December 24......

December 24 is the 358th day of the year (359th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 7 days remaining in the year on this date.

EVENTS

● 640 - John IV becomes Pope.

● 1046 - Pope Clement II [Suitger] elected

● 1294 - Pope Boniface VIII is elected Pope, replacing St. Celestine V, who had abdicated.

● 1476 - 400 Burgundy soldiers freeze to death during siege of Nancy

● 1515 - Thomas Wolsey is named the English Lord Chancellor.

● 1524 - Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama, who had discovered a sea route around Africa to India, died in India.

● 1565 - Compromise of the Nobles closes against inquisition

● 1568 - Uprising of Morisco's in Granada

● 1593 - Storm hits Texel: 40 ships hit, 500 killed

● 1651 - John van Riebeeck departs to Cape of Good Hope

● 1715 - Swedish troops occupy Norway.

● 1777 - Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, was discovered by James Cook.

● 1724 - Benjamin Franklin arrives in London

● 1784 - Methodism was officially organized in the newly independent United States of America, in Baltimore. Francis Asbury was consecrated the first Methodist bishop, a few days later.

● 1798 - Russia & England sign Second anti-French Coalition

● 1799 - Jakobijns plot against Napoleon uncovered

● 1800 - Assassination attempt on Napoleon Bonaparte's life.

● 1814 - The War of 1812 between the U.S. and Britain was ended with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent in Belgium. In reality this war was the completion of the War for Independence; until this time the British had maintained a military presence in the newly formed United States.

● 1818 - In St. Nicholas Church at Oberndorf, Austria, church organist Franz Joseph Gruber, 31, composed a melody on guitar for the poem, "Stille Nacht," written earlier by pastor Joseph Mohr, 26. This evening the world heard "Silent Night" sung for the very first time.

● 1828 - William Burke who, with his partner William Hare, dug up the dead and murdered to sell the corpses for dissection, went on trial in Edinburgh.

● 1832 - 1st US Negro hospital founded by whites chartered, Savannah GA

● 1832 - HMS Beagle anchors in Wigwam Bay at Cape Receiver

● 1834 - Elizabeth Chandler, slavery abolitionist, born.

● 1851 - Fire at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., destroys about two-thirds of its 55,000 volumes, including two-thirds of Thomas Jefferson's personal library, sold to the institution in 1815. Today, the collection, housed in three enormous buildings in Washington, contains more than 17,000,000 books, as well as nearly 95,000,000 maps, manuscripts, photographs, films, audio and video recordings, prints and drawings, and other special collections.

● 1860 - Joseph Jefferson's "Rip Van Winkle" premieres in New York NY

● 1864 - Battle of Gordonsville VA

● 1865 - Months after the fall of the Confederacy and the end of slavery, Ku Klux Klan is founded in Pulaski, Tenn. Its first priority, it declared in its creed, was ostensibly "to protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless from the indignities, wrongs, and outrages of the lawless, the violent, and the brutal." Hypocrisy at its height of absurdity since the Klan has never done anything but the opposite.

● 1871 - Giusseppi Verdi's "Aida" premieres at Cairo Opera, one year after the opening of the Suez Canal, for which it was commissioned

● 1871 - The Northside Tabernacle in Chicago was dedicated by evangelist Dwight L. Moody. It became the original structure of what is today the Moody Memorial Church.

● 1874 - Pope Pius IX proclaims a jubilee for 1875

● 1884 - Austria-Hungary admits King Leopold II's Congo Free State

● 1889 - Daniel Stover & William Hance patent bicycle with back pedal brake

● 1893 - Henry Ford completes his 1st useful gas motor

● 1894 - Scheveningse fishing boats destroyed by storm

● 1904 - German SW Africa abolishes slavery of young children

● 1906 - The first radio program, consisting of a poetry reading, a violin solo, and a speech, is broadcast by Reginald A Fessenden (Brant Rock, Massachusetts).

● 1907 - Birth of activist journalist I.F. "Izzy" Stone, Philadelphia. Washington editor of "The Nation" magazine and founder of the legendary "I.F. Stone's Weekly," he specialized in publishing information ignored by the corporate media (which he often found in The Congressional Record and other public documents overlooked and too hard to find by the big-circulation dailies). A self-described "Jeffersonian Marxist," Stone combined progressive politics, investigative zeal, and a compulsion to tell the truth with a commitment to human rights and the exposure of injustice. Not unlike George Seldes before him and Noam Chomsky's work today, doing the job corporate media refuses to do.

● 1910 - Luisa Tetrazzini sings to 250,000 people at Lotta's Fountain

● 1912 - Irving Fisher patents archiving system with index cards

● 1913 - 72 miners' children killed in panic caused by company stooge at Calumet, Michigan.

● 1914 - In World War I, the first air raid on Britain was made when a German airplane dropped a bomb on the grounds of a rectory in Dover.

● 1914 - Wilderness advocate John Muir dies, Los Angeles, California.

● 1914 - World War I: The "Christmas truce" begins.

● 1919 - R. B. Russell sentenced to two years in prison for the Winnipeg, Manitoba general strike.

● 1919 - Coming from exile in Cardiff, England, the anarchist Errico Malatesta slips clandestinely back into Tarente (southern Italy) and takes the train for Gones, where an immense crowd greets his return. Malatesta won the militant support of broad sections of his countrymen whose demonstrations and strikes on his behalf saved him from death and imprisonment a number of times. In Argentine exile and again in the U.S. he published radical newspapers. He took part in the Xeres insurrection in Spain, in the general strike of 1895 in Belgium, spent years of exile and imprisonment in England, France, and Switzerland. After the ascent of fascism, Malatesta remained in Italy, under house arrest, until he died. The authorities ordered his body thrown into a common grave.

● 1920 - Enrico Caruso gave his last public performance, singing in Jacques Halevy's ''La Juive'' at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, New York.

● 1922 - BBC sends 1st British radio play "Truth about Father Christmas"

● 1922 - London Coloseum opens

● 1924 - 1st radio transmission of NCRV in Netherlands

● 1924 - Albania becomes a republic (ex-premier Ahmed Zogoe's coup)

● 1924 - School in Babb's Switch OK catches fire, 36 die

● 1924 - Costa Rica withdraws from League of Nations to protest Monroe Doctrine.

● 1928 - The first broadcast of "The Voice of Firestone" was heard.

● 1929 - Assassination attempt of Argentine President Hipólito Yrigoyen.

● 1932 - Arturo Alessandri wins presidental election in Chile

● 1933 - Paris express train derails & kills 160, injures 300 (France)

● 1935 - National Council of Negro Women forms

● 1936 - 1st radioactive isotope medicine administered, Berkeley CA

● 1937 - Dutch government recognizes Italian king Emanuel III as emperor of Abyssinia

● 1939 - World War II: Pope Pius XII makes a Christmas Eve appeal for peace.

● 1941 - Hong Kong falls to the Japanese Imperial Army.

● 1941 - World War II: Kuching is conquered by Japanese forces.

● 1941 - 1st ships of Admiral Nagumo's Pearl Harbor-fleet return to Japan

● 1942 - First powered flight of V-1 buzz bomb, Peenemonde, Germany. Nazi V-1 research scientists will find a warm welcome in the U.S. after the war.

● 1942 - Red army occupies German airports at Tasjinskaja & Morozowsk

● 1942 - World War II: French monarchist, Ferdinand Bonnier de La Chapelle, assassinates French Vichy admiral Darlan in Algiers

● 1943 - German theologian and Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter from prison: 'Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.'

● 1943 - U.S. President Roosevelt appointed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces as part of Operation Overlord (the planned invasion to retake Europe).

● 1944 - The Andrews Sisters starred in the debut of "The Andrews Sisters’ Eight-To-The-Bar-Ranch" on ABC Radio.

● 1944 - A German submarine torpedoed the Belgian transport ship S.S. Leopoldville with 2,235 soldiers aboard. About 800 American soldiers died. The soldiers were crossing the English Channel to be reinforcements at the battle that become known as the Battle of the Bulge.

● 1946 - France's Fourth Republic founded.

● 1946 - US General MacNarney gives 800,000 "minor Nazis" amnesty

● 1948 - For the first time ever, a midnight Mass was broadcast on television. It was held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.

● 1948 - 1st US house completely solar-heated is occupied (Dover MA)

● 1948 - Greek government disbands due to state of war, press censorship

● 1951 - United Kingdom of Libya gains independence from Italy via the UN. Idris I is proclaimed King of Libya.

● 1951 - "Amahl and the Night Visitors," a Christmas musical, had its TV debut. Written by composer Gian Carlo Menotti, it was the first musical to be broadcast over television.

● 1953 - Tangiwai disaster: A railway bridge collapse at Tangiwai, New Zealand sends a fully loaded passenger train into the Whangaehu River, killing 166 people.

● 1953 - 2 fast express trains crash head-on, killing 103 (Czechoslovakia) -- Not a good for train travel.

● 1953 - NBC's Dragnet becomes the first network-sponsored television program and that's just the facts.

● 1953 - René Coty elected President of France

● 1954 - Laos gains its independence

● 1954 - Council for the Children Protection forms in Netherlands

● 1955 - Writer, pacifist, and political radical Aldous Huxley ("Brave New World"( takes his first acid (LSD) trip.

● 1956 - "I Love Lucy" Christmas show airs, never put in syndication

● 1956 - Ferdinand de Lesseps statue blown up in Port Said Egypt

● 1960 - Dutch bishops question papacy values

● 1960 - The Philadelphia Orphan's Court raises singer Chubby Checker's weekly allowance from $150 to $200. The 19-year-old has already put three songs, "The Class," "The Twist" and "The Hucklebuck," in the pop Top Forty.

● 1962 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR

● 1963 - Greek & Turks riot in Cyprus

● 1964 - Shooting begins on "The Cage", the pilot for Star Trek

● 1965 - A meteorite landed on Leicestershire. It weighed about 100lbs.

● 1966 - Luna 13 landed on the moon.

● 1966 - A Canadair CL44 chartered by the United States military crashes into a small village in South Vietnam near Da Nang, South Vietnam, killing 129 including 103 civilians on the ground.

● 1967 - Pirate Radio Pegasus starts broadcasting off New Zealand

● 1967 - China People's Republic performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Republic of China

● 1967 - Joe Namath (New York Jets) became the first NFL quarterback to pass for 4,000 yards.

● 1968 - The crew of the U.S. Navy ship, Pueblo, was released by North Korea. The Captain of the Pueblo, Commander Lloyd M. Bucher, and 82 of his crew were held for 11 months after the ship was seized by North Korea because of suspected spying by the Americans.

● 1968 - The crew of Apollo 8, James A. Lovell, William Anders and Frank Borman, enter into orbit around the Moon, becoming the first humans to do so. That evening still orbiting the moon, read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve TV broadcast.

● 1969 - Manson "family" indictments.

● 1969 - Curt Flood writes to Bowie K. Kuhn, the Commissioner of Baseball, asking to be declared a free agent .

● 1970 - Taiji Yamaga dies; long-time secretary of international relations for the Anarchist Federation of Japan.

● 1970 - 9 Jews are convicted in Leningrad for hijacking a plane

● 1971 - Peruvian Airlines Electra crashes at headwaters of Amazon, killing all except Juliane Margaret Koepcke found 10 days later

● 1973 - Ferryboat capsized off coast of Ecuador, drowning 200

● 1974 - 'Drowned' Stonehouse found alive; Former UK minister John Stonehouse has been found in Australia after apparently faking his own death.

● 1974 - Cyclone Tracy devastates Darwin, Australia.

● 1977 - Anti-Christmas demonstration in San Remo, Italy.

● 1979 - The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan to support the country's Marxist government.

● 1979 - The first European Ariane rocket is launched.

● 1980 - Americans remember Iran hostages by shining lights for 417 seconds. Inspires a book by Stephen King.

● 1981 - Reggie Jackson announced that he would join Gene Autry’s California Angels for the 1982 season.

● 1981 - Guardian Angels Curtis Sliwa & Lisa Evers marry

● 1981 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR

● 1982 - Chaminade, with a student body of only 850 students, beats #1 ranked Virginia 77-72 in a Honolulu holiday basketball classic

● 1984 - Palace coup in Mauritania

● 1985 - A black bull blocks the Cross Harbour Tunnel in Hong Kong for three hours.

● 1985 - Fidel Castro, the Cuban president, announced that he was a non-smoker.

● 1986 - French hostage Aurel Cornea, held in Lebanon for 9 months, released

● 1986 - Iran offensive against Iraqi islands of Shatt al-Arab

● 1987 - Japanese legendary rock band BOØWY declares their breakup at the Shibuya Kokaido.

● 1989 - Oilfields crippled after storage ship drifts; North Sea oil production is dealt another blow months after the Piper Alpha disaster.

● 1989 - Panamá's dictator, Manual Noriega seeks asylum at the Vatican embassy

● 1989 - Charles Taylor enters Liberia to unseat President Samuel K Doe

● 1990 - Saddam says Israel will be Iraq's 1st target

● 1990 - Gulf Peace Team sets up camp, Judayyidat Ar'ar, Iraq.

● 1990 - Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were married.

● 1991 - Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Soviet Union

● 1991 - Parents of reservists from Grocka protest at Army headquarters, Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

● 1992 - President Bush pardons six people in the Iran-Contra case, among them former Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger and Robert McFarlane, former national security advisor. He just couldn’t figure out how to pardon himself or Ronald Reagan (accepting a pardon amounts to admitting wrongdoing).

● 1994 - 4 Moslem fundamentalists capture Air France pilot in Algiers

● 1997 - 1st time a Chanukah candle is officially lit in Vatican City

● 1997 - The Sid El-Antri massacre (or Sidi Lamri) in Algeria kills 50-100 people.

● 1997 - British Minister's son arrested in drug probe; The son of an unnamed Cabinet minister is arrested on suspicion of selling drugs.

● 1997 - The Dominican Republic becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.

● 1997 - Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, known as "Carlos the Jackal," was sentenced by a French court to life in prison for the 1975 murders of two French investigators and a Lebanese national.

● 1998 - At Disneyland in Anaheim, CA, a tourist was hit by a piece of flying metal while waiting to board a ride. The man's wife and a Disneyland employee were also injured. Luan Phi Dawson died December 26th from his injuries.

● 1999 - Ivory Coast President Henri Konan Bédié was overthrown in a coup.

● 1999 - An Indian Airplines plane was seized during a flight from Katmandu, Nepal, to New Delhi. In Afghanistan, the 150 hostages were freed on December 31 after India released three Kashmir militants from prison.

● 2000 - 36 minutes after the end of a game, both the New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins were called back to the playing field. The teams had to play the final 3 seconds of the game which the Dolphins had won 27-24. The end result did not change.

● 2000 - The "Texas 7," seven convicts that had escaped a Texas prison, robbed a sports store in Irving, TX. The suspects killed Officer Aubrey Hawkins, stole $70,000, 25 weapons and clothing. The men had escaped on December 13.

● 2002 - Laci Peterson was reported missing from her Modesto, Calif., home, by her husband, Scott, who was later convicted of murdering her and their unborn son.

● 2002 - The New Delhi Metro opens.

● 2003 - The Spanish police thwart an attempt by ETA to detonate 50 kg of explosives at 3:55 p.m. inside Madrid's busy Chamartín Station.

● 2004 - The international Cassini spacecraft launched a probe on a three-week free-fall toward Saturn's mysterious moon Titan.

● 2004 - The 2004 Christmas Eve Snowstorm delivers an extremely unusual snowfall to the southern United States.

BIRTHS

● 1166 - King John of England (d. 1216)

● 1389 - John VI, Duke of Brittany (d. 1442)

● 1475 - Thomas Murner, German writer (d.c. 1537)

● 1491 - Ignatius of Loyola, Spanish founder of the Jesuit order (d. 1556)

● 1508 - Pietro Carnesecchi, Italian humanist (d. 1567)

● 1609 - Philip Warwick, English writer and politician (d. 1683)

● 1698 - William Warburton, English Bishop of Gloucester (d. 1779)

● 1724 - Johann Conrad Ammann, Swiss physician and naturalist (d. 1811)

● 1745 - William Paterson, Irish-born American governor of New Jersey (d. 1806)

● 1754 - George Crabbe, English poet and naturalist (d. 1832)

● 1761 - Jean-Louis Pons, French astronomer (d. 1831)

● 1798 - Adam Mickiewicz, Polish poet (d. 1855)

● 1809 - Kit Carson, American frontiersman (d. 1868)

● 1812 - Karl Eduard Zachariae, German jurist (d. 1894)

● 1818 - James Prescott Joule, British physicist (d. 1889)

● 1822 - Matthew Arnold, English poet (d. 1888)

● 1837 - Elisabeth of Bavaria, Empress of Austria (d. 1898)

● 1845 - King George I of Greece (d. 1913)

● 1867 - Kantaro Suzuki, 42nd Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1948)

● 1868 - Emanuel Lasker, German chess player (d. 1941)

● 1880 - Johnny Gruelle, American cartoonist, children's book writer and creator of Raggedy Ann (d. 1939)

● 1881 - Juan Ramón Jiménez, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1958)

● 1886 - Michael Curtiz, Hungarian-born director (d. 1962)

● 1894 - Georges-Marie Guynemer, French World War I combat pilot (d. 1917)

● 1895 - E. Roland Harriman, American financier (d. 1978)

● 1898 - Héctor Scarone, Uruguayan footballer (d. 1967)

● 1898 - Baby Dodds, American jazz drummer (d. 1959)

● 1905 - Howard Hughes, American film producer, inventor and all-around rich nutcase (d. 1976)

● 1907 - I. F. Stone, American journalist (d. 1989)

● 1910 - Fritz Leiber, American writer (d. 1992)

● 1914 - Herbert Reinecker, German writer

● 1920 - Dave Bartholomew, Bandleader

● 1920 - Evgeniya Rudneva, Russian World War II heroine (d. 1944)

● 1922 - Ava Gardner, American actress (d. 1990)

● 1923 - George Patton IV, American general (d. 2004)

● 1923 - Michael DiBiase, American wrestler (d. 1969)

● 1924 - Lee Dorsey, American singer (d. 1986)

● 1925 - Mohd. Rafi, Indian actor and playback singer (d. 1980)

● 1929(27? NYT) - Mary Higgins Clark, American author

● 1931 - Mauricio Kagel, Argentine composer

● 1937 - Félix Miéli Venerando, Brazilian football player

● 1940 - Anthony Fauci, Public health official

● 1941 - John Levene, British actor

● 1943 - Tarja Halonen, President of Finland

● 1944 - Mike Curb, Recording company executive

● 1945 - Lemmy Kilmister, British singer, bassist (Motörhead)

● 1945 - Nicholas Meyer, American author

● 1946 - Jeff Sessions, U.S. senator, R-Ala.

● 1946 - Brenda Howard, American bisexual activist (d. 2005)

● 1949 - Randy Neugebauer, American politician

● 1950 - Dana Gioia, American poet

● 1951 - John D'Acquisto, baseball player

● 1954 - José María Figueres, Costa Rican politician, President 1994-1998

● 1955 - Grand L. Bush, Actor

● 1955 - Clarence Gilyard, American actor

● 1956 - Stephanie Hodge, Actress

● 1957 - Ian Burden, Rock musician (The Human League)

● 1957 - Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan

● 1959 - Keith Deller, darts player

● 1960 - Carol Vorderman, British television presenter

● 1962 - Kate Spade, Designer

● 1963 - Mary Ramsey, American singer (10,000 Maniacs)

● 1964 - Mark Valley, Actor

● 1966 - Diedrich Bader, American actor (''The Drew Carey Show'')

● 1968 - Doyle Bramhall II, American guitarist

● 1969 - Mark Millar, Scottish comic book writer

● 1970 - Will Oldham, American songwriter

● 1971 - Christopher Daniels, American professional wrestler

● 1971 - Ricky Martin, Puerto Rican singer

● 1972 - Alvaro Mesen, Costa Rican footballer

● 1973 - Eddie Pope, American soccer player

● 1974 - Marcelo Salas, Chilean footballer

● 1974 - Ryan Seacrest, American television host (''American Idol'')

● 1981 - Dima Bilan, Karachay-Russian pop artist

● 1982 - Aiba Masaki, Japanese singer and actor

DEATHS

● 427 - Archbishop Sisinnius I of Constantinople

● 820 - Leo V, Byzantine Emperor (assassinated) (b. 775)

● 1257 - John I, Count of Hainaut (b. 1218)

● 1453 - John Dunstable, English composer (bc. 1390)

● 1524 - Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer (bc. 1469)

● 1660 - Mary, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange (b. 1631)

● 1707 - Noël Coypel, French painter (b. 1628)

● 1813 - Empress Go-Sakuramachi of Japan, (b.1740)

● 1863 - William Makepeace Thackeray, English writer (b. 1811)

● 1865 - Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, English painter and writer (b. 1793)

● 1868 - Adolphe d'Archiac, French paleontologist and geologist (b. 1802)

● 1873 - Johns Hopkins, Baltimore philanthropist and businessman (b. 1795)

● 1889 - Jan Jakob Lodewijk ten Kate, Dutch poet and clergyman (b. 1819)

● 1898 - Sharbel Makhluf, Lebanese monk canonized in 1977 by Pope Paul VI (b. 1828)

● 1914 - John Muir, Scottish-born naturalist (b. 1838)

● 1935 - Alban Berg, Austrian composer (b. 1885)

● 1938 - Bruno Taut, German architect (b. 1880)

● 1941 - Siegfried Alkan, German composer (b. 1858)

● 1942 - François Darlan, vice-premier of Vichy France (b. 1881)

● 1957 - Norma Talmadge, American actress (b. 1893)

● 1972 - Gisela Richter, English art historian (b. 1882)

● 1975 - Bernard Herrmann, American film composer (b. 1911)

● 1977 - Samael Aun Weor, Columbian writer (b. 1917)

● 1980 - Karl Dönitz, President of Germany (b. 1891)

● 1980 - Siggie Nordstrom, model, actress, entertainer, socialite and lead singer of The Nordstrom Sisters (b. 1893)

● 1982 - Louis Aragon, French writer (b. 1897)

● 1984 - Peter Lawford, English actor (b. 1923)

● 1986 - Gardner Fox, American writer (b. 1911)

● 1987 - Joop den Uyl, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (b. 1919)

● 1992 - Peyo, Belgian comics artist, and creator of The Smurfs (b. 1928)

● 1993 - Norman Vincent Peale, American writer (b. 1898)

● 1994 - John Boswell, American historian (b. 1947)

● 1997 - Toshirô Mifune, Japanese actor (b. 1920)

● 1999 - João Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo, President of Brazil (b. 1918)

● 2002 - Kjell Aukrust, Norwegian author (b. 1920)

● 2004 - Johnny Oates, baseball player and manager (b. 1946)

● 2005 - Michael Vale, American commercial actor (b. 1922)

HOLIDAYS AND OBSERVANCES

● Roman Catholic:
● St. Adele
● St. Emiliana
● St. Adela
● St. Tarsilla
● St. Venerandus
● St. Caranus
● St. Delphinus
● St. Lucian
● St. Sharbel Makhlouf, Lebanese monk, hermit

● Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar for December 11 (Civil Date: December 24)
● Nativity Fast.
● St. Daniel the Stylite of Constantinople.
● St. Luke the New Stylite of Chalcedon.
● St. Nicon the Dry of the Kiev Caves.
● Martyrs Acepsius and Aeithalas at Arbelus.
● Martyr Mirax of Egypt.
● St. Leontius, monk of Monembasia in the Peloponnesus.
● Martyr Barsabas in Persia.
● New Hieromartyr Theophan of Solikamsk (1918).

● Greek Calendar:
● Martyrs Terentius, Vincent, Emilian and Bebaia.
● Sunday of the Forefathers

● December 24 is celebrated as the day before Christmas, thus called Christmas Eve.

● It is the day when food is traditionally set out for Santa Claus and his reindeer. Children around the world are urged to go to bed early so they are not awake when he arrives.

● In Germany, Hungary, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia among others, this is the day that presents are exchanged and opened.

● The Declaration of Christmas Peace takes place in the Old Great Square of Turku, Finland's official Christmas City, according to old traditions dating back to the Middle Ages.

● Laos : Sovereignty Day (1954)

● Libya : Independence Day (1951)


Click on this LINK to see original Wikipedia list with many having links with details.

Additional facts taken from:

On this day in the New York Times

The BBC’s Take on the day

On This Day Website

Geov Parrish's this Day in Radical History, things that happened on this day that you never had to memorize in school.

Scope Systems Any Day Website

Roman Catholic Saint of the Day

Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar

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