Today in History

From wikipedia.org:

Events
800 - Coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, in Rome
1223 - Saint Francis of Assisi assembles the first Nativity scene
1776 - George Washington and his army cross the Delaware River to attack the monarchy’s Hessian mercenaries in Trenton, New Jersey
1818 - The first performance of “Silent Night” (Church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorf, Austria)
1914 - Just after midnight on Christmas morning, German troops on the Western Front cease firing their guns and artillery and start singing Christmas carols. Crossing the No man's land, they trade gifts with the enemy forces that face them. The Christmas truce lasts for several days, depending on the location
1917 - Why Marry?, first dramatic play to win a Pulitzer Prize, opens at the Astor Theatre in New York City
1926 - Hirohito becomes Emperor of Japan, succeeding the Taisho Emperor
1932 - A magnitude 7.6 earthquake in Gansu, China kills ~70,000 people
1939 - Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was read on radio for the first time (CBS radio)
1939 - Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is introduced by Montgomery Ward stores
1973 - The ARPANET crashes when a programming bug causes all ARPANET traffic to be routed through the server at Harvard University, causing the server to freeze
1974 - Cyclone Tracy devastates Darwin, Australia
1977 - Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin meets in Egypt with President of Egypt Anwar Sadat
1991 - Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as president of the Soviet Union (the union itself is dissolved the next day).
2004 - Cassini orbiter releases Huygens probe which will land on Saturn’s moon, Titan, on January 14, 2005

Births
7 BC-4 BC (observed): birth of Jesus, considered to be the Son of God (by Christians); also considered an ascetic prophet of Islam. The date of Jesus’ birth is celebrated on several different days worldwide
1642 - Sir Isaac Newton, physicist and mathematician (d. 1727)
1763 - Claude Chappe, telecommunications pioneer semaphore lines (d. 1805)
1771 - Dorothy Wordsworth, diarist and sister of William Wordsworth (d. 1855)
1821 - Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross (d. 1912)
1878 - Louis Chevrolet, race car driver, automotive pioneer (d. 1941)
1887 - Conrad Nicholson Hilton, hotelier (d. 1979)
1907 - Cab Calloway, bandleader (d. 1994)
1924 - Rod Serling, scriptwriter, host of The Twilight Zone (d. 1975)
1946 - Jimmy Buffett, singer, songwriter
1946 - Larry Csonka, American football player
1948 - Barbara Mandrell, singer, actress
1954 - Annie Lennox, singer of Eurythmics

Deaths
795 - Pope Adrian I
1635 - Samuel de Champlain - French explorer, founder of Quebec City. (b. 1567)
1946 - W. C. Fields, actor, comedian (b. 1880)
1977 - Charlie Chaplin, actor (b. 1889)
1983 - Joan Miró, painter (b. 1893)
1995 - Dean Martin, singer, actor (b. 1917)
1996 - JonBenét Ramsey, murder victim (b. 1990)
2003 - Phil Goldman, co-founder of WebTV Networks, Inc. (now MSN TV)

Holidays & observances
The Christmas holiday is celebrated on this day in Christianity. However, some Eastern Churches celebrate on their ecclesiastical December 25, which is January 7 in the civil calendar. Christmas day always falls on the same day of the week as New Years Day (January 1) of the next year

Catholicism - Holy Day of Obligation The Nativity of Christ

One of the four Irish Quarter days in the Irish calendar