On This Day
What Happened on December 26 in History
10 events that happened on December 26, oldest first. Every entry is written in our own words and links to its source.
Colonial America and the Revolution
1776
Washington's army surprises and defeats the Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey.
After crossing the Delaware overnight, the Continental Army struck the town at dawn and won the fight in about an hour. Nearly 900 Hessian soldiers were captured, and the victory gave new life to the struggling Revolution.
Source: battlefields.org; army.mil
The Young Republic and the Civil War Era
1811
Fire sweeps through the Richmond Theatre in Virginia, killing the state's governor and dozens more.
Flames spread from scenery on stage during a crowded performance, and many in the audience were trapped. Governor George William Smith was among the dead, and Monumental Church was later built on the site as a memorial.
Source: smallnotes.library.virginia.edu
1862
Thirty-eight Dakota men are hanged at Mankato, Minnesota, after the U.S.-Dakota War.
Military commissions had sentenced more than 300 Dakota men to death after brief trials, and President Lincoln reduced the list to 38. It remains the largest mass execution in U.S. history.
Source: d.umn.edu
1898
Marie and Pierre Curie report the discovery of a new element they call radium.
Working with Gustave Bémont, the Curies told the French Academy of Sciences that pitchblende contained a second, intensely radioactive substance besides polonium. Radium became central to early research on radioactivity.
Source: nobelprize.org; spiff.rit.edu
The Early 1900s and the World Wars
1941
Winston Churchill addresses a joint meeting of Congress in the Senate chamber.
Less than three weeks after Pearl Harbor, the British prime minister came to Washington to plan the war with President Roosevelt. He opened with a joke about his American-born mother and warned lawmakers to expect a long and hard war.
1941
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a law fixing Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November.
Roosevelt's 1939 decision to move the holiday a week earlier to lengthen the Christmas shopping season had split the states between two dates. Congress settled the matter by setting a fixed national day.
Source: archives.gov; history.com
1943
The Royal Navy sinks the German battleship Scharnhorst off Norway's North Cape.
Decoded German signals warned the British that Scharnhorst was hunting an Arctic convoy bound for the Soviet Union. British warships intercepted and sank her in a running battle in the polar darkness.
Source: history.com
1944
Patton's Third Army breaks through to relieve the besieged U.S. defenders of Bastogne.
Tanks of the 4th Armored Division reached the Belgian town, where the 101st Airborne Division and other units had been surrounded during the Battle of the Bulge. The link-up broke the German encirclement.
Source: history.com; usarcent.army.mil
The Cold War
1966
The first Kwanzaa celebration begins, created by Maulana Karenga.
Karenga designed the week-long holiday, held from December 26 to January 1, to celebrate African American family, community and culture. Its name comes from a Swahili phrase meaning first fruits.
Source: history.com
The Modern Era
2004
A magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra unleashes a catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami.
The undersea quake ruptured a fault hundreds of miles long and sent waves across the ocean to Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and as far as East Africa. More than 200,000 people were killed, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters on record.
Source: nctr.pmel.noaa.gov; usgs.gov