What happened on 25 December?

14 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 800 Coronation of Charlemagne Pope Leo III crowns Charlemagne 'Emperor of the Romans' at St Peter's in Rome.
2. 1926 Reign of Hirohito The longest reign in Japanese history: militarism, total war, the renunciation of divinity and the postwar economic miracle.
3. 1991 Resignation of Gorbachev Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as Soviet president; USSR is formally dissolved a day later.
4. 2021 James Webb Space Telescope launched Successor to Hubble begins delivering deep infrared images of the universe.
5. 1066 William is crowned on Christmas Day Ten weeks after Hastings, William the Conqueror is crowned in Edward the Confessor's new Westminster Abbey. When the congregation shouts its acclamation, the Norman guards outside
6. 1000 Coronation of Stephen I of Hungary Hungary's first king is crowned a Christian monarch, anchoring the Magyars to Latin Europe.
7. 1924 Born: Atal Bihari Vajpayee BJP leader; Prime Minister 1996, 1998-2004.
8. 1776 Washington crosses the Delaware With his army dissolving and the Revolution weeks from collapse, Washington ferries 2,400 men through an icy Christmas-night storm and falls on the Hessian garrison at Trenton at d
9. 1683 Kara Mustafa strangled with a silk cord Retreating through the Balkans, the Grand Vizier executes his own commanders for the defeat — until the sultan's own sentence overtakes him at Belgrade: the traditional silk bowstr
10. 1978 Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia Vietnam invades and topples the Khmer Rouge, ending the genocide.
11. 1926 Shōwa era begins Hirohito ascends the Japanese throne, opening the Shōwa era that would span militarism, war and postwar recovery.
12. 1492 The Santa María wrecks on Christmas night With the helm left to a ship's boy, the flagship grounds on a reef off Hispaniola and cannot be saved. From her timbers Columbus builds La Navidad, the first Spanish settlement in
13. 1130 Kingdom of Sicily founded Roger II unites the Norman holdings of southern Italy into a wealthy, multicultural kingdom of Latins, Greeks and Arabs.
14. 1831 Baptist War in Jamaica Sam Sharpe's strike-turned-rebellion of 60,000 enslaved Jamaicans is crushed in weeks — but the reprisals so shock Britain that emancipation follows within two years.