December 25

40BC In 42BC the ruler of Egypt, Cleopatra, was summoned to attend leader of the Caesarion faction, Mark Antony, in the Turkish city of Tarsus to explain her refusal to aid the Roman general in the civil war he was occupied in. Instead of punishing her, Antony fell in love with the Siren of the Nile. On December 25, 40 BC, Cleopatra gave birth to twins fathered by the Roman general, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene.

c. 5BC When the Roman Emperor Augustus issued a decree that a census be taken of the entire Roman world, a carpenter called Joseph was forced to register in his hometown of Bethlehem. He was accompanied by his young pregnant fiancé, Mary, whose baby had been conceived by the Holy Spirit. The baby was named Jesus meaning "Yahweh is salvation". He was born inauspiciously in a stable in Bethlehem thus fulfilling a prophecy in the Jewish sacred book of Micah, and laid in an animal's feeding trough. 

Adoration of the Shepherds by Dutch painter Matthias Stomer, 1632

221 Although the month and date of Jesus' birth are unknown, the church in the early fourth century fixed the date as December 25. The Christian historian Sextus Julius Africanus in 221, was possibly the first to nominate December 25th as Christmas Day. He did this by identifying the spring equinox (March 25th) as the date of the creation of light on the fourth day of creation and by reasoning that Jesus’ conception was the same date, 5,500 years later, and his birth being nine months after that, December 25th.

350 In 350 Pope Julius I designated December 25th as the day to celebrate Christ’s birth. He did so mainly as a political move to counteract the effect of Saturnalia, the popular feast held in honor of the Roman god Saturn, which occurred at the time of the winter solstice, climaxing on December 25th, a Roman holiday. December 25th also was a celebration of the birthday of the Persian sun god Mithra. It was hoped that by picking this date Christianity would be more appealing to pagans.

496 Clovis I, King of the Franks, was converted to Christianity, the first barbarian chief of any importance to convert to orthodox Christianity, rather the Arian religion. He was baptized into the Catholic faith on Christmas Day 496, along with his 3,000 strong army at Reims Cathedral. The Bishop Remigius of Rheims declared to him, "bow thy head, proud Frank: adore what thou hast burned; burn what thou hast adored."

Clovis roi des Francs by François-Louis Dejuinne (1786–1844) Wikipedia 

597 Saint Augustine of Canterbury was a respected Abbot of St Andrew Monastery in Rome who in 595 was chosen by Pope Gregory to convert England to Christianity.  On Christmas Day 597 Augustine of Canterbury and his fellow missionary monks baptized in Kent over 10,000 Anglo-Saxons. Augustine sent a report of this encouraging progress to the pope and Gregory responded by dispatching more missionaries to help with the work.

800 Having already lost Ravenna to the barbarian Lombards, Pope Leo III feared a similar fate befalling Rome. He sought alliance with the King of the Franks, Charlemagne, thus loosening their ties with Constantinople. This resulted in the crowning of the Frankish king on Christmas Day 800 as Holy Roman Emperor. The pope placed a crown on the new emperor’s head, then knelt before him and paid him homage.

The Coronation of Charlemagne by workshop of Raphael

1000 The Principality of Hungary was established as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first King Stephen I at Esztergom on Christmas Day 1000. King Stephen was canonized as St Stephen in 1083.

1066 Following his defeat of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror was crowned England's first Norman king at Westminster Abbey on December 25, 1066. William's claim to the English throne derived from his familial relationship with the childless Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Confessor, who had died nine months earlier and was succeeded by his brother-in-law Harold Godwinson.

1497 Portuguese explorer Vasco Da Gama reached the South African province of Natal on December 25, 1497 during his voyage to India. He named it Natal as Christmas in Portuguese was “Natale.” The Vasco Da Gama Memorial in Durban today immortalizes Vasco Da Gama's first sighting of South Africa.

Wikipedia

1642 Sir Isaac Newton was born, according to the Julian calendar (in use in England at the time) on Christmas Day, December 25. 1642. Isaac was born at Woolsthorpe House, near the hamlet of Colstenworth in Lincolnshire. He was born prematurely. Isaac wasn't expected to live beyond a few hours, but proved everyone wrong in style.

1694 The Honorable Edward Russell, the First Lord of the Admiralty was wintering in late 1694 in the Spanish port of Cadiz. On Christmas Day, he hosted an extravagant party in the grounds of the local governor’s estate (Don Francesco de Velasco y Tovar), in which he used the fountain in his garden as a giant bowl containing punch. The recipe included brandy, lemons, lime juice, and sugar. Russell's bartender rowed about in a small boat, filling up the cups for the incredulous guest.

1741 When Swedish scientist Anders Celsius first proposed the scale of temperatures named after him on December 25, 1741 zero was the boiling point of water and 100 its freezing point. Celsius' suggestion of the freezing and boiling points of water as thermometer fixed reference points became popular and these fixed points (by now reversed from Celsius' original proposals) were adopted in the UK by a committee of the Royal Society led by Henry Cavendish in 1776.

Side-by-side diagrams of centigrade and fahrenheit thermometers

1745 The War of Austrian Succession began in December 1740, when Frederick the Great invaded and quickly occupied Silesia. This was in defiance of the succession of Maria Theresa, daughter of Emperor Charles VI  who had just died. After defeating Austria at the Battle of Fontenoy, the Treaty of Dresden was signed on December 25, 1745, finally establishing Prussian rule in Silesia.

1771 William Wordsworth's sister Dorothy was born on December 25, 1771. The poet was close to his sister especially after his favourite brother died when William was 13. Dorothy lived with William all of his adult life - she was virtually a sister servant. She declined into premature senility in the last 15 years they were together.

1809 American physician Ephraim McDowell performed the world's first removal of an ovarian tumor on December 25, 1809. The tumor McDowell removed weighed 22.5 pounds (10.2 kg). The whole surgery procedure took 25 minutes and the patient, Mrs. Crawford, made an uncomplicated recovery. She returned to her home in Green County, Kentucky, 25 days after the operation and lived another 32 years.

1814 The Reverend Samuel Marsden was the Australian colony's senior Anglican cleric in the early 1800s. Though formally based in New South Wales, Marsden developed an interest in evangelizing New Zealand. He conducted the first Christian service on New Zealand soil to a 400-strong Māori congregation at Rangihoua Bay on December 25, 1814.

1815 The Handel and Haydn Society, familiarly known as H+H, is an American choir and period instrument orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. The oldest continually performing arts organization in the United States, it gave its first performance on December 25, 1815.

1821 American nurse and humanitarian Clara Barton was born on December 25, 1821. Clara Barton was a hospital nurse in the American Civil War. She later became involved with the International Red Cross while visiting Europe. In 1881 she founded the American Red Cross. She was noteworthy for doing humanitarian work at a time when relatively few women worked outside the home.

1830 The first American built locomotive for revenue services, The Best Friend of Charleston, was built for the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company by the West Point Foundry of New York. Its first run was on December 25, 1830.

Line drawing of the Best Friend of Charleston

1850 The Stone of Scone, traditional coronation stone of British monarchs, was taken from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalist students on Christmas Day 1850. It later turned up in Scotland three and a half months later.

1868 The American Civil War ended in April 1865, when Confederate General Robert Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. United States President Andrew Johnson granted an unconditional pardon to all Confederate veterans on December 25, 1868.

1872 Cosmetics entrepreneur Helena Rubinstein was born on December 25, 1872, in the Kazimierz district of Krakow in Poland. Helena's mother took a unique approach with raising her daughters: She told them they would wield influence in the world through the powers of beauty and love. To this end, her mother even made her own beauty creams. After moving to Australia, Rubinstein started selling her own face creams based on her mother's recipe. They were a huge success.

Helena Rubinstein's birth house (green) in Kraków. By Zygmunt Put Zetpe0202

1899 Hollywood actor Humphrey Bogart was born on December 25, 1899 in New York City. He used to joke that he was cheated out of a present every year because of his birth date. For many years it was rumored that Humphrey Bogart’s birthday had been moved by 336 days, from January 23rd to Christmas Day, because Warner Brothers thought it more ‘romantic’ for their leading man. When he died, it was discovered that December 25th was his birthday after all.

1902 On Christmas Day 1902, Ernest Shackleton brewed up a big tub of Bovril during Robert Scott’s Antarctic expedition. Bovril is the trade name of a concentrated extract of beef, the basis for a hot drink but also used as a flavoring or for gravy.

1906 German physicist and academic Ernst Ruska was born on December 25, 1906. Working at Siemens Ernst Ruska, developed the first commercial transmission electron microscope in 1939. Ruska won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986 for his work in electron optics.

1932 Rudyard Kipling wrote the first ever King's message on Christmas Day 1932 for George V, an epic of 251 words. Just before the broadcast, the king fell through his wicker armchair. He exclaimed "God bless my soul!" and delivered his lines.

1941 The Battle of Hong Kong ended on December 25, 1941, beginning the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. The surrender occurred after 18 days of fierce fighting against the overwhelming Japanese forces that had invaded the territory. The occupation lasted for three years and eight months until Japan surrendered at the end of World War II.

1958 On December 25, 1958, Pope John XXII undertook the first papal pastoral visit off Vatican territory since 1870, when he visited children infected with polio at the Bambino Gesù Hospital and then visited Santo Spirito Hospital. The following day, he visited Rome's Regina Coeli prison, where he told the inmates: "You could not come to me, so I came to you."

1969 Electronic movements, also known as quartz movements, have few or no moving parts, except a quartz crystal which is made to vibrate by the piezoelectric effect. (An electric charge that accumulates in certain solid materials such as crystals, in response to applied mechanical stress). The first quartz watch to be manufactured was the Seiko 35 SQ Astron, which hit the shelves on December 25, 1969.

Quartz movement of the Seiko Astron, 1969  By Museumsfoto - Deutsches Uhrenmuseum

1977 By October 1977, Charlie Chaplin's health had declined to the point that he needed constant care. He died of a stroke in his sleep on Christmas Day 1977, in Switzerland at the age of 88. Chaplin was a legendary actor, comedian, and filmmaker, best known for his iconic character "The Tramp" and his contributions to the world of silent cinema.

1986 The 1986 Christmas Day EastEnders episode was watched by 30.15 million viewers in the UK. The story, in which Den Watts served his wife Angie with divorce papers was the highest-rated soap episode in British history, and the highest-rated program in the UK during the 1980s.

1990 In a nationally televised speech on the night of December 25, 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as President of the Soviet Union. He declared the office extinct and handed over its functions to Boris Yeltsin. The next day, the Supreme Soviet declared the dissolution of The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (also known as the USSR or Soviet Union for short).

2000 Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill into law on December 25, 2000 that officially established a new National Anthem of Russia, with music adopted from the anthem of the Soviet Union that was composed by Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov.

2006 The "Godfather of Soul" James Brown died on December 25, 2006 at 73 in Atlanta of congestive heart failure after being hospitalized for pneumonia. According to his friend, James Brown's last words were "I'm going away tonight." His coffin was 24 karat gold.

2007 On December 25, 2007, a Siberian tiger named Tatiana escaped from her enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo. The incident tragically resulted in the death of one person and injuries to two others before the tiger was shot and killed by the police.