On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree.

800
Charlemagne crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor.

1066
William the Conqueror was crowned King of England.

1642
Sir Isaac Newton born in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Lincolnshire, England.

1688
Exiled King James II of Great Britain arrives in France following the Glorious Revolution which deposed him. His ghost is said to haunt his residence in St Germain in Paris.

1893
Cartoonist Robert L Ripley (Believe It or Not) born in Santa Rosa, California.

1899
Actor Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca) born in New York.

1907
Bandleader Cab Calloway born in Rochester, New York.

1908
Author Quentin Crisp born in Sutton, Surrey, England.

1924
TV pioneer Rod Serling (Twilight Zone) born in Syracuse, New York.

1931
Writer Carlos Castaneda (The Teachings of Don Juan) born in São Paulo, Brazil.

1946
Singer Jimmy Buffet born in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

1949
Actress Sissy Spacek born in Quitman, Texas.

1958
Baseball player Rickey Henderson born in Chicago, Illinois.

1959
Ringo Starr received a drumset for Christmas.

1963
Disney's The Sword In The Stone was released.

1989
New York Yankee manager Billy Martin killed in a car accident.

1989
Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceauscescu and his wife were executed. “Sic semper tyrannis!”

Today from Chamber's Book of Days