An astonishing number of church-related actions took place on December 25. Here are a few of them:
- 336 earliest recorded celebration of Christmas in Rome
- 567 Beginning of the “Twelve Days of Christmas” as decreed by Council of Tours
- 597 Augustine baptizes thousands of Saxons in Kent
- 634 Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, warns of Islamic menace
- 1000 St. Stephen crowned first Christian king of Hungary
- 1100 Baldwin of Edessa crowned King of Jerusalem in Bethlehem
- 1131 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle uses “Cristemesse” for first time as one word
- 1170 Archbishop Thomas Becket preaches in Canterbury Cathedral and prophesies his own murder (he is killed 4 days later)
- 1223 St Francis of Assisi assembles first live Nativity crèche at Greccio, Italy
- 1430 Joan of Arc imprisoned in a tower at Rouen
- 1521 Protestant Reformer Andreas von Carlstadt shocks Wittenberg by performing Mass in German
- 1535 Jacques Cartier and crew celebrate first Christmas in Canada at Stadacona
- 1648 Riots break out in Canterbury over attempts by the Puritan government to suppress Christmas; King Charles I spends his last Christmas under guard at Windsor Castle.
- 1667 Kateri Tekakwitha, Iroquois mystic, has her first communion at the church in Kahnawake, Québec.
- 1734 J.S. Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio” first performed at Leipzig with Bach conducting.
- 1760 Jupiter Hammon, New York slave and first black American poet, published “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penitential Cries”.
- 1781 First lighted Christmas tree in Canada erected by Baroness Riedsel
- 1818 “Silent Night” sung for first time in Oberdorf, Austria
- 1836 Alabama becomes first US state to recognize Christmas as a legal holiday.
- 1867 Christmas a holiday in Canada for federal workers
- 1902 Pope Leo XIII endorses European Christian Democratic movement as alternative to socialism
- 1980 Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador murdered
- 2005 Benedict XVI issues his first encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est”