TODAY IN HISTORY

In 1843, “A Christmas Carol,” by Charles Dickens, was first published in England. The tale of Ebenezer Scrooge’s spiritual conversion on Christmas Eve has been a Christmas classic ever since.

In 1917, the first National Hockey League games were played. All four teams played, with the Montreal Canadiens hosting the Toronto Arenas and the Ottawa Senators at home against the Montreal Wanderers.

In 1980, “9 to 5,” starring Jane Fonda,

Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton, opened in theatres in the U.S. and Canada. It was the second-highest grossing movie of

1980 (behind “The Empire Strikes Back”) and included Parton’s title song, a No. 1 single on Billboard’s pop, country and adult contemporary charts.

In 1982, exploding oil and gas tanks at an electric plant near Caracas, Venezuela, caused a massive blaze killing 145 people.

In 2016, two Islamic extremists plowed a semi-trailer into a crowded Christmas market in central Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring another 48. The truck’s passenger died as paramedics were treating him. The driver escaped and after an intensive manhunt was killed in a shootout in with police in Milan on Dec. 23.

In 2018, a three-judge panel of the B.C. Appeal Court said the RCMP’s conduct in its investigation of an alleged bomb plot at the provincial legislature was a “travesty of justice” when officers continued to pursue the case against a couple who didn’t have the means to commit an act of terrorism on their own. The judges unanimously upheld a lower court finding that John Nuttall and Amanda Korody were manipulated by police to conduct the terror operation on Canada Day 2013.