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