TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, DEC. 25, the 359th day of 2019. There are six days left in the year. This is Christmas Day. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 2009, passengers aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 foiled an attempt to blow up the plane as it was landing in Detroit by seizing Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to set off explosives in his underwear. (Abdulmutallab later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.)
In A.D. 336, the first known commemoration of Christmas on Dec. 25 took place in Rome.
In 1776, Gen. George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River for a surprise attack against Hessian forces at Trenton, New Jersey, during the American Revolutionary War.
In 1931, New York’s Metropolitan Opera broadcast an entire live opera over radio for the first time: “Hansel and Gretel” by Engelbert Humperdinck.
In 1973, “The Sting,” starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford as a pair of 1930s grifters, was released by Universal Pictures.
In 1989, ousted Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were executed following a popular uprising.
In 1990, the World Wide Web, the system providing quick access to websites over the internet, was born in Geneva, Switzerland, as computer scientists Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau created the world’s first hyperlinked webpage.
In 1991, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev went on television to announce his resignation as the eighth and final leader of a communist superpower that had already gone out of existence.
In 1999, space shuttle Discovery’s astronauts finished their repair job on the Hubble Space Telescope and released it back into orbit.
In 2003, 16 people were killed by mudslides that swept over campgrounds in California’s San Bernardino Valley.
In 2006, James Brown, the “Godfather of Soul,” died in Atlanta at age 73.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Author Anne Roiphe is 84. Rhythm-and-blues singer John Edwards (The Spinners) is 75. Singer Jimmy Buffett, and Pro and College Football Hall-of-Famer Larry Csonka are 73. Country singer Barbara Mandrell is 71. Actress Sissy Spacek and blues singer/guitarist Joe Louis Walker are 70. Actress CCH Pounder is 67. Singer Annie Lennox and country singer Steve Wariner are 65. Singer Shane MacGowan (The Pogues, The Popes) is 62. Actress Klea Scott is 51. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau) and singer Dido are 48. Actress Perdita Weeks is 34. Rock singer-musician Lukas Nelson (Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real) is 31.