QF Focus
Happy New Year
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Events throughout the years on December 25th - Christmas Day
337 Earliest possible date that Christmas was celebrated on 25th December. 352 1st definite date Christmas was celebrated on 25th December. 597 England adopts Julian calendar. 1066 Duke William of Normandy (William the Conqueror) crowned King of England. 1223 St Francis of Assisi assembles 1st Nativity scene (Greccio, Italy). 1492 Christopher Columbus’ flagship the Santa María runs aground and sinks on Hispaniola 1741 Astronomer Anders Celsius introduces Centigrade temperature scale. 1758 Return of Halley’s comet 1st sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch. 1818 1st known Christmas carol (“Silent Night, Holy Night” - “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht) sung (Austria). 1818 Handel’s Messiah, premieres in the US in Boston. 1914 Legendary “Christmas Truce” takes place on the battlefields of WWI between British and German troops. Instead of fighting, soldiers exchange gifts and play football. 1950 Coronation Stone, taken from Scone in Scotland by Edward I in 1296, stolen from Westminster Abbey and smuggled back to Scotland. 1959 Richard Starkey (later better known as Ringo Starr) receives his first drum set. 1990 The first successful trial run of the system which would become the World Wide Web. 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev formally resigns as President of USSR in a televised speech. 1997 For 1st time US movie box office receipts pass $6 billion. 2003 The ill-fated Beagle 2 probe which was released from the Mars Express Spacecraft on 19th December, disappears shortly before its scheduled landing.
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