TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT Dec. 25, 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.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 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.

1926

Hirohito became emperor of Japan, succeeding his father, Emperor Yoshihito.

1931

New York’s Metropolitan Opera broadcast an entire live opera over radio for the first time: “Hansel and Gretel” by Engelbert Humperdinck.

1973

“The Sting,” starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford as a pair of 1930s grifters, was released by Universal Pictures.

1977

comedian Sir Charles Chaplin died in Switzerland at age 88.

1989

ousted Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were executed following a popular uprising. Former baseball manager Billy Martin, 61, died in a traffic accident near Binghamton, New York.

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.

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.