[CaptainCrunch]

Dec 25 in History

336 – First documentary sign of Christmas celebration in Rome.

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.

800 – The 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, Duke of Normandy is crowned king of England, at Westminster Abbey, London.

1261 – John IV Laskaris of the restored Eastern Roman Empire is deposed and blinded by orders of his co-ruler Michael VIII Palaiologos.

1492 – The carrack Santa María, commanded by Christopher Columbus, runs onto a reef off Haiti due to an improper watch.

1758 – Halley's Comet is sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch, confirming Edmund Halley's prediction of its passage. This was the first passage of a comet predicted ahead of time.

1776 – George Washington and the Continental Army cross the Delaware River at night to attack Hessian forces serving Great Britain at Trenton, New Jersey, the next day.

1815 – The Handel and Haydn Society, oldest continually performing arts organization in the United States, gives its first performance.

1826 – The Eggnog Riot at the United States Military Academy concludes after beginning the previous evening.

1831 – The Great Jamaican Slave Revolt begins; up to 20% of the island's slaves mobilize in an ultimately unsuccessful fight for freedom.

1868 – United States President Andrew Johnson grants an unconditional pardon to all Confederate veterans.

1914 – A series of unofficial truces occur across the Western Front to celebrate Christmas.

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 European self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is initiated within the Soviet Union's F-1 nuclear reactor.

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.

1962 – The Soviet Union conducts its final above-ground nuclear weapon test, in anticipation of the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

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.

1977 – Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin meets in Egypt with its president Anwar Sadat.

1989 – Deposed President of Romania Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife, Elena, are condemned to death and executed after a summary trial.

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.

2003 – The ill-fated Beagle 2 probe, released from the Mars Express spacecraft on December 19, stops transmitting shortly before its scheduled landing.

2004 – The Cassini orbiter releases Huygens probe which successfully landed on Saturn's moon Titan on January 14, 2005.

2016 – A Russian Defence Ministry Tupolev Tu-154 carrying members of the Alexandrov Ensemble crashes into the Black Sea shortly after takeoff, killing all 92 people onboard.