December 25
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December 25
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December is:
Church Library Month
Born on this Day
1642: British mathematician, physicist and astronomer Sir Isaac Newton
1821: American Red Cross founder Clara Barton
1876: Founder of the Republic of Pakistan Mohammed Ali Jinnah
1887: Hotel Magnet Conrad Hilton
1892: English author (Cicily Fairfield) Rebecca West (The Meaning of
Treason, A Train of Powder, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, The Birds Fall Down)
1893: Robert "Believe It or Not" Ripley
1895: Foster father Cal Farley Founder of Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch
1899: Actor Humphrey Bogart (The African Queen, The Maltese Falcon,
Casablanca, The Caine Mutiny, The Barefoot Contessa, Tokyo Joe, Key Largo)
1906: Producer Lord Grade
1907: Singer and band leader Cab (Cabell) Calloway (‘Highness of
Hi-De-Ho’: Minnie the Moocher)
1913: Singer Tony Martin
1914: Singer (Alvin Morris) Tony Martin (It’s a Blue World, To Each
His Own, Kiss of Fire)
1918: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (Nobel Peace Prize winner with
Israel’s Menachim Begin in1978)
1924: Scriptwriter Rod Serling (The Twilight Zone, Requiem for a
Heavyweight, Planet of the Apes, Seven Days in May)
1928: Actor Dick Miller
1943: Actress Hanna Schygulla (Dead Again, The Summer of Miss Forbes,
Forever, Lulu, Casanova, Delta Force)
1945: Actor Gary Sandy (WKRP in Cincinnati, All That Glitters, Troll,
Hail)
1946: Singer Jimmy Buffett (Margaritaville, Come Monday, Changes in
Latitudes - Changes in Attitudes; main ‘Parrot Head’)
1946: Football Hall-of-Famer Larry Csonka
1948: Singer Barbara Mandrell (CMA Entertainer of the Year 1980, 1981;
Female Vocalist of the Year 1979)
1949: Actress Sissy (Mary) Spacek (Coal Miner’s Daughter, Missing,
The River, Carrie)
1952: Karen (Sosinski) Bower - My wife
1954: Singer Annie Lennox
1954: Reggae singer-musician Robin Campbell (UB40)
1954: Country singer Steve Wariner
1957: Singer Shane McGowan (Transmetropolitan, Streams of Whiskey, Dark
Streets of London, The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, Dirty Old Town, Sally MacIennane, A
Pair of Brown Eyes)
1958: Baseball outfielder Ricky Henderson
1968: Actress Klea Scott
1971: Rock musician Noel Hogan (The Cranberries)
1982: Country singer Alecia Elliott
1990 "Moose" (the dog on "Frasier")
0438: Publication of the Theodosian Code
0496: Baptism of Clovis, King of France
0800: Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman Emperor
0820: Assassination of Leo V, Emperor of Byzantium
0875: Coronation of Charles "the Bald" as
Emperor of the Franks
0967: Coronation of Otto II as Holy Roman Emperor
1000: Stephen crowned as Hungary's first King
1066: William the Conqueror was crowned King William I of
England.
1075: Pope Gregory VII kidnapped while saying Mass
1223: St. Francis of Assisi assembled one of the first
Nativity scenes, in Greccio, Italy.
1583: Orlando Gibbons, whom Glenn Gould regarded as the
greatest composer of all time, was baptized. By the age of 19 he was earning money for
compositions. He was one of England's most prominent organists from the age of 21.
1621: The Plymouth Colony bans card-playing
1635 Death of Samuel de Champlain, explorer
1776: General George Washington and his troops crossed the
Delaware River for a surprise attack against Hessian forces at Trenton, New Jersey.
1818: "Silent Night" was performed for the first
time, at the Church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorff, Austria: composed by organist Franz
Gruber and Father Joseph Mohr.
1868: President Andrew Johnson granted an unconditional
pardon to all persons involved in the Southern rebellion that resulted in the Civil War.
1870: Richard Wagner hired an orchestra to play music on
Cosima's 33rd birthday. The music was the "Siegfried Idyll." She was sleeping
upstairs until the orchestra began performing on the lower stairs.
1896: John Philip Sousa wrote the melody to a song that
had haunted him for days. On Christmas Day, that melody was finally titled, "The
Stars and Stripes Forever."He had hoped the song would be a ballad - but alas,
another march.
1917: The play, "Why Marry?", opened at the
Astor Theatre in New York City. Jesse Lynch Williams won a Pulitzer the following year
making ; "Why Marry?" the first dramatic play to win a Pulitzer Prize.
1926: Hirohito became emperor of Japan, suceeding his
father, Emperor Yoshihito (Hirohito was formally enthroned almost two years later).
1931: New York's Metropolitan Opera broadcast an entire
opera over radio for the first time: "Hansel and Gretel" by Engelbert
Humperdinck.
1937: Arturo Toscanini conducted the first broadcast of
"Symphony of the Air" over NBC radio.
1939: The Charles Dickens classic, "A Christmas
Carol", was read by Lionel Barrymore on "The Campbell Playhouse" on CBS
radio. The reading of the tale became an annual radio event for years to come.
1941: British Hong Kong surrendered to advancing Japanese
forces.
1946: Comedian W.C. Fields died in Pasadena, California,
at age 66.
1950: Dick Tracy got married on Christmas Day. The comic
strip hero married Tess Truehart.
1977: Comedian Sir Charles Chaplin died in Switzerland at
age 88.
1987: Authorities recaptured Lynette "Squeaky"
Fromme, who had escaped two days earlier from the federal prison in Alderson, West
Virginia, where she was serving a life sentence for her attempt on the life of President
Ford.
1988: Christmas services were held in Lockerbie, Scotland,
where residents mourned the loss of 270 lives in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 with
relatives of the victims.
1989: Ousted Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu and his
wife, Elena, were executed following a popular uprising.
1989: Former baseball manager Billy Martin died in a
traffic accident in Fenton, New York.
1990: Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev won sweeping new powers from the Congress of People's Deputies.
1990: Romania's former monarch, King Michael, arrived on his first visit to his homeland since Communist rulers forced him to abdicate four decades earlier -- but he was deported by the new Bucharest government less than 12 hours later.
1991: Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev went on
television to announce his resignation as the eighth and final leader of a Communist
superpower that had already gone out of existence.
1992: US Marines delivered wheat to a refugee camp in
Bardera, Somalia, setting off a small riot among the Somalis; American and French troops
also took control of Hoddur.
1993: Full-fledged Christmas celebrations returned to
Bethlehem for the first time since the Palestinian uprising began six years earlier.
1993: In London, an unidentified 59-year-old woman who'd
been implanted with donated eggs gave birth to twins in a case that sparked controversy.
1994: Pope John Paul the Second, in his traditional
"Urbi et Orbi" message, bemoaned "selfishness and violence" around the
world.
1994: A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up at a
Jerusalem bus stop, injuring a dozen other people.
1995: Singer Dean Martin died at his Beverly Hills home at
age 78.
1995: An ailing Pope John Paul the Second cut short his traditional Christmas greetings, telling crowds he was fighting to regain his health.
1996: Peruvians held candles high and prayed outside the
Japanese ambassador's residence, where leftist rebels freed one hostage for health
reasons, but continued to hold more than 100 others.
1997: Richard Bliss, a field technician for Qualcomm
Incorporated accused of spying in Russia, arrived in San Diego after Russian authorities
were persuaded to let him return home (however, Russia says its investigation of Bliss
continues).
1997: Comedian Jerry Seinfeld announced plans to fold his
highly successful NBC sitcom "Seinfeld" at the end of the current season.
1998: British mogul Richard Branson, American millionaire
Steve Fossett and Per Lindstrand of Sweden gave up their attempt to make the first
non-stop round-the-world balloon flight seven days into their journey, ditching off
Hawaii.
1999: Space shuttle "Discovery's" astronauts finished their repair job on the Hubble Space Telescope.
1999: A Cuban airplane crashed in northern Venezuela, killing all 22 aboard.
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