December 25, 2023
QUOTE
A day without laughter is a day wasted.
--Charlie Chaplin
BIRTHDAYS
1878 – Louis Chevrolet, American race car driver and businessman, co-founded Chevrolet
1899 – Humphrey Bogart, American actor
1907 – Cab Calloway, American singer-songwriter and bandleader
1909 – Zora Arkus-Duntov, Belgian-American engineer
1924 – Rod Serling, American screenwriter and producer, created The Twilight Zone
1949 – Sissy Spacek, American actress[
IN MEMORY
1946 – W. C. Fields, American actor, comedian, juggler, and screenwriter
1977 – Charlie Chaplin, English actor and director
1980 – Fred Emney, English actor and comedian
1989 – Billy Martin, American baseball player and manager
1995 – Dean Martin, American singer and actor
1997 – Denver Pyle, American actor
IN ON THIS DAY
336 – First documentary sign of Christmas celebration in Rome.
1000 – The foundation of the Kingdom of Hungary: Hungary is established as a Christian kingdom by Stephen I of Hungary.
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.
1868 – Pardons for ex-Confederates: United States President Andrew Johnson grants an unconditional pardon to all Confederate veterans.
1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 performs the first successful Trans-Earth injection (TEI) maneuver, sending the crew and spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth from Lunar orbit.
2021 – The James Webb Space Telescope is launched.