Under Friday, December 24th, the book of history records, among other things:
1046: The Synod of Sutri elects the German Bishop Suitger as Pope Clement II.
1801: In a ukase, Tsar Alexander I allows all free Russians to acquire and own land (until then reserved for the nobility).
1816: The first Christmas tree at the Viennese court is set up on Christmas Eve in the palace of Archduke Karl, the victor of Aspern against the French and brother of Emperor Franz I. The custom was introduced in Vienna in 1814 by the Berlin-born Jewish banker’s wife and philanthropist Baroness Fanny von Arnstein, née Itzig.
1826: Argentina receives its first federal constitution as a union of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, which has been independent from Spain since 1816.
1851: A major fire destroys more than half of the books in the American Library of Congress in Washington.
1863: Troops of the German Confederation move into Holstein.
1871: Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Aida”, which the composer was unable to finish in time for the inauguration of the Suez Canal in 1869, premieres in Cairo.
1906: The first US radio show is broadcast in Brant Rock, Massachusetts. The Canadian inventor and physicist Reginald Aubrey Fessenden presents the wireless transmission of a spoken text.
1951: King Idris I al-Senussi, former emir of Cyrenaica, proclaimed the independence of Libya on the basis of a UN resolution, which was conquered by the Italians in 1911 and placed under British military administration in 1942.
1966: For the second time, a Soviet probe, “Luna-13”, lands on the lunar surface without incident.
1971: In the Indian-Pakistani conflict, the People’s Republic of China takes the side of Pakistan and accuses India of “aggression” in connection with the secession of East Pakistan (Bangladesh).
1986: The Polish state television broadcasts the midnight mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome for the first time.
1991: Russia gets a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UN).
1996: During a Christmas fair in Frankfurt-Sindlingen, a mentally ill woman blows herself up with two hand grenades and kills two other women with her.
1996: Indian Air Force military aircraft crash in India. All 20 people on board die.
2006: Two years after the devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia, the Indonesian province of Aceh is hit by severe flooding. In total, at least 80 people died in Aceh and two other affected provinces on Sumatra. 200,000 become homeless.
Birthdays: Juan Ramón Jiménez, Spanish poet; Nobel Prize 1956 (1881-1958); Otto Basil, east. Writer (1901-1983); Alexander Fadejew, Russian writer (1901-1956); Gerard Victory, Irish composer (1921-1995); Mauricio Kagel, Argentina. Composer (1931-2008); Harald Serafin, east Singer, actor and from 1992 to 2012 director of the Mörbisch Seefestspiele (1931); Hans Eichel, German politician (1941); Erwin Pröll, east. Ex-politician; Governor of Lower Austria 1992-2017 (1946); Ilham Aliyev (also Aliyev), Azerbaid. Politician; President of the State since 2003 (1961); Ricky Martin, Puerto Rican. Pop singer (1971); Nneka, Nigerian hip-hop singer (1971).
Days of Death: Gaspar David Ramón Cassadó y Morlu, Spanish cellist (1897-1966); Johannes “Jopie” Heesters, Dutch-German Actor and singer (1903-2011); Alfons Goppel, German politician (1905-1991); Jean Marie François Prince de Broglie, French politician (1921-1976).
Name days: Adam, Eva, Hermine, Evelyn, Evita, Hanno, Adele, Herma, Natalia, Gregor, Paula, Daniel.