December 25: What Happened on This Day in History (Elementary Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1776 - George Washington and the Continental Army cross the Delaware River at night to attack Hessian forces serving Great Britain at Trenton, New Jersey, the next day.
2. 1815 - The Handel and Haydn Society, oldest continuously performing arts organization in the United States, gives its first performance.
3. 1868 - U.S. President Andrew Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all Civil War Confederate soldiers.
4. 1968 - Apollo program: Apollo 8 performs the very first successful Trans-Earth injection (TEI) maneuver, sending the crew and spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth from Lunar orbit.
5. 2004 - Cassini orbiter releases Huygens probe which successfully landed on Saturn's moonTitan on January 14, 2005.
6. Famous Birthdays: Isaac Newton (English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and theologian), Claude Chappe (French engineer), Clara Barton (American nurse and humanitarian, founded the American Red Cross), Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus (German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate), Ernst Ruska (German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: December 24

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: December 26

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.