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'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
~ Joseph Brackett
Wikiquote (Joseph Brackett (May 6, 1797 – July 4, 1882) an American songwriter, author, and elder of The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, better known as the Shakers. Brackett's most famous song, "Simple Gifts", is still widely performed and adapted.)
December 23rd, 484
Roman Empire:
484 - Huneric dies and is succeeded by his nephew Gunthamund, who becomes king of the Vandals. During his reign the Catholics are free from persecutions.
Wikipedia Image: Relief from a 3rd-century sarcophagus depicting a battle between Romans and Germanic warriors; the central figure is perhaps the emperor Hostilian / Depiction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome.
December 23rd, 962
Byzantine Empire (East Roman Empire):
962 - Byzantine-Arab Wars; Under the future Byzantine Emperor - Nicephorus Phocas troops storm the city of Aleppo.
Wikipedia Image: The Baptism of Constantine painted by Raphael's pupils (1520–1524, fresco, Vatican City, Apostolic Palace); Mural of Saints Cyril and Methodius, 19th century, Troyan Monastery, Bulgaria; Justinian I depicted on one of the famous mosaics of the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna; The Greek fire was first used by the Byzantine Navy during the Byzantine-Arab Wars (from the Madrid Skylitzes, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid); Alexios I, founder of the Komnenos dynasty.
December 23rd, 1572
Theologian Johann Sylvan executed in Heidelberg for his heretical Antitrinitarian beliefs.
Wikipedia Image: William Blake depections - The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with Sun (1805); "Job Rebuked by His Friends"; Holy Fool; Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing (1786); Minotaur to illustrate Inferno, Canto XII,12–28, The Minotaur XII; The archetype of the Creator.
December 23rd, 1688
Glorious Revolution:
1688 - King James II of England lees England to Paris after being deposed in favour of his nephew, William of Orange and his daughter Mary.
Wikipedia Painting: Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688: James II King of England & James VII King of Scots, King of Ireland and Duke of Normandy ● William III, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, stadtholder of Guelders, Holland, Zealand, Utrecht and Overijssel ● Henry Sydney, author of the Invitation to William, which was signed by six noblemen (both Whigs and Tories) and one bishop. He has been described as "the great wheel on which the Revolution rolled" ● Francisco Lopes Suasso, who partly financed the invasion ● William of Orange launched a colossal armada to seize the throne from Catholic King James II ● New England's Siege of Louisbourg (1745) by Peter Monamy.
December 23rd, 1783
George Washington resigns as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland.
Wikipedia Painting: George Washington, 1st President of the United States, Gilbert Stuart Williamstown Portrait; George Washington at Valley Forge, John Trumbull Portrait
December 23rd, 1793
French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1793 - Battle of Savenay; decisive defeat of the royalist counter-revolutionaries in Revolt in the Vendée.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar; Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806; Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet; Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani); Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo; Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807; Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars; Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen; Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford; Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
December 23rd, 1823
A Visit from Saint Nicholas , also known as The Night Before Christmas, is published anonymously.
Wikipedia Image: A Visit from Saint Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, is published anonymously.
December 23rd, 1913
The Federal Reserve Act is signed into law by United States President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve.
Wikipedia Photo: the Federal Reserve, credit Jay Mallin, Bloomberg News.
December 23rd, 1914
World War I:
1914 - Australian and New Zealand troops arrive in Cairo, Egypt.
1916 - Battle of Magdhaba; Allied forces defeat Turkish forces in Egypt's Sinai peninsula.
Wikipedia Photo: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV Tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes. National Archives and Records Administration;
Sinai peninsula satellite image, credit NASA World Wind, Blue Marble Next-Generation layer. Category: Satellite images of countries.
Sinai Campaign; Battle of Magdhaba, Camel corps at Magdhaba by Harold Septimus Power, 1925.
December 23rd, 1919
Woman's suffrage:
1919 - Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 becomes law in the United Kingdom.
Wikipedia Photo: Woman's suffrage: in the United Kingdom and United States, credit Library of Congress ● Emmeline Pankhurst (100 Most Important People of the 20th Century) ● Christabel Pankhurst ● Women suffragists demonstrating for the right to vote, February 1913 ● Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution became law on August 26, 1920, and women could vote in the Presidential election.
December 23rd, 1938
Discovery of the first modern Coelacanth in South Africa.
Wikipedia Photo: Coelacanth: A preserved specimen of Latimeria chalumnae in the Natural History Museum, Vienna, Austria; Thought to have been long extinct, scientists discovered these 'living fossils' in 1938 Gerard Lacz, Animals — Earth Scenes, National Geographic.
December 23rd, 1940
World War II:
1940 - Greek submarine Papanikolis (Υ-2) sinks the Italian motor ship Antonietta.
1941 - After 15 days of fighting, the Japanese Imperial Army occupies Wake Island.
Aftermath_of_World_War_II:
1948 - Seven Japanese convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East are executed at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo.
Wikipedia Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945.
USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.
Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.
December 23rd, 1954
First successful kidney transplant is performed by J. Hartwell Harrison, M.D. and Joseph E. Murray.
Wikipedia Photo: First successful kidney transplant is performed by J. Hartwell Harrison, M.D. and Joseph E. Murray, credit Biomed.Brown.edu.
December 23rd, 1958
Dedication of Tokyo Tower, the world's highest self-supporting iron tower.
Wikipedia Photo: Tokyo Tower, the world's highest self-supporting iron tower, credit Jonathan Fleming, Flickr.
December 23rd, 1972
Earthquake
1972 - Nicaragua earthquake; a 6.5 magnitude earthquake strikes the Nicaraguan capital of Managua, killing more than 10,000.
Wikipedia Image: Preliminary Determination of Epicenters / Aleppo Syria; Anchorage, Alaska - March 28, 1964 Prince William Sound USA earthquake and tsunami; 8.9 Mega Earthquake Strikes Japan; Tsunami Swirls Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture March 12 2011. credit NOAA / NGDC, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, USGS, National Geographics.
December 23rd, 1979
Soviet war in Afghanistan: The Soviet forces occupy Kabul, the Afghan capital.
Wikipedia Photo: Soviet ground forces in action while conducting an offensive operation against the Islamist resistance, the Mujahideen; Mujahideen praying in Shultan Valley, 1987; Soviet soldier in Afghanistan, 1988; Mujahideen, 1987; Soviet troops withdrawing from Afghanistan in 1988; A column of Soviet BTR armored personnel carriers departing from Afghanistan.
December 23rd, 1986
Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, land at Edwards Air Force Base in California becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world without aerial or ground refueling.
Wikipedia Photo: Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world without aerial or ground refueling, credit Air Racing History.
December 23rd, 2002
MQ-1 Predator is shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25, making it the first time in history that an aircraft and an unmanned drone had engaged in combat.
Wikipedia Photo: MQ-1 Predator Drone (Remote piloted aircraft, UAV/UAS); MiG-25 (MiG-25PU two-seat trainer).