2023-12-23 23:51:39
On Sunday, December 24th, the book of history records, among other things:
498: In Reims, the Merovingian king Clovis I (Clovis) receives his baptism with three thousand of his warriors.
563: In Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, built by the architects Isidoros of Miletus and Anthemios of Tralles on behalf of Emperor Justinian I, is consecrated for the second time following the dome collapsed in an earthquake. As the palace and patriarchal cathedral of the Eastern Roman Empire until the Ottoman conquest in 1453, the Church of the “Holy Wisdom” was the “heart” of Byzantine Christianity.
1683: Because of the failure of the Turkish troops before Vienna, Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa is strangled on the orders of Sultan Mehmed IV.
1818: The Austrian village teacher Franz Xaver Gruber composes the Christmas carol “Silent Night, Holy Night”. The clergyman Joseph Mohr wrote the text. The song is sung for the first time on the night of December 25th at Christmas mass in the parish church of Oberndorf near Salzburg in two voices with guitar accompaniment because the organ is broken.
1863: German Confederation troops move into Holstein.
1893: The first general trade union congress begins in Vienna.
1903: For the first time, an opera by Richard Wagner, “Parsifal,” will be performed at the New York Metropolitan Opera.
1918: Emir Faisal, the leader of the Arab uprising once morest the Turks in World War I, arrives in London accompanied by British intelligence agent Thomas Edward Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”). Faisal’s father Hussein, Grand Sherif of Mecca from the Hashemite dynasty, had himself proclaimed King of Arabia. But in the Sykes-Picot secret agreement, the British and French had defined their spheres of interest in the region without regard to Arab claims. Faisal later becomes the first king of Iraq.
1943: US General Dwight D. Eisenhower is appointed supreme Allied commander for the planned major landing in German-occupied France.
1948: Pope Pius XII In a speech to the College of Cardinals in Rome, accuses the Orthodox church leaders in Eastern Europe of “slavish dependence” on the communist worldview, whose goal is the elimination of all religion.
1953: In New Zealand, a fully occupied train crashes into a river, killing 166 people.
1993: The new constitution comes into force in Russia. It gives the president extensive powers.
2008: Thousands of Christians from all over the world take part in the traditional Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem. At the head of a procession is the new Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Fouad Twal. For the first time since the turn of the millennium and therefore since the “Second Intifada”, the hotels in Bethlehem are almost fully booked once more. The city had previously suffered heavy losses due to the violence in the region and the Israeli barriers.
Birthdays: Theodor Curti, Black publicist (1848-1914); Emanuel Lasker, German-US chess player (1868-1941); Warren (“Baby”) Dodds, US jazz musician (1898-1959); Joseph Cornell, US artist (1903-1972); Manfred Rommel, German politician (1928-2013); Siegurd (also Sigurd) Fitzek, German actor (1928-2022); Tarja Halonen, Finnish politician (1943); Edwige Fenech, Malt.-Italian. actress (1948); Frank Jürgen “Eff Jott” Krüger, German pop musician (“Ideal”) (1948-2007); Lea Sölkner-Schramek, former Austrian Alpine skier (1958).
Days of death: John Dunstable, British composer (c. 1390-1453); Carl Burckhardt, Switzerland. sculptor (1878-1923); Carl Miele, German entrepreneur and designer (1869-1938); Tristan Tzara, French writer (1896-1963); Franz Johannes Weinrich (pseud. Heinrich Lerse), German writer (1897-1978); Norman Vincent Peale, US writer (1898-1993); Pierre Victor Auger, French physicist (1899-1993); Kalanag (aka Helmut Schreiber), German illusionist (1903-1963); Samuel P. Huntington, US political scientist, author (1927-2008); Harold Pinter, British playwright; Nobel Prize 2005 (1930-2008); Helga Novak, German writer (1935-2013).
Name days: Adam, Eve, Hermine, Evelyn, Evita, Hanno, Adele, Herma, Natalis, Gregor, Paula, Daniel.
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