories grabbed my fancy, you found more than a few items to brighten up your day. This series had one simple goal from the beginning: Find something that a person of good will could celebrate on every day of the year. I think we succeeded.

If it sounds like we’re about to turn out the lights on AWC, that’s true. But there’s still one more piece of business to tend to before we lock the doors. Tune in tomorrow…

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