The Christmas Eggnog Riot at West Point, 24-25 December 1826

What do you do to celebrate Christmas? Do you wait until the family is all downstairs to start opening presents from Santa with a hot cup of cocoa? Maybe you head off to Christmas morning mass? Perhaps you get all the family together for Christmas dinner? Or do you instead get so drunk on eggnog full to the brim with rum, whiskey, and grog, and stage a riot at your local military academy that becomes such a tense situation that it nearly blows up into a full-scale mutiny?.... Just me? Well today's hilarious tale involves just that! A riot that took place at the United States military academy at West Point thanks entirely to copious amounts of eggnog, a series of unfortunate events, and a faculty staff that was so bewildered by the happenings of just a single night that for weeks after it they simply had no idea what to do about it. And it all started because the superintendent pre-empted American Prohibition by an entire century and declared an outright ban on drinking of any kind for all West Point cadets - except for July 4th and Christmas celebrations of course, he wasn't a monster! But as we'll see, that decision wouldn't last long. Join Arron this week as he takes the gang through the West Point Eggnog Riot, and listen to some of the wackiest series of events that you ever heard that almost led to an outright mutiny by almost 100 cadets against only a handful of officers on duty. This episode was presented by Arron Keegan and joined by Hayley O'Connor and Conor Daly. The intro and outro music - Strollin' Along - was recorded by David Renda. Make sure you check us out on social media! Just search for "That's Old News" on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter/X, or simply head to our linktree in the podcast's about section to find links to all our pages! Merry Christmas! ======== Chapters: (00:00) Coming Up This Week (01:14) Intro (11:01) West Point and Colonel Sylvanus Thayer's Reforms (17:22) Benny Haven's Shenanigans (23:55) July 4th 1826 (25:53) The Plan for an Illegal Christmas Party and Thayer's Christmas Spirit (31:12) The Eggnog Riot Begins and Captain Hitchcock (41:12) The Night Descends Into Chaos and Lieutenant William Thornton (51:57) The Morning After, the End of the Riot, and "Consequences" (57:46) Post Show Banter