Wednesday, December 24, 2025 Text is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 licence.

Today's Anniversary – Wednesday, December 24


Click on the name to show author's quotes.

Births

* 1980 Tomas Kalnoky Lead singer and songwriter of the ska band Streetlight Manifesto.
* 1973 Stephenie Meyer American author.
* 1969 Ed Miliband British Labour Party politician, who is the current Leader of the Labour Party and the Leader of the Opposition of the United Kingdom.
* 1963 Paul Bloom Professor of psychology at Yale University and an internationally recognized expert on language and development.
* 1957 Hamid Karzai Current President of Afghanistan.
* 1950 Dana Gioia American poet and critic.
* 1946 Jeff Sessions Junior United States Senator from Alabama.
* 1946 Roselyne Bachelot French Minister of Environment.
* 1943 Tarja Halonen Finnish politician who served as president of Finland from 2000 to 2012.
* 1931 Walter Abish Famous Austrian-born American author of experimental novels and short stories.
* 1922 Ava Gardner American actress.
* 1919 Pierre Soulages French painter, engraver and sculptor.
* 1913 Ad Reinhardt Painter, writer, and pioneer of conceptual and minimal art.
* 1910 Fritz Leiber American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction.
* 1907 I. F. Stone Better known as I F Stone, was an iconoclastic American investigative journalist best known for his influential political newsletter, I F Stone's Weekly.
* 1894 Georges Guynemer French aviator and fighter pilot in the First World War.
* 1881 Juan Ramon Jimenez Spanish poet, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1956.
* 1868 Emanuel Lasker German-born chess grandmaster, mathematician and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years.
* 1822 Matthew Arnold English poet, essayist and cultural critic.
* 1818 Eliza Cook English author born in Southwark.
* 1818 James Prescott Joule English physicist and brewer.
* 1798 Adam Mickiewicz Polish writer and poet, considered by many to be the greatest Polish Romantic poet of the 19th century.
* 1754 George Crabbe English poet, known for his realistic and unsentimental portrayals of peasant life.
* 1491 Ignatius of Loyola Also known as Ignacio López de Loyola, was the principal founder and first Superior General of the Society of Jesus, a religious order of the Catholic Church professing direct service to the Pope in terms of mission.

Deaths

† 2008 Samuel P. Huntington Political scientist known for his analysis of the relationship between the military and the civil government, his investigation of coup d'états, and his thesis that the central political actors of the 21st century will be civilizations rather than nation-states.
† 2008 Harold Pinter British playwright, actor and theatre director.
† 1994 John Osborne British playwright, producer and actor.
† 1993 Norman Vincent Peale Author of The Power of Positive Thinking and chief progenitor of the theory of positive thinking.
† 1980 Karl Donitz German naval leader who commanded the German Navy during the second half of World War II He became a Großadmiral and served as Commander of Submarines and later was Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy.
† 1977 Samael Aun Weor Prolific writer, lecturer and teacher of occultism.
† 1973 Periyar E. V. Ramasamy Also known as Ramaswami, EVR, Thanthai Periyar, or Periyar, was a Dravidian social activist and former politician from India, who founded the Self-Respect Movement and Dravidar Kazhagam.
† 1961 Charles (writer) Hamilton English writer.
† 1961 Frank Richards English writer.
† 1935 Alban Berg Austrian composer.
† 1914 John Muir Scottish born American environmentalist, naturalist, traveler, writer, and scientist.
† 1889 Charles Mackay Scottish poet, journalist, and song writer.
† 1872 William John Macquorn Rankine Scottish engineer and physicist.
† 1870 Albert Barnes American theologian, who graduated from Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, in 1820, and from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1823.
† 1863 William Makepeace Thackeray English Victorian writer.
† 1850 Frederic Bastiat Early free-market economist and classical liberal French author.
† 1839 James Smith Along with his younger brother Horace Smith, wrote the Rejected Addresses.
† 0 Benjamin Rush Physician, writer, educator, and humanitarian.
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