To a child, there's something magical about the red square on the calendar marking December 25. Of course, to a child, the magic of the day is wrapped up in eager, wriggling anticipation of reindeers on rooftops and presents under trees. But it's just possible there's something deeper going on here. December 25 has long exerted a special tug on people's hearts, imbued with a magic far older than Santa Claus - far older, in fact, than Christmas itself. In the second century AD, December 25 was declared the Roman holiday of Natalis Solis Invincti Mithras or the 'Birthday of the Invincible Sun God'. Elsewhere it was celebrated as a holiday of the winter solstice, marked with tree decorations and wreaths. It wasn't until the mid-300s that Pope Julius I of the Rome-based church officially established December 25 as a Christian holiday marking the birth of Jesus. Or perhaps it was Pope Liberus of the Eastern Church. No matter that most historians now believe Jesus to have been born in spring - Christmas had been born. Of course, December 25 has certainly seen its share of tragedies, disasters, battles and deaths. Hong Kong people know this better than most: on Christmas Day 1941 resistance to the siege laid by the Japanese Army ended and a painful, four-year occupation began. But the day has also been marked by miracles. When, in the midst of World War I, one of the bloodiest in human history, British and German soldiers laid down arms and played a game of football on a frozen pitch called the Western Front, it happened on December 25. When a US President pardoned a rebellion and healed a nation, it happened on December 25. When a playwright and former prisoner of conscience was sworn in as president of a free Czechoslovakia, it happened on December 25. On a winter's day in 1818, a church choir in Oberndorf, Austria, gathered to perform a new piece, one that perfectly rendered the magic of the season in musical terms. The venue was the Church of St Nikolaus. The song was Silent Night. And the day was December 25. 1941 'Such modest celebrations as are arranged today will be subdued,' says the South China Morning Post on December 25, 1941, 'but they will be none the less light-hearted.' As dusk falls, Governor Sir Mark Young leaves Government House and crosses to the Peninsula hotel in Kowloon, where he signs formal papers surrendering Hong Kong to Japanese forces. The ceremony marks the end of a battle that has raged for 18 days, leaving Allied forces cut off and the population without water or power. The four-year occupation begins. 1868 US President Andrew Johnson grants an unconditional pardon to all those involved in the Civil War rebellion. 1893 Robert Ripley, showman and author of 'Ripley's Believe It or Not' (Born Christmas Day) 1946 W.C. Fields, actor (died Christmas Day) 1932 Little Richard (born Penniman), singer (died Christmas Day) 1950 US comic-book hero Dick Tracy marries Tess Truehart. The couple later have a daughter, Bonnie Braids. 1959 Nineteen-year-old apprentice engineer Richard Starkey finds a drum kit under his Christmas tree. Two years later, now calling himself Ringo Starr, he replaces Pete Best as drummer of The Beatles. 1968 Helena Christiansen, model (Born Christmas Day) 1972 The Nicaraguan capital, Managua, is hit by an earthquake that kills more than 10,000 people. 1991 Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev goes on television to announce his resignation as leader of a Communist superpower that has already disappeared. 1989 Dissident playwright Vaclav Havel is elected president of free Czechoslovakia, while elsewhere on the same day, ousted President Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania and his wife, Elena, are shot by a firing squad. 1979 The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan in a bid to prop up its faltering ally. The invasion, which eventually involves 100,000 troops, triggers an international crisis and leads the US to withdraw its athletes from the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Soviet troops stay in Afghanistan for nine years. 1976 Irving Lerner, songwriter (died Christmas Day) 1995 Dean Martin, actor and singer (died Christmas Day) 336 This is the earliest year for which historians can find a reference to any celebration of Christ's birth. Until this time, the Christian church had focused on Christ's death: Easter. c. 350 Pope Julius I declares December 25 the official date of celebration for Christmas. (No specific date has been discovered for Christ's birth, but historians theorise it must have occurred in spring: the Bible refers to shepherds' tending flocks at night and the only time they did this was during the spring lambing season.) 800 Claiming title as legitimate successor to the emperors of Rome, Charlemagne is crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor by the man he had restored to the papacy, Pope Leo III. The split between the Byzantine and Roman empires is complete. 1066 Having defeated the Earl of Wessex at the Battle of Hastings, William, Duke of Normandy, is crowned king and receives the sobriquet he will wear through history: William the Conqueror. A key figure in English history, he ordered the land survey that would become known as the Domesday Book. 1223 St Francis of Assisi assembles and displays the first recorded creche, or nativity scene, in Grecchio, Italy. 1583 Orlando Gibbons, composer(Born Christmas Day) 1604 First recorded instance, from Germany, of a tree being used to celebrate Christmas. (The practice of decorating trees to mark the winter solstice had been a common pagan practice.) 1758 A German farmer named Johann Georg Palitzsch is the first to observe the return of the comet that would come to be known as Halley's. Its return had been predicted 53 years earlier by English astronomer Edmund Halley. The fulfilment of his prediction revolutionised our understanding of the solar system. 1642 Sir Isaac Newton, scientist(Born Christmas Day) 1776 George Washington leads the Colonial army across the Delaware River in New Jersey in a successful, surprise attack on Hessian forces employed by the British. 1818 Silent Night, written by Joseph Mohr and F.X. Gruber, is performed for the first time at the Church of St Nikolaus in Oberndorf, Austria. 1914 At various points along the front separating British and German forces in northern France and Belgium, soldiers begin to leave the trenches and venture into no-man's land. In what would become known as the Christmas Truce, the soldiers talk, exchange photographs and, at one point, organise an impromptu football match on the frosty ground (a German source puts the final score at Germany 3, England 2). The truce lasted anywhere from a few hours to a few days, after which the men went back to the business of killing one another. 1974 At about midnight on Christmas Eve, Cyclone Tracy begins tracing a six-hour path of destruction through the northern Australian city of Darwin, with the eye centred on the airport and northern suburbs. Winds of 279km/h are measured before instruments are smashed. Forty-nine people are killed within the city, and another 16 are lost at sea. Seventy per cent of the city's buildings are destroyed. 1977 In Egypt, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin meets Egyptian President Anwar Sadat for the first time, beginning a process that will culminate two years later in the groundbreaking Camp David Peace Accords. 1984 A yellowish-green sphere is sighted within the constellation Virgo, leading astronomers to joke that the existence of Santa Claus has been scientifically verified. Sadly, the sphere is caused by chemicals emitted by a West German satellite. 1953 A mudflow caused by the eruption of the Ruapehu volcano wipes out a railway bridge over the Tangiwai River in central North Island, killing 150 people in one of the worst disasters in New Zealand history. 1977 Charles Chaplin, actor (died Christmas Day) 1957 Charles Pathe, film producer (died Christmas Day) 1908 Quentin Crisp, author(Born Christmas Day) 1949 Sissy Spacek, actress (Born Christmas Day) 1899 Humphrey Bogart, actor(Born Christmas Day) 1863 Charles Pathe, film producer(Born Christmas Day)
