| 25 December 800 | Carolingian Empire, Italy [political events] | Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Lombards, is crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III in Rome on Christmas Day. The coronation ceremony consciously recalls those of the Western Roman Empire, which fell in 476, but the Byzantines refuse to recognize his title as a successor. |
| 25 December 820 | Byzantine Empire [political events] | The Byzantine emperor, Leo V, is murdered during a Christmas Day service by supporters of Michael the Amorian, who is under sentence of death for treason. He becomes emperor as Michael II. |
| 25 December 1000 | Hungary [political events] | Duke Stephen is crowned as king of Hungary. He has placed his country under the protection of the Pope, from whom he receives the crown and the establishment of a Hungarian ecclesiastical hierarchy under the archbishopric of Gran. |
| 25 December 1024 | Poland [political events] | Boleslaw Chrobry (the Brave) is crowned as king of Poland with the approval of Pope John XIX. |
| 25 December 1047 | Holy Roman Empire, Italy [administration] | Bishop Poppo of Brixen is nominated to succeed Pope Clement II by Emperor Henry III but he cannot be consecrated because the deposed pope Benedict IX has occupied Rome, Italy. |
| 25 December 1066 | England [administration] | Duke William I of Normandy is crowned king of England. |
| 25 December 1076 | Poland [administration] | Boleslaw II is crowned as king of Poland with a crown sent by Pope Gregory VII to reward his zeal in restoring the church in Poland, under the direction of papal legates, and for supporting the Pope against King Henry IV of Germany. Also in this year, Boleslaw campaigns against Bohemia with Russian assistance, and moves the Polish capital from Gniezno to Kraków. |
| 25 December 1085 | England [political events] | William I the Conqueror, King of England and Duke of Normandy, orders a survey of the resources of England subsequently recorded in the Domesday Book, possibly because of the threat of invasion from King Cnut IV of Denmark. |
| 25–26 December 1406 | Castile, Spain [political events] | King Henry III of Castile dies. He is succeeded by his infant son, John II. |
| 25 December 1559 | Papal States, Italy [political events] | The conclave elects Giovanni Medici as Pope Pius IV, after the death on 18 October of Pope Paul IV. |
| 25 December 1642 | England [births and deaths] | Isaac Newton, English physicist and mathematician who laid the foundations of calculus and gravitation theory, born in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England (–1727). |
| 25 December 1745 | Austria, Habsburg Monarchy, Holy Roman Empire, Saxony, Germany, Prussia [treaties] | By the Peace of Dresden with Austria and Saxony, Prussia retains the conquered Austrian province of Silesia and in return recognizes the Pragmatic Sanction (the legitimacy of Maria Theresa's accession to the Habsburg domains) and Francis I as Holy Roman Emperor. |
| 25 December 1776 | America [American Revolution] | American forces under George Washington cross the ice-strewn Delaware River in a surprise raid on Christmas night, and defeat a corps of British Hessian mercenaries at the Battle of Trenton. |
| 25 December 1800 | UK [everyday life] | King George III's wife, Queen Charlotte, introduces the Christmas tree to the British court. |
| 25 December 1876 | India, Pakistan [births and deaths] | Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Indian/Pakistani Muslim politician, founder and first premier of Pakistan 1947–48, born in Karachi, India (now Pakistan) (–1948). |
| 25 December 1899 | USA [births and deaths] | Humphrey Bogart, US actor, born in New York City (–1957). |
| 25 December 1926 | Japan [political events] | Emperor Yoshihito of Japan dies and is succeeded by his son Hirohito. |
| 25 December 1932 | United Kingdom [television] | King George V of Britain makes the first Christmas broadcast by a British head of state. |
| 25 December 1957 | UK [television] | Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain and Northern Ireland gives her first Christmas talk to the Commonwealth on television. |
| 25 December 1977 | England, USA [births and deaths] | Charlie Chaplin, English actor and director of the silent film era, who gained fame playing a pathetic but humorous character, dies in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland (88). |
| 25 December 1978 | Vietnam, Cambodia [political events] | Vietnam begins a full-scale invasion of Cambodia. |
| 25 December 1979 | Afghanistan, USSR [political events] | Soviet troops invade Afghanistan in a bid to halt the civil war and protect Soviet interests. |
| 25 December 1982 | USA [popular music] | Michael Jackson's Thriller confirms his status as a pop icon. Within ten years, 40 million copies will have been sold, making it the best-selling album of all time. |
| 25 December 1989 | Romania [births and deaths] | Nicolae Ceausescu, president of the Socialist Republic of Romania 1967–89, is captured (together with Elena Ceausescu), given a summary trial, and executed by the army near Bucharest, Romania (71). |
| 25 December 1991 | USSR [political events] | Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as president of the USSR, which officially ceased to exist on 9 December. |
| 25 December 2003 | [space exploration] | Beagle 2, the small British space probe aboard the European Space Agency's Mars Express craft, is scheduled to touch down on the surface of the planet Mars but fails to return a radio signal, raising concerns that it may have crashed or malfunctioned. |
