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Joy to the world! the Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King.
Let ev'ry heart prepare Him room,
And heav'n and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.
~ Isaac Watts (traditional Christmas carol)
Wikiquote (Image: A Charlie Brown Christmas - special debuted on CBS in 1965, and has been aired in the USA during the Christmas season every year since.)
December 25th
Star of Bethlehem: In Christian tradition, the Star of Bethlehem, also called the Christmas Star, revealed the birth of Jesus to the Biblical Magi, and later led them to Bethlehem.
Wikipedia Photo: Star of Bethlehem artist rendition.
December 25th, 333
Roman Empire:
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.
Wikipedia Image: Fresco from Monastery of St. Jovan, above the village Gornji Matejevac near Nis. depicting St. Constantine the Great and his wife, holding the cross; Bronze statue of Constantine I in York, England, near the spot where he was proclaimed Augustus in 306; Constantine the Great, mosaic in Hagia Sophia, 1000.>
December 25th, 496
Clovis I, king of the Franks, is baptized into the Catholic faith at Rheims, by Saint Remigius.
Wikipedia Photo: Pope Boniface VIII; fresco by Giotto di Bondone in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, Rome, credit Sebastià Giralt, FLickr.
December 25th, 800
Coronation of Charlemagne as Roman Emperor in Rome.
Wikipedia Painting: The coronation of Charlemagne / Carloman I - Charlemagne, Kings of The Franks; Statue équestre de Charlemagne, par Agostino Cornacchini (1725) - Basilique Saint-Pierre du Vatican, Italie..
December 25th, 1000
The foundation of the Hungarian state by Saint Stephen, celebrated as a National Day in Hungary.
Wikipedia Image: Saint Stephen (He greatly expanded Hungarian control over the Carpathian Basin during his lifetime, broadly established Christianity in the region, and is generally regarded as the founder of the Kingdom of Hungary); Statue of Saint Stephen, Fisherman's Bastion, Budapest, Hungary. David Noton/Getty Images.
December 25th, 1066
Norman Conquest: William the Conqueror is crowned king of England at Westminster Abbey in London.
Wikipedia Image: Bayeux Tapestry embroidered cloth depicting the Battle of Hastings and the events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England
December 25th, 1100
Crusades
1100 - Baldwin I of Jerusalem is crowned the first King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Nativity.
Wikipedia Image: The Siege of Antioch, from a 15th-century miniature; After the successful siege of Jerusalem in 1099, Godfrey of Bouillon, leader of the First Crusade, became the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem; Baldwin I of Jerusalem; Medieval image of Peter the Hermit, leading knights, soldiers and women toward Jerusalem during the First Crusade; The Battle of Ager Sanguinis, 1337 miniature; Pope Innocent III excommunicating the Albigensians, Massacre against the Albigensians by the crusaders; The capture of Jerusalem marked the First Crusade's success.
Crusades: Baldwin I of Jerusalem is crowned the first King of Jerusalem.
December 25th, 1130
Count Roger II of Sicily is crowned the first King of Sicily.
Wikipedia Image: Mosaic depicting Roger II of Sicily; Roger II riding to war, from Liber ad honorem Augusti of Petrus de Ebulo, 1196.
December 25th, 1261
Byzantine Empire (East Roman Empire):
1261 - John IV Lascaris of the restored Eastern Roman Empire is deposed and blinded by orders of his co-ruler Michael VIII Palaeologus.
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 25th, 1553
1553 - Battle of Tucapel: Mapuche rebels under Lautaro defeat the Spanish conquistadors and executes the governor of Chile, Pedro de Valdivia.
Wikipedia Photo: The very nature of Chile's topography made it one of the toughest parts of South America for the Spanish to conquer (Torres del Paine National Park (Spanish: Parque Nacional Torres del Paine) is a national park encompassing mountains, a glacier, a lake, and river-rich areas in southern Chilean Patagonia); Lautaro; The Mapuche were the original inhabitants of central and southern Chile; Chilean and Argentinean troops going to the Battle of Chacabuco (February 12, 1817) led by José de San Martín.
December 25th, 1643
Christmas Island found and named by Captain William Mynors of the East India Companyvessel, the Royal Mary.
Wikipedia Painting: James Cook, portrait by Nathaniel Dance-Holland, c. 1775, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; British explorer James Cook's ship was named the HMS Endeavour; Captain James Cook, Sir Joseph Banks, Lord Sandwich, Dr Daniel Solander and Dr John Hawkesworth, credit National Library of Australia (NLA) digital collections; Captain James Cook (1728-1779) is shown meeting Nootka leader Muquinna (died 1798) at Nootka Sound on what is now Vancouver Island, in 1778, during his explorations of Canada’s northwest coast, credit Canadian Military History.
December 25th, 1776
American Revolutionary War:
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.
Wikipedia Paintings: Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutz; Battle of the Chesapeake, French (left) and British (right) lines; Battle of Bunker Hill, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull; The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 13, 1782, by John Singleton Copley; Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown, 1781; "The surrender at Saratoga" shows General Daniel Morgan in front of a French de Vallière 4-pounder; Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by (John Trumbull, 1797).
George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River, by Emanuel Leutze. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
December 25th, 1837
Battle of Lake Okeechobee.
Wikipedia Image: Battle of Lake Okeechobee; portrait of Zachary Taylor, (Courtesy of the National Archives / Newsmakers) and Billy Bowlegs, Seminole leader.
December 25th, 1868
American Civil War:
1868 - United States President Andrew Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all Civil War Confederate soldiers.
Wikipedia Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
● Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
● First Battle Between Ironclads: CSS Virginia/Merrimac (left) vs. USS Monitor, in 1862 at the Battle of Hampton Roads.
● Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.
December 25th, 1914
World War I:
1914 - Known as the "Christmas truce", German and British troops on the Western Front temporarily cease fire.
Wikipedia Photo: A cross, left near Ypres in Belgium in 1999, to commemorate the site of the Christmas Truce in 1914. (The text reads: 1914 – The Khaki Chum's Christmas Truce – 1999 – 85 Years – Lest We Forget.British and German troops hold a temporary truce on Christmas Day 1914 during World War I)
December 25th, 1932
1932 - Changma earthquake: A magnitude 7.6 earthquake in Gansu, China kills 275 people.
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 25th, 1941
World War II:
1941 - Admiral Chester W. Nimitz arrives at Pearl Harbor to assume command of the United States Pacific Fleet.
1941 - 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.
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 25th, 1946
The first in Europe artificial, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is initiated within Soviet Soviet nuclear reactor F-1.
Wikipedia Photo: Enrico Fermi demonstration nuclear breeder reactor near Detroit, Michigan, The Fermi Station (NRC image)
December 25th, 1947
Chinese Civil War:
1947 - Constitution of the Republic of China goes into effect.
Wikipedia Photo: In 1934, Mao Zedong headed the Long March. The Long March was when the Chinese Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek, forced the Chinese Communists, led by Mao Zedong, on a march to the caves of Shaanxi. (colorized); Government soldiers train with modern machine guns; People's Liberation Army attacking government defensive positions in Shangtang; US diplomat Patrick J. Hurley, Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek, Chang Ch'ün, Wang Shi Jie (王世杰), Mao Zedong; A Communist leader addressing Long March survivors; The PLA enters Beijing in the Pingjin Campaign and control the later capital of PRC.
December 25th, 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.
Wikipedia Photo: Apollo Program: Apollo 11 first manned Moon landing and the first walk on the surface on the moon. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module Eagle. Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera. Armstrong and Aldrin explored the Sea of Tranquility for two and a half hours while crewmate Michael Collins orbited above in the command module Columbia.
The Blue Marble is a famous photograph of the Earth, taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft, at a distance of about 45,000 kilometres (28,000 mi).
December 25th, 1990
The first successful trial run of the system which would become the World Wide Web .
Wikipedia Image: World Wide Web
December 25th, 1991
Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev resigns (the union itself is dissolved the next day).
Wikipedia Photo: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
December 25th, 2003
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.
Wikipedia Photo: Pioneer 11 at Saturn - NASA
December 25th, 2009
Aircraft hijacking:
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.
Wikipedia Photo: Hijacked Sudan passenger jet lands in Libya, August 27, 2008; Amsterdam false alarm revives airplane hijacking memories, Passengers leave a Vueling plane at a field near Amsterdam Airport after a hijack scare last week that led the Netherlands to scramble F-16 fighter jets, September 2, 2012 Reuters; Egypt Air flight 648 was hijacked in November 1985 by the terrorist Abu Nidal organisation, credit AP; Cockpit section of Pan Am 103 wreckage following a mid-air explosion, December 21, 1988; 747 Pan Am airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland, with 259 passengers on board in 1988; Debris lies in a deep gash through the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, caused by the crash of Pan Am flight 103, credit AP; Flight 175 hits the WTC South Tower. The picture was taken from a traffic helicopter. credit: WABC 7/ Salient Stills; Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston crashes into the South Tower of the World Trade Center and explodes at 9:03 a.m. on September 11, 2001 in New York City, credit Spencer Platt / Getty Images.
December 25th, 2012
Kazakhstan Antonov An-72 crash: A military plane crashes while descending toward Shymkent, Kazakhstan, killing all 27 people.
Wikipedia Photo: Kazakhstan Antonov An-72 crash; The Kazakhstan Air Force Antonov An-72 involved in the accident on December 25th, 2012.