Sunday, December 25

Today is Sunday, Dec. 25, the 359th day of 2011. There are 6 days left in the year. Today is Christmas Day.

Highlights in history on this date:

1000 – St. Stephen, the first Christian king of Hungary, is crowned.

1066 – William the Conqueror is crowned king of England.

1154 – Pope Adrian IV is enthroned.

1223 – St. Francis of Assisi assembles one of the first Nativity scenes, in Greccio, Italy.

1776 – George Washington crosses the Delaware for a surprise attack on British forces.

1818 – The Christmas carol “Silent Night” is sung for first time in the Austrian village of Oberndorff.

1868 – U.S. President Andrew Johnson grants an unconditional pardon to all persons involved in the Southern rebellion that resulted in the Civil War.

1897 – Italy cedes Kassala to Egypt.

1917 – A soccer game takes place in the Argonne Forest during World War I between German soldiers on one side and British, Scottish, Canadian and American soldiers on the other.

1926 – Hirohito becomes emperor of Japan, succeeding his father, Emperor Yoshihito.

1936 – Mutinous warlords in China release Chiang Kai-shek after kidnapping him and holding him for 12 days.

1941 – Hong Kong surrenders to Japanese in World War II.

1947 – Despite Communist armies striking hard blows in Manchuria and central China, the Nanking Government proclaims the new Constitution in effect.

1959 – The Soviet Union agrees to give financial and technical aid to Syria.

1963 – Kenya declares a state of emergency along its 708-kilometer (440-mile) Northern Frontier District border to cope with increasing attacks carried out by tribesmen from neighboring Somalia.

1969 – Israeli crews sail six gunboats, built for Israel but withheld by French government, out of Cherbourg harbor en route to Haifa, Israel.

1971 – Fire burns down hotel in Seoul, South Korea, taking 139 lives.

1974 – Cyclone devastates Darwin, Australia.

1977 – Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin meets Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat at Ismailia, Egypt, for peace talks.

1985 – Glowing rivers of lava flow from Mount Etna in Sicily after eruption and earthquake.

1986 – Iraqi Airways jetliner with 107 people aboard explodes and burns as it attempts a forced landing at remote desert airstrip in Saudi Arabia. Sixty-two people die.

1987 – Nicaragua’s defense ministry accuses Contra rebels of breaking Christmas cease-fire with several raids.

1989 – Deposed Communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, are executed in Romania.

1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev formally resigns as president of the Soviet Union.

1992 – Christmas brings peace, at least temporarily, to wartorn parts of the world: A cease-fire holds in Northern Ireland, fighting subsides in Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, and French and American soldiers secure a Somali town without firing a shot.

1994 – Algeria grants permission for a French jetliner to fly to France with Muslim militant hijackers and their hostages.

1995 – Floods kill at least 124 people in eastern South Africa.

1996 – A tropical storm lashes the Pacific island of Borneo, killing at least 120 people.

1997 – Cubans celebrate Christmas day as a public holiday for the first time in 30 years.

2001 – More than 500 Kurdish and Afghan refugees living in a stuffy Red Cross center storm the entrance to the Channel Tunnel in an unsuccessful attempt to get to Britain by foot.

2002 – Two attackers throw grenades into a Christian church in the Pakistani village of Chianwala, 65 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of Lahore, killing three girls and wounding 11 people during a Christmas service.

2003 – A jetliner clips a building during takeoff and crashes into the sea off the West African nation of Benin, killing at least 82 people on their way home for the holidays.

2005 – Warlords and civilians install a new legislative council to govern Somalia’s capital, formalizing a break with the transitional government, formed under President Abdullahi Yusuf.2006 – Ethiopian jets bomb Somalia’s two main airports while ground troops capture three villages and a strategic border town, lending Somalia’s internationally backed government crucial military aid in its struggle against a powerful Islamic militia.

2007 – About 40 Iranian Jews complete a covert escape from Iran, hoping to build new lives in Israel after fleeing a hardline regime that repeatedly called for the Jewish state’s destruction.

2008 – The deputy police chief of Zihuatanejo, a Mexican resort town, and six other officers who allegedly had been protecting drug cartel members at a cock fight, are arrested, the government says. Fourteen suspected members of the Beltran Leyva drug gang are also arrested.

2009 – A Nigerian man who said he was an agent for al-Qaida tries to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane with 289 people aboard as it was preparing to land in Detroit, but travelers who smelled smoke and heard what sounded like firecrackers rush to subdue him.

2010 – A burqa-clad female suicide bomber in Pakistan lobs hand grenades, then detonates her explosive belt among a crowd at an aid center, killing at least 45 people in militants’ latest strike against the authorities’ control over the key tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Today’s Birthdays:

Sir Isaac Newton, English scientist-mathematician (1642-1727); Claude Claudion Michel, French sculptor (1783-1814); Helena Rubenstein, Australian-born beautician (1871-1965); Anwar el-Sadat, Egyptian president (1918-1981); Cab Calloway, U.S. band leader (1907-1994); Jimmy Buffet, U.S. singer (1946–); Sissy Spacek, U.S. actress (1949–); Annie Lennox, British singer (1954–).

Thought For Today:

I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year — Charles Dickens, British author (1812-1870).