Thursday, December 25, 2025

December 25th: This Day in History



Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!



Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:

 1 - 1st Christmas, according to calendar-maker Dionysus Exiguus

 274 - Roman Emperor Aurelian dedicates a temple to Sol Invictus on the supposed day of the winter solstice and day of rebirth of the Sun.

 337 - Earliest possible date that Christmas was celebrated on Dec 25th

 352 - 1st definite date Christmas was celebrated on Dec 25th

 390 - Roman emperor Theodosius admits debt on mass murder in Thessalonica
498 - French king Clovis baptises himself
597 - England adopts Julian calendar
604 - Battle at Etampes (Stampae): Burgundy beat Neustriers









Statue of Charlemagne in front of Notre Dame Cathdral in Paris


Pictures of the statue of Charlemagne outside of the Notre Dame de Paris



800 - Pope Leo III crowns Charles the Great (Charlemagne), Roman emperor






 0800 - Charlemagne was crowned first Holy Roman Emperor in Rome by Pope Leo III.   






875 - Charles, the Bare, crowned emperor of Rome
967 - John XIII crowned Otto II the Red German compassionate emperor
969 - Johannes I Tzimisces, crowned emperor of Byzantium
979 - Rotardus appointed as bishop of the kingdom
999 - Heribertus becomes bishop of Cologne
1000 - Monarch Istvan crowned king of Hungary
1046 - Pope Clemens VI crowns Henry III RC-German emperor
1048 - Parliament of Worms: Emperor Henry III names his cousin count Bruno van Egisheim/Dagsburg as Pope Leo IX


 1066 - William the Conqueror, crowned king of England William the Conqueror was crowned king of England.   



1100 - Boudouin I of Boulogne crowned king of Jerusalem
Holy Roman Emperor CharlemagneHoly Roman Emperor Charlemagne 1101 - Henry I of Limburg becomes duke of Neth-Lutherans
1121 - Norbertus van Xanten finds order of the Norbertijnen
1130 - Anti-pope Anacletus II crowns Roger II the Norman, king of Sicily
1223 - St Francis of Assisi assembles 1st Nativity scene (Greccio, Italy)

1223 - St. Francis of Assisi assembled one of the first Nativity scenes, in Greccio, Italy.   







1261 - John IV Lascaris of the restored Eastern Roman Empire is deposed and blinded by orders of his co-ruler Michael VIII Palaeologus.

 1492 - Columbus' ship Santa Maria runs aground and sinks on Hispaniola
1522 - Turkish troops occupy Rhodos
1553 - Battle of Tucapel: Mapuche rebels under Lautaro defeats the Spanish conquistadors and exetutes the governor of Chile Pedro de Valdivia.
1582 - Zealand/Brabant adopts Gregorian calendar, yesterday was Dec 14th

 1599 - The city of Natal, Brazil is founded.

 1613 - Johan Sigismund of Brandenburg becomes protestant

 1621 - Gov William Bradford of Plymouth forbids game playing on Christmas

 1640 - Pierre de Fermat writes to Marin Mersenne about Fermat's church thesis

 1641 - Emperor Ferdinand III makes appointments with Sweden& amp; France

 1643 - Christmas Island founded and named by Captain William Mynors of the East India Ship Company vessel, the Royal Mary.
1651 - Massachusetts General Court ordered a fine (five shillings) for "observing any such day as Christmas"
1683 - English Whig-leader duke of Monmouth flees to Holland
1688 - English king James II lands in Ambleteuse, France
1688 - Lord Delamere sides with King James II
1717 - Floods ravage Dutch coast provinces, 1000s killed
1741 - Astronomer Anders Celcius introduces Centigrade temperature scale
1745 - Prussia andAustria sign Treaty of Dresden giving much of Silesia to the Prussians

 1758 - Halley's comet 1st sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch during return

 1760 - Jupiter Hammon, NY slave, publishes poetry in "An Evening Throught"

 1775 - Pope Pius VI encyclical on the problems of the pontificate







The Princeton Battle Monument depicting George Washington


 1776 - Washington crosses Delaware & surprises & defeats 1,400 Hessians


1776 - Gen. George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River for a surprise attack against Hessian forces at Trenton, NJ. 

Dec 25, 1776: Washington leads troops on raid at Trenton, New Jersey  On this night in 1776, future resident General George Washington leads his small and bedraggled army in a daring raid on British and Hessian troops at Trenton, New Jersey, during the American Revolution.  





1818 - 1st known Christmas carol ("Silent Night, Holy Night") sung (Austria)




Bust of German-British composer George Friedrich Handel

 1818 - Handel's Messiah, premieres in the US in Boston



1830 - Hector Berlioz's "Symphony Fantastic," premieres
1831 - Louisiana & Arkansas are 1st states to observe Christmas as holiday
Naturalist Charles DarwinNaturalist Charles Darwin 




 1832 - Charles Darwins celebrates Christmas in St Martin at Cape Receiver

 1833 - Charles Darwins celebrates Christmas in Port Desire, Patagonia


British Botanist Charles Darwin


 1834 - Charles Darwins celebrates Christmas on Beagle at Tres Montes, Chile


 1835 - Charles Darwins company celebrates Christmas in Pahia, New Zealand


1837 - Battle of Okeechobee-US forces defeat Seminole Indians
1843 - 1st theatre matinee (Olympic Theatre, NYC)
1848 - New Haven Railroad opens

1862 - 40,000 watch Union army men play baseball at Hilton Head, SC
1868 - Despite bitter opposition, President A Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all persons involved in Southern rebellion (Civil War)
1875 - Lambs Club in NY forms
1888 - 1st indoor baseball game played at fairgrounds in Philadelphia
1894 - 1st midwestern football team to play on west coast, U of Chicago defeats Stanford 24-4 at Palo Alto, CA in football
1896 - "Stars & Stripes Forever" written by John Philip Sousa
1899 - Farmers send/guide belegerd Ladysmith Kerstpudding/desire in grenade
1900 - Arthur Schnitzlers "Leutnant Gustl" forbidden in Germany
Composer John Philip SousaComposer John Philip Sousa 




The Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, South Africa.

 1901 - Battle at Tweefontein Orange-Free state: Boers surprise attack Brits


1902 - Clyde Fitch' "Girl with Green Eyes," premieres in NYC
1905 - V Herbert/H Blossoms musical "Mlle Modiste," premieres in NYC
1911 - Edward Knoblock's "Kismet," premieres in NYC



 1914 - Legendary/unofficial "Christmas Truce" takes place (Brits & Germans)

 Dec 25, 1914: The Christmas Truce      Just after midnight on Christmas morning, the majority of German troops engaged in World War I cease firing their guns and artillery and commence to sing Christmas carols. At certain points along the eastern and western fronts, the soldiers of Russia, France, and Britain even heard brass bands joining the Germans in their joyous singing.    At the first light of dawn, many of the German soldiers emerged from their trenches and approached the Allied lines across no-man's-land, calling out "Merry Christmas" in their enemies' native tongues. At first, the Allied soldiers feared it was a trick, but seeing the Germans unarmed they climbed out of their trenches and shook hands with the enemy soldiers. The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings and sang carols and songs. There was even a documented case of soldiers from opposing sides playing a good-natured game of soccer.    The so-called Christmas Truce of 1914



1915 - Irving Berlin & Harry B Smith's musical premieres in NYC
1917 - "Why Marry," 1st drama to win Pulitzer Prize, premieres in NYC
1917 - Hirsch/Harbach's musical "Going Up," premieres in NYC
1922 - -Dec 26] Lenin dictates his "Political testament"
1923 - Imperial Theater opens at 249 W 45th St NYC



 1926 - Hirohito becomes emperor of Japan (1926-1989) 1926 - Hirohito became the emperor of Japan after the death of his father Emperor Taisho. 



1928 - Christmas Day attendance at cricket MCG (Vic v NSW) 14,887
1928 - NSW (v Vic) go from 8-74 to 9-113 to be 9-367 at stumps
1929 - Grimmett takes 6-146 for SA, Queensland all out 380 Crowd 5,390
1930 - 1st US bobsled run open to public (Lake Placid, NY)
Marxist Revolutionary and Russian Leader Vladimir LeninMarxist Revolutionary and Russian Leader Vladimir Lenin 1930 - Mt Van Hoevenberg bobsled run at Lake Placid, NY opens
1930 - Slinger Nitschke scores 142 SA v Qld at Adelaide before 5,422
1930 - Tasmania all out 280, WI 2-139 at Hobart Crowd 2,500
1931 - Albert Lonergan scores 137 SA v Qld at Adelaide before 5,697
1931 - Fleetwood-Smith takes 5-69 Victoria v Tas at Hobart
1931 - NY's Metropolitan Opera broadcasts an entire opera over radio
1932 - 7.6 magnitude earthquake ravages Qansu, China, kills 275
1932 - During King George V Christmas dinner speech, his chair collapes
1933 - Another Christmas Day five-wicket haul by Clarrie Grimmett
1933 - Belgian Working people's party accept Henry de Mans Plan of Labor
1933 - Stan Smith takes 8-33 for Victoria v Tasmania at Hobart
1934 - Four centuries for SA as they make 7-644 v Qld before 6,180
1934 - Samson Raphaelson's "Accent on Youth," premieres in NYC


 1936 - Belgian bishops condemn fascism & communism

1936 - Ron Hamence scores 104 for SA v Queensland before 4,865
1937 - Arturo Toscanini conducts 1st Symphony of the Air over NBC Radio
1937 - Queensland all out for 93 v SA in front of 10,436
1938 - George Cukor announces Vivien Leigh will play Scarlett O'Hara
1939 - Grimmett & Ward rip through Qld except Bill Brown (156)
1939 - Montgomery Ward introduces Rudolph the 9th reindeer
1940 - Bradman out 1st ball for SA v Victoria before 6213
1940 - Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Harts "Pal Joey," premieres in NYC

 1941 - Japan announces surrender of British-Canadian garrison at Hong Kong
1941 - Japanese aircraft carriers Akagi/Kagu back in Kure, Japan
1942 - Admiral Dalans murderer of Bosinier de la Chapelle, sentenced to death
1942 - British Col S W Bailey reaches Mihailovics headquarter
1942 - Russian artillery/tank battle on German armies at Stalingrad

 1946 - Constitution accepted in Taiwan

 1947 - Taiwan passes Human Rights laws (Day of Earth Law)



 1947 - The Constitution of the Republic of China goes into effect.

1950 - Cleveland Browns beat LA Rams 30-28 in NFL championship game

 1950 - Coronation Stone, taken from Scone in Scotland by Edward I in 1296, stolen from Westminster Abbey & smuggled back to Scotland
1951 - 1st Christmas Day in Test Crickets, Aust v WI at Adelaide
1951 - West Indies defeat Australia by 6 wkts on 3rd day of 3rd Test Cricket
1953 - Avalanche of lava kills 150 (Ruapehu volcano, New Zealand)
1954 - WSFA TV channel 12 in Montgomery, AL (NBC) begins broadcasting
1955 - Pope Pius XII encyclical on sacred music & popular music
1957 - Ed Gein found insane of murder
1958 - Alan Freed's Christmas Rock & Roll Spectacular opens

 1959 - A synagogue in Cologne Germany desecrated with swatstikas
1959 - Richard Starkey receives his 1st drum set
1959 - Sony brings transistor TV 8-301 to the market
1962 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR


 Dec 25, 1962: To Kill a Mockingbird debuts  On this day in 1962, To Kill a Mockingbird, a film based on the 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Harper Lee, opens in theaters. The Great Depression-era story of racial injustice and the loss of childhood innocence



1963 - Walt Disney's "The Sword in the Stone" is released
1964 - "Goldfinger" premieres in US
1964 - George Harrison's girlfriend Patti Boyd attacked by female Beatle fans
1965 - The Yemeni Nasserite Unionist People's Organisation is founded in Taiz



    

    


 On this day in 1967 at the height of the Beatles popularity, Paul McCartney & Jane Asher got engaged.



1968 - Frank Borman's Christmas reading while orbiting Moon
1968 - 42 Dalits are burned alive in Kilavenmani village, Tamil Nadu, India, a retaliation for a campaign for higher wages by Dalit labourers.

 1969 - 5 Israeli gunboats escape from Cherbourg harbor
1969 - India all out for 163 at Madras v Aust, Ashley Mallett 5-91
1971 - Longest NFL game (82m40s) as Dolphins beat Chiefs 27-24
1971 - Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) form Jesse Jackson


 1971 - Worst hotel fire in history kills 163 at Taeyokale Hotel in Seoul

1972 - England beat India by six wickets in the 1st Test Cricket at Delhi
1973 - Tommy Chambers (Scotland) finishes 51 yr cycle tour (799,405 miles)
1973 - The ARPANET crashes when a programming bug causes all ARPANET traffic to be routed through the server at Harvard University, causing the server to freeze.


 1974 - Cyclone Tracy virtually destroys Darwin Australia
1974 - Marshall Fields drives a vehicle through the gates of the White House, resulting in a four-hour standoff.
1976 - Egyptian SS Patria sinks in Red Sea, about 100 killed
1976 - Takeo Fukuda becomes Japanese premier
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem BeginIsraeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin 


 1977 - Israeli PM Menachem Begin meets Egyptian Pres Sadat in Egypt
1979 - Opening day of 4th Test Cricket, India 8-112 v Pakistan at Kanpur


 1979 - USSR airlifts invasionary army to Afghanistan

1982 - Mudassar Nazar scores century, then Imran rips through Indians
1983 - 1st live telecast of Christmas Parade
1984 - NBA's Bernard King scores 60 points
1987 - Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, who escaped 2 days earlier, recaptured
1989 - Japanese scientist achieve -271.8°C, coldest temp ever recorded

 1989 - Dissident playwright Vaclav Havel was elected president of Czechoslovakia.   

 1989 - Ousted Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were executed following a popular uprising. 

1990 - "Godfather III" premieres
1990 - The first successful trial run of the system which would become the World Wide Web.
1991 - Last day of a washout Pakistan v Sri Lanka at Gujranwala






The flag of the USSR (Soviet Union)


1991 - Mikhail Gorbachev formally resigned as President of USSR

Dec 25, 1991: Gorbachev resigns as president of the USSR  Mikhail Gorbachev announces that he is resigning as president of the Soviet Union. In truth, there was not much of a Soviet Union from which to resign—just four days earlier, 11 of the former Soviet republics had established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), effectively dismembering the USSR. The Soviet Union, for all intents and purposes, had already ceased to exist.    In his farewell speech to the nation, Gorbachev indicated that the recent establishment of the CIS was the primary motive for his resignation,

1991 - Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev went on television to announce his resignation as leader of a Communist superpower that had already gone out of existence.   





1994 - "Comedy Tonight" closes at Lunt-Fontanne Theater NYC after 8 perfs
1997 - For 1st time US movie box office receipts pass $6 billion
1997 - Jerry Seinfeld says this is the final season of his TV show
Comedian Jerry SeinfeldComedian Jerry Seinfeld 


 2003 - The ill-fated Beagle 2 probe which was released from the Mars Express Spacecraft on December 19, disappears shortly before its scheduled landing.

 2004 - Cassini orbiter releases Huygens probe which successfully landed on Saturn's moon Titan on January 14, 2005.

 2009 - Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab unsuccessfully attempts a terrorist attack against the US while on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253

 2012 - 27 people are killed after an Antonov An-72 plane crashes near Shymkent, Kazakhstan


 2012 - 8 people are killed and thousands left homeless after two fires strike Manila, Philippines




1818 - "Silent Night" was performed for the first time, at the Church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorff, Austria.   1868 - U.S. President Andrew Johnson granted an unconditional pardon to all persons involved in the Southern rebellion that resulted in the Civil War.   1894 - The University of Chicago became the first Midwestern football team to play on the west coast. U.C. defeated Stanford, 24-4, in Palo Alto, CA.   1896 - John Philip Sousa finally titled the melody "The Stars and Stripes Forever."   1914 - During World War I, British and German troops observed an unofficial truce and even playing football together on the Western Front.   1917 - The play "Why Marry?" opened at the Astor Theatre in New York City. "Why Marry?" was the first dramatic play to win a Pulitzer Prize.  1930 - The Mt. Van Hoevenberg bobsled run at Lake Placid, New York opened to the public. It was the first bobsled track of international specifications to open in the U.S.   1931 - Lawrence Tibbett was the featured vocalist as radio came to the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. The first opera was "Hansel und Gretel" and was heard on the NBC network of stations.   1937 - Arturo Toscanini conducted the first broadcast of "Symphony of the Air" over NBC radio.   1939 - "A Christmas Carol," by Charles Dickens, was read on CBS radio for the first time.   1941 - Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese.   1946 - W.C. Fields died at the age of 66.   1950 - Dick Tracy married on Tess Truehart.   1962 - The Department of Commerce Census Clock in Washington, DC, recorded the U.S. population on this day as 188,000,000.   1971 - The longest pro-football game to date finally ended when Garo Yepremian kicked a field goal in the second quarter of sudden death overtime. The Miami Dolphins defeated Kansas City, 27-24. The total game time was 82 minutes and 40 seconds.   1972 - The Nicaraguan capital Managua was hit by an earthquake. Over 10,000 people were killed.   1979 - The USSR invaded Afghanistan in a bid to halt civil war and protect USSR interests.   1989 - Former baseball player and manager Billy Martin died in a truck crash in Fenton, NY.   1998 - Seven days into their journey, Richard Branson, Steve Fossett and Per Lindstrand of Sweden gave up their attempt to make the first nonstop round-the-world balloon flight. They ditched near Hawaii.   2000 - Over 300 people were killed and dozens were injured by fire at a Christmas party in the Chinese city of Luoyang. The incident occurred at the Dongdu Disco.



1066 William the Conqueror was crowned King of England. 1776 George Washington crossed the Delaware River and surprised the Hessians. 1868 President Andrew Johnson granted an unconditional pardon to all persons involved in the Southern rebellion that resulted in the Civil War. 1926 Hirohito became emperor of Japan. 1977 British film actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin died in Switzerland at age 88. 



The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:

http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php

http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/dec25.htm

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory 

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