10 Huge Historical Events That Happened on Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is a day to reflect on family and, if it’s your thing, faith. After all, the next day is one of the holiest days for religious adherents, and even for the more secular among us, Christmas is one of the biggest and most important family get-together days of the year. So, the night before (hopefully) brings a moment of solace and calm before the busy chaos of the climax of the Christmas season.

But that’s not true for everybody—and certainly not true for all of history. Through the years, many important things have happened on Christmas Eve. It wasn’t always that people purposely set out to make history on such a day. It was just that, well, that’s how the calendar shook out when major breakthroughs and groundbreaking events went down. In this list, we’ll take a look at ten of those major Christmas Eve events. In their own ways, every one of these things has left a lasting legacy on the world years, decades, and sometimes centuries later.

Related: 10 Dates When the Apocalypse Was Supposed to Happen

10 1814: The War of 1812 Ends in a Tie

The War of 1812 was fought between the United States and Great Britain—and a few proxy combatants—and despite its name, it didn’t wrap up tidily in 1812. In fact, it didn’t wrap up tidily at all. There was no clear winner of the war as it droned on for several years after its inception. And while tensions following the US’ revolution and fight for freedom from Great Britain’s colonial rule were high for a few decades leading up to 1812, eventually, calmer heads prevailed.

On Christmas Eve of 1814, officials from both the United States and Great Britain got together to sign a treaty. It was the product of a long, difficult negotiation between the two countries. And it ended in a way that neither side had hoped for at the beginning of the war: it was deemed a tie. With neither side copping to defeat or being able to brag about victory, the treaty considered the war a draw, and officially reinstated full diplomatic relations between the two nations.

Interestingly, even though the treaty was officially signed on Christmas Eve of 1814, it took a while for that news to trickle down to the US afterwards. There was no mass communication back then—no radio, no television, and certainly no internet—so Americans didn’t actually know the treaty had been signed for quite a while. Eventually, though, it reached the US after a few weeks of further negotiations and travel. And in February of 1815, the US Senate officially ratified the treaty, thus ending the War of 1812 once and for all time.^[1]

9 1851: The Library of Congress Is Destroyed

On Christmas Eve of 1851, a fire broke out in Washington, DC at the Library of Congress. Considering how primitive firefighting techniques were back then—and knowing how little Americans at the time knew about fire prevention and proper document storage compared to the safeguards we have in place now—the fire was nearly completely destructive. At the time, the Library of Congress held about 55,000 volumes of various works, official documents, nation-forming decrees, and more. Sadly, in the blaze, more than two-thirds of those documents were burned up to a crisp and lost forever.

Of all the things lost to the inferno, Thomas Jefferson’s personal library was undoubtedly the most devastating disappearance. The former President had sold his personal library and effects to the Library of Congress back in 1815, about a decade before his death. It had been his (and Congress’s) intention to keep those personal effects around forever as a documentation of the founding of the United States. But virtually all of his personal library was consumed in the fire and lost forever.^[2]

8 1865: The Ku Klux Klan Is Formed

On Christmas Eve of 1865 in the small town of Pulaski, Tennessee, the Ku Klux Klan was formed. The Klan was initially formed to halt the Reconstruction reforms that were then beginning to sweep across the South following the end of the Civil War. For the men who formed the KKK on that fateful Christmas Eve, they wanted to restore a more overt version of white supremacy than what they feared the North had planned for the South upon the end of the brutal conflict. In turn, the Klan quickly became violent, carrying out terrorist activities including the destruction of property, intimidation, rape, assault, and murder against free Black people and their White allies.

Of course, the KKK has a long history in the decades and now centuries since it was formed. The organization was on the frontlines of the worst issues in the South during the Jim Crow era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It saw major boosts in popularity at several points since its founding, too, including a surge in activity through the 1920s. Right up through the Civil Rights movement, the KKK exemplified the horrific and backward thinking behind racism, bigotry, and intimidation. Sadly, its legacy still survives today, even as its prominence in the South and across the country has (thankfully) waned a bit.^[3]

7 1906: The First Radio Broadcast

On Christmas Eve of 1906, a Canadian-American man named Reginald A. Fessenden made the first audio radio broadcast in human history. Now, we’re not talking about Morse Code here. That was a distinct thing and already a known technology. But Fessenden did something different: he produced a broadcast of entertainment and music, then sent it out to whoever may have been on the other end to hear it. Today, it is marked as the very beginning of amplitude modulation (commonly known as “AM”) radio.

Fessenden was an inventor and a tinkerer, and he tinkered with gears and gadgets prior to producing this broadcast. When the big day came, he went out to Brant Rock on the coast of Massachusetts and tried out his invention. There, his radio “program” included a rendition of the song “O Holy Night” on the violin. He also read a passage from the Bible’s book of Luke, chapter two, in honor of the coming Christmas holiday on the very next morning.

It’s unclear how many ships out in the Atlantic Ocean would have heard Fessenden’s broadcast, but at least a few undoubtedly did. Several crews on ships run by the United Fruit Company, far away in the Atlantic and all the way down into the Caribbean Sea, confirmed that they heard “O Holy Night” come through loud and (reasonably) clear on the broadcast. Undoubtedly, other shipboard radio operators in the Atlantic would have heard it come across from miles away, too.^[4]

6 1914: World War I’s Christmas Truce

Trench warfare in World War I was one of the most brutal battle points in all of human history. The fighting was entirely ineffective, with large swaths of men brutally killing each other over a couple of hundred yards of gained ground here and there. Down in the trenches, disease, sickness, injuries, severe wounds, and horrific death were commonplace. Men on all sides of the battle were forced to live through—and usually die in—excruciating conditions with seemingly no respite ever coming.

And then Christmas Eve 1914 happened. In an amazing and once-in-a-lifetime decision, large numbers of soldiers decided to lay down their arms temporarily and celebrate the holiday on the Western Front. Deemed an official ceasefire by German, British, and French combatants alike, the Christmas Eve–turned–Christmas Day truce allowed the men to share cigarettes and whiskey together. If only for a brief period, these men who had gone through horrific things all throughout the war were finally able to feel normal again. Some even exchanged presents, as if it were a totally normal Christmas like any other.

Of course, the battle soon picked up again afterwards, and would rage on long after that day. But for a brief period, peace came upon the trenches, and the men were able to rest easy.^[5]

5 1951: Libyan Independence

After Italy was roundly defeated in World War II, the question quickly became what should be done about its colonies. As Italy itself moved to rebuild, it was clear they no longer had the infrastructure or ability to lead colonies elsewhere in the world. And most notably among those questions came that of Libya, across the Mediterranean Sea in North Africa. Libya, as it stood in the modern era, had initially been colonized by the Italians decades earlier, but that wasn’t going to last after the war. So, Britain, the United States, and others got together to make a plan.

At first, the British were keen on dividing Libya into three different new colonies. One would have British control and cultural influence. A second would have French control and influence. And a third section would remain controlled by the Italians. As a smaller region with less need for maintenance, Britain thought the new Italian government might be able to handle that after World War II.

That didn’t happen, though. Arab nationalists objected to being colonized at all and loudly demanded their independence from all types of European influence. So, on Christmas Eve of 1951, Britain and France backed off, and their dream of freedom became a reality. On that day, the United Nations declared Libya to be an independent state, and the new nation was born!^[6]

4 1954: Laotian Independence

A Christmas Eve push towards independence had worked out so well for Libya in 1951 that the United Nations and other world officials decided to do the same thing three years later in a totally different part of the globe. Down in Southeast Asia, France had been a longtime colonial power. They had what was then called French Indochina, which included the likes of present-day nations Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. But for several reasons, after World War II, the French wanted to get out of the area—and the locals wanted them gone, as well.

Early that year, France pulled out of Vietnam. The underpinnings of the future Vietnam War were cropping up at the time, and the French departure from government there helped usher in a communist regime from the North that was dead-set on duking it out with the South Vietnamese for power. Across the border in Laos, while things weren’t necessarily easy, they were certainly simpler than the situation in Vietnam.

Free from their status as a French protectorate, the Laotians petitioned the world stage for their own recognition. Then, during the Geneva Conference on Christmas Eve of 1954, the petition became official. France legally granted the region its independence, and Laos became a self-governing nation.^[7]

3 1968: Apollo 8 Takes Orbit

On Christmas Eve 1968, and then into Christmas Day, astronauts William Anders, James Lovell, and Frank Borman took part in a groundbreaking orbit of the moon. The three men were part of the Apollo 8 mission, and they were tasked with becoming the first humans in history to fully orbit the Earth’s lunar companion. Thankfully for their safety, and luckily for the development of American technology during the age of NASA and the Space Race, their orbit was successful.

The three pioneers actually orbited the moon ten times, making ten fully encompassing circles around the object to study it, test their spacecraft, and report back to NASA headquarters in Houston. The orbit was also broadcast live on television to millions of viewers around the country. Immediately, it became one of the most popular programs in television history—a distinction it continued to hold for long after that.

That it all happened on Christmas Eve meant most Americans were not at work or school, and were thus able to share the moment with each other from their homes and communities down on Earth.^[8]

2 1979: The Afghanistan Invasion

No, we’re not talking about the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan here—although the American version of this military move decades later was in part an indirect consequence of this first invasion. On Christmas Eve 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. There had been a Soviet-Afghan Treaty in place, and the invasion was used as a claim that the Soviets were trying to uphold that treaty.

In reality, they needed a reason to justify their invasion, which was carried out in an ill-fated attempt to prop up the country’s weakening communist government. The Afghan communists were quickly being overtaken by anti-communist Muslim guerrillas in the country, and the Soviets wanted to stop that at all costs.

That didn’t work out so well for the Soviets, who in time would feel their mistake acutely as their communist supporters inside Afghanistan withered. But more globally, it didn’t end up working out for the rest of the world, either. Instead of a clean break following the Christmas Eve invasion in 1979, Afghanistan crumbled entirely. Over the next few decades, it became lawless, violent, and a brutally aggressive hotbed of various forms of terrorism. And it all started on Christmas Eve 1979…^[9]

1 2009: Obamacare Passes

Late on Christmas Eve of 2009, the US Senate passed the historic and groundbreaking health care reform bill commonly known as “Obamacare.” Done under President Barack Obama, and serving as his big domestic priority during his first term in office, the bill was a massive $871 billion health care reform act that changed the United States’ governing control over healthcare in many ways both subtle and obvious.

Supporters of the bill touted it as a way for more than 30 million Americans to begin receiving health insurance coverage that they’d previously been lacking. Critics of the bill complained that it was too costly, and that it negatively altered insurance and healthcare outcomes for people who had previously been happy with their plans.

Regardless, the passage of the bill itself was a monumental task with many backers and naysayers alike fighting tooth and nail over it for months before in Congress. But on Christmas Eve of 2009, the fighting cleared out, and the bill came up for a vote. On a party-line total—60 votes for the bill and 39 against it—Obamacare was officially passed and enacted into law. For President Obama and his supporters, that proved to be a memorable Christmas indeed.^[10]