22 Dec 1932     ‘The Mummy’ starring Boris Karloff was released. The first Mummy horror film.
22 Dec 1965     70 miles per hour speed limit was applied to all rural roads including motorways for the first time.
22 Dec 1989     Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate re-opened after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the East/West divide.
22 Dec 1990     Lech Wałęsa was elected President of Poland.
22 Dec 2000     Madonna married Guy Ritchie.

23 Dec 1688     King James II, the last Roman Catholic British monarch fled to France from William of Orange.
23 Dec 1815     ‘Emma’ by Jane Austen was first published.
23 Dec 1888     Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear following an argument with fellow painter Paul Gauguin.
23 Dec 1893     The opera ‘Hansel and Gretel’ by Engelbert Humperdinck was first performed.
23 Dec 1954     The first successful kidney transplant was performed by J Hartwell Harrison and Joseph Murray.
23 Dec 1970     The North Tower of the World Trade Center topped out at 417 metres making it the tallest building in the world.
23 Dec 1972     16 survivors of the Andes flight disaster were rescued after 73 days, surviving by eating the dead.
23 Dec 1986     Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, landed in California becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world without refuelling.
23 Dec 1992     The Queen’s Christmas speech was leaked and published in The Sun.

24 Dec 1818     ‘Silent Night’ composed by Franz Xaver Gruber was first sung at St Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, Austria.
24 Dec 1889     Daniel Stover & William Hance patented a bicycle with back pedal brakes.
24 Dec 1922     BBC broadcast the first British radio play titled ‘The Truth about Father Christmas’.
24 Dec 1968     Apollo 8 carried the first humans into orbit around the Moon.
24 Dec 1974     Former UK minister John Stonehouse was found in Australia after faking his own death.
24 Dec 1979     Europe launched its first rocket Ariane 1.
24 Dec 2016     Liz Smith died.

25 Dec 1           The first Christmas according to calendar-maker and Eastern Roman monk Dionysius Exiguus.
25 Dec 336       The first documented signs of Christmas celebrations in Rome.
25 Dec 1066     William the Conqueror was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.
25 Dec 1758     Halley’s Comet was sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch, confirming Edmund Halley’s prediction of its passage. The first passage of a comet predicted ahead of time.
25 Dec 1914     Legendary ‘Christmas Truce’ took place on the battlefields of WWI between British and German troops. The soldiers exchange gifts and played football.
25 Dec 1952     The Queen made her first Christmas speech.
25 Dec 1977     Charlie Chaplin died.
25 Dec 1991     Mikhail Gorbachev formally resigned as President of USSR.
25 Dec 1962     ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ starring Gregory Peck was released.
25 Dec 2016     George Michael died.
25 Dec 2021     The James Webb Space Telescope was launched.

26 Dec 1860     The first football match took place between Hallam FC and Sheffield FC at Sandygate Road ground in Sheffield.
26 Dec 1898     Marie and Pierre Curie announced the isolation of radium.
26 Dec 1966     Jimi Hendrix wrote ‘Purple Haze’ backstage at the Upper Cut Club in London.
26 Dec 1970     Lillian Board MBE, the Golden girl of British athletics died.
26 Dec 1973     ‘The Exorcist’ starring Linda Blair was released.
26 Dec 2982     TIME named a computer ‘Man of the Year’.
26 Dec 2004     9.3 magnitude earthquake creates a tsunami causing massive devastation in the Indian Ocean causing 230,000 deaths.
26 Dec 2012     China opened the world’s longest high-speed rail route linking Beijing and Guangzhou.

27 Dec 1831     Charles Darwin embarked on aboard HMS Beagle, where he begain to formulate his theory of evolution.
27 Dec 1968     Apollo 8 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon.
27 Dec 1977     Thousands flock to UK cinemas to watch the long-awaited blockbuster ‘Star Wars’.
27 Dec 1978     Spain became a democracy after 40 years of fascist dictatorship.
27 Dec 2016     Carrie Fisher died.

28 Dec 1065     Westminster Abbey was consecrated.
28 Dec 1879     Part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee collapsed as a train passed over, killing 75.
28 Dec 1912     The first municipally owned streetcars took to the streets in San Francisco.
28 Dec 2015     Rock god Lemmy died.