Also on this day
Lead Story
1914
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...
American Revolution
1776
During the American Revolution, Patriot General George Washington crosses the Delaware River with 5,400 troops, hoping to surprise a Hessian force celebrating Christmas at their winter quarters in Trenton, New Jersey. The unconventional attack came after several months of substantial defeats for Washington’s army that had resulted in the loss...
Automotive
1880
On this day in 1880, Layne Hall is born in Mississippi. Some records indicate that he was actually born in 1884; either way, when he died in November 1990, Hall was the oldest licensed driver in the United States.
In 1916, Hall moved north to Silvercreek, New York, just west of...
Civil War
1862
On this day in 1862, Lieutenant Elisha Hunt Rhodes of the Second Rhode Island spends Christmas Day in camp, singing with other officers and writing in his diary: “I should like to be home this Christmas night.”Rhodes is one of the most famous diarists of the Civil War. He was...
Cold War
1991
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...
Crime
1996
Six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey is killed in her Boulder, Colorado, home. John and Patsy Ramsey, her parents, called police at 5:52 the following morning to report that their daughter was missing. Although police found a ransom note demanding $118,000, the money would never be necessary, because JonBenet’s body was found under...
Disaster
2000
A Christmas party at an unlicensed disco is the site of a tragic fire that kills more than 300 people in Luoyang, China, on this day in 2000. It was the deadliest fire in China since a December 1994 fire in a Xinjiang concert hall killed 324 people.
In the center...
General Interest
6
Although most Christians celebrate December 25 as the birthday of Jesus Christ, few in the first two Christian centuries claimed any knowledge of the exact day or year in which he was born. The oldest existing record of a Christmas celebration is found in a Roman almanac that tells of...
Hollywood
1962
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 is told from the perspective of a young Alabama...
Literary
1996
One of only a handful of writers to top both the fiction and nonfiction bestseller lists, singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett departs with his family on a three-week cruise around...
Music
1941
“White Christmas,” written by the formidable composer and lyricist Irving Berlin receives its world premiere on this day in 1941 on Bing Crosby’s weekly NBC radio program, The Kraft Music Hall. It went on to become one of the most commercially successful singles of all time, and the top-selling single...
Old West
1869
Angered over a card game dispute, 16-year-old John Wesley Hardin reveals a singular lack of Christmas spirit by shooting James Bradley dead in the street.
Although less famous than Billy the Kid, Jesse James, or Wyatt Earp, John Wesley Hardin is believed to hold the gunslinger’s record for killing the most...
Presidential
1776
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.
Just prior to launching boats from McKonkey’s Ferry across the Delaware River, Washington had an excerpt from Thomas...
Vietnam War
1966
Harrison Salisbury, assistant managing editor of the New York Times, files a report from Hanoi chronicling the damage to civilian areas in North Vietnam by the U.S. bombing campaign. Salisbury stated that Nam Dinh, a city about 50 miles southeast of Hanoi, was bombed repeatedly by U.S. planes starting on...
1972
After a 36-hour respite for Christmas, the U.S. resumes Operation Linebacker II. The extensive bombing campaign was resumed because, according to U.S. officials, Hanoi sent no word that it would return to the peace talks.
On December 13, North Vietnamese negotiators walked out of secret talks in Paris with National...
World War I
1914
On and around Christmas Day 1914, the sounds of rifles firing and shells exploding fade in a number of places along the Western Front in favor of holiday celebrations in the trenches and gestures of goodwill between enemies. Starting on Christmas Eve, many German and British troops sang...
World War II
1941
On this day, the British garrison in Hong Kong surrenders to the Japanese.
Hong Kong was a British Crown colony whose population was overwhelmingly ethnic Chinese. It was protected by a garrison force composed of British, Canadian, and Indian soldiers. The British government, anticipating a Japanese attack, had begun evacuating women...
