Visiting Ghosts of Christmases Past: OZY's 100

In 1956, future To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee was a 30-year-old airline ticket agent, who, like many aspiring writers, had come to New York City to pursue her dream, and failed. Luckily, Lee had made two very good (and wealthy) friends in New York: Michael and Joy Brown, who recognized her talent. So when Lee opened her Christmas present from the couple that year, she found a note that read: “You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.” And Lee delivered one of the most iconic American novels in history.

The dreidel has become the central motif by which American Jews introduce their holiday to the inter-religious world, but the four-sided spinning top game isn’t actually connected to the historical roots of Hanukkah. In fact, some scholars say the dreidel isn’t even of Jewish origin.

As millions of British citizens sat down to enjoy their cakes, tarts, puddings and sweetened tea in the days after Christmas in 1831, one of the primary sources of those sugary delights was burning to the ground. Over the Christmas holiday that year, a resistance movement in Jamaica led by a Baptist preacher named Samuel Sharpe turned violent, and the ensuing destruction and bloodshed helped hasten the end of slavery in the British Empire.

You’ve likely encountered Emanuel Leutze’s famous 1851 oil painting Washington Crossing the Delaware, but were you aware that the legendary crossing during the American Revolution took place on Christmas night? History has had its fair share of warriors who were willing to put down their weapons in deference to the holy day, but Gen. George Washington was not among them.

Cadets at West Point Academy stumbled from their barracks on Christmas morning in 1826 to find broken windows, smashed furniture and chaos. It was the result of a massive on-campus riot fueled by the cadets’ consumption of a home-brewed holiday eggnog spiked with about four gallons of whiskey that future Confederate leader Jefferson Davis and several others had smuggled into the alcohol-free academy. Nineteen cadets, not including Davis (who passed out early in the riot), were eventually expelled.

Five months after the outbreak of World War I, a miracle occurred on the Western Front when — on Christmas morning, 1914 — British, Belgian and French soldiers emerged from their trenches to peacefully engage with their German adversaries. They exchanged cigarettes and gifts, sang carols and kicked around makeshift soccer balls. Historians are still unsure how the Christmas Truce of 1914 started or spread, but it is believed that around 100,000 troops participated.

The long, terrible reign of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu was silenced in one quick volley on Christmas Day, 1989. After 24 years in power, Ceaușescu and his wife were arrested in the wake of a bloody rebellion. On Christmas morning, the two were tried for genocide before a tribunal in a cramped room in a cavalry barracks. After two hours of testimony, they were convicted and summarily executed by firing squad in the adjoining courtyard.