December 25 - Events

Events

  • 333 – Emperor Constantine the Great elevates his youngest son Constans to the rank of Caesar.
  • 350 – Vetranio meets Constantius II at Naissus (Serbia) and is forced to abdicate his title (Caesar). Constantius allows him to live as a private citizen on a state pension.
  • 496 – Clovis I, king of the Franks, is baptized into the Catholic faith at Rheims, by Saint Remigius.
  • 800 – Coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, in Rome.
  • 1000 – The foundation of the Kingdom of Hungary: Hungary is established as a Christian kingdom by Stephen I of Hungary.
  • 1066 – William the Conqueror is crowned king of England, at Westminster Abbey, London.
  • 1100 – Baldwin of Boulogne is crowned the first King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Nativity.
  • 1130 – Count Roger II of Sicily is crowned the first King of Sicily.
  • 1261 – John IV Lascaris of the restored Eastern Roman Empire is deposed and blinded by orders of his co-ruler Michael VIII Palaeologus.
  • 1553 – Battle of Tucapel: Mapuche rebels under Lautaro defeat the Spanish conquistadors and executes the governor of Chile, Pedro de Valdivia.
  • 1643 – Christmas Island found and named by Captain William Mynors of the East India Company vessel, the Royal Mary.
  • 1776 – George Washington and the Continental Army cross the Delaware River to attack the Kingdom of Great Britain's Hessian mercenaries in Trenton, New Jersey.
  • 1815 – The Handel and Haydn Society, oldest continuously performing arts organization in the U.S., gives its first performance.
  • 1826 – The Eggnog Riot at the United States Military Academy concludes after beginning the previous evening.
  • 1837 – Battle of Lake Okeechobee.
  • 1868 – U.S. President Andrew Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all Civil War Confederate soldiers.
  • 1914 – World War I: Known as the Christmas truce, German and British troops on the Western Front temporarily cease fire.
  • 1926 – Emperor Taishō of Japan dies. His son, Prince Hirohito succeeds him as Emperor Shōwa.
  • 1927 – The Vietnamese Nationalist Party is founded.
  • 1932 – A magnitude 7.6 earthquake in Gansu, China kills 275 people.
  • 1941 – Admiral Chester W. Nimitz arrives at Pearl Harbor to assume command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet
  • 1941 – World War II: Battle of Hong Kong ends, beginning the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong.
  • 1941 – Admiral Émile Muselier seizes the archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, which become the first part of France to be liberated by the Free French Forces.
  • 1946 – The first in Europe artificial, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is initiated within Soviet nuclear reactor F-1.
  • 1947 – The Constitution of the Republic of China goes into effect.
  • 1950 – The Stone of Scone, traditional coronation stone of British monarchs, is taken from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalist students. It later turns up in Scotland on April 11, 1951.
  • 1963 – Turkish Cypriot Bayrak Radio begins transmitting in Cyprus after Turkish Cypriots are forcibly excluded from Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation.
  • 1965 – The Yemeni Nasserite Unionist People's Organisation is founded in Taiz
  • 1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 performs the very first successful Trans Earth Injection (TEI) maneuver, sending the crew and spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth from Lunar orbit.
  • 1968 – 42 Dalits are burned alive in Kilavenmani village, Tamil Nadu, India, a retaliation for a campaign for higher wages by Dalit labourers.
  • 1974 – Cyclone Tracy devastates Darwin, Northern Territory Australia.
  • 1974 – Marshall Fields drives a vehicle through the gates of the White House, resulting in a four-hour standoff.
  • 1977 – Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin meets in Egypt with President of Egypt Anwar Sadat.
  • 1989 – Nicolae Ceauşescu, former communist President of Romania and his wife, First-Deputy Prime-Minister Elena are condemned to death and executed after a flawed and summary trial.
  • 1990 – The first successful trial run of the system which would become the World Wide Web.
  • 1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as president of the Soviet Union (the union itself is dissolved the next day). Ukraine's referendum is finalized and Ukraine officially leaves the Soviet Union.
  • 2000 – Russian President Vladimir Putin signs a bill into law that officially establishes a new National Anthem of Russia, with music adopted from the anthem of the Soviet Union that was composed by Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov.
  • 2003 – The ill-fated Beagle 2 probe, 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 a flight to Detroit Metro Airport Northwest Airlines Flight 253

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Famous quotes containing the word events:

    “It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.”
    —Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)

    “The system was breaking down. The one who had wandered alone past so many happenings and events began to feel, backing up along the primal vein that led to his center, the beginning of hiccup that would, if left to gather, explode the center to the extremities of life, the suburbs through which one makes one’s way to where the country is.”
    —John Ashbery (b. 1927)

    “One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape ... it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear.”
    —Marilyn French (b. 1929)