Died on December 25

795 Pope Adrian I Pope from 1 February 772 to his death in 795. He was the son of Theodore, a Roman nobleman
820 Leo V the Armenian Emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 813 to 820. A senior general, he forced his predecessor, Michael I Rangabe, to abdicate and assumed the throne. He ended the decade-long war with the Bulgars, and initiated the second period of Byzantine Iconoclasm. He was assassinated by supporters of Michael the Amorian, one of his most trusted generals, who succeeded him on the throne
1086 Judith of Bohemia a Bohemian princess of the Přemyslid dynasty, and Duchess of Poland by marriage.
1156 Peter the Venerable born to Blessed Raingarde in Auvergne, France. He has been honored as a saint but has never been formally canonized
1156 Richeza of Poland Queen of Sweden queen of Sweden and princess of Minsk through her three marriages.
1231 Folquet de Marselha alternatively Folquet de Marseille, Foulques de Toulouse, Fulk of Toulouse came from a Genoese merchant family who lived in Marseille. He is known as a trobadour, and then as a fiercely anti-Cathar bishop of Toulouse
1306 Jacopone da Todi an Italian Franciscan friar from Umbria in the 13th century. He wrote several laudi in Italian. He was an early pioneer in Italian theatre, being one of the earliest scholars who dramatised Gospel subjects
1406 Henry III of Castile the son of John I and Eleanor of Aragon. He succeeded his father as King of Castile in 1390
1489 Simon Marmion a French or Burgundian Early Netherlandish painter of panels and illuminated manuscripts. Marmion lived and worked in what is now France but for most of his lifetime was part of the Duchy of Burgundy in the Southern Netherlands
1505 George Grey 2nd Earl of Kent the son of Edmund Grey, 1st Earl of Kent and Lady Katherine Percy. He was the Second Earl of Kent from 1490 to 1505
1553 Pedro de Valdivia a Spanish conquistador and the first royal governor of Chile. After serving with the Spanish army in Italy and Flanders, he was sent to South America in 1534, where he served as lieutenant under Francisco Pizarro in Peru, acting as his second in command. In 1540 he led an expedition of 150 Spaniards into Chile, where he defeated a large force of Indians and founded Santiago in 1541. He extended Spanish rule south to the Bío-Bío River in 1546, fought again in Peru , and returned to Chile as governor in 1549. He began to conquer Chile south of the Bío-Bío and founded Concepción in 1550. He was captured and killed in a campaign against the Araucanian Indians. The city of Valdivia in Chile is named after him
1605 Marino Grimani (doge) the 89th Doge of Venice, reigning from 26 April 1595 until his death. Grimani's reign as doge was principally remembered for two reasons: the splendid celebrations for the coronation of his wife, Morosina Morosini; and the beginning of the quarrel with the papacy that resulted in Pope Paul V placing the Republic of Venice under papal interdict in the reign of Grimani's successor, Leonardo Donato
1627 Vincenzo II Gonzaga Duke of Mantua Duke of Mantua and Duke of Montferrat from 1626 until his death.
1634 Lettice Knollys an English noblewoman and mother to the courtiers Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex and Lady Penelope Rich, although via her marriage to Elizabeth I's favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, she incurred the Queen's unrelenting displeasure.
1635 Samuel de Champlain a French navigator, cartographer, draughtsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler. He founded New France and Quebec City on July 3, 1608. He is important to Canadian history because he made the first accurate map of the coast and he helped establish the settlements
1648 Claudia de' Medici Regent of the Austrian County of Tyrol during the minority of her son from 1632 until 1646. She was a daughter of Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Christina of Lorraine. She was born in Florence, and was named after her grandmother Claude of Valois, herself granddaughter of Claude, Duchess of Brittany, consort to King Francis I of France
1649 Adam Kazanowski a noble of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1633, Greater Crown Stolnik from 1634, Court Chamberlain and castellan of Sandomierz from 1637, Court Marshall from 1643, żupnik of Wieliczka from 1642, starosta barcicki, borysowski, kozienicki, rumieński, solecki, nowotarski, warecki, bielski and a close and influential friend of King Władysław IV Vasa.
1676 William Cavendish 1st Duke of Newcastle an English polymath and aristocrat, having been a poet, equestrian, playwright, swordsman, politician, architect, diplomat and soldier. Born into the very wealthy Cavendish family at Handsworth in the county of Yorkshire, William's family had a good relationship with the ruling Stuart monarchy and began to gather prominence after he was invested as a Knight of the Bath and soon inherited his father's Northern England estates
1676 Matthew Hale (jurist) an influential English barrister, judge and lawyer most noted for his treatise Historia Placitorum Coronæ, or The History of the Pleas of the Crown. Born to a barrister and his wife, who had both died by the time he was 5, Hale was raised by his father's relative, a strict Puritan, and inherited his faith. In 1626 he matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford , intending to become a priest, but after a series of distractions was persuaded to become a barrister like his father thanks to an encounter with a Serjeant-at-Law in a dispute over his estate. On 8 November 1628 he joined Lincoln's Inn, where he was called to the Bar on 17 May 1636. As a barrister, Hale represented a variety of Royalist figures during the prelude and duration of the English Civil War, including Thomas Wentworth and William Laud; it has been hypothesised that Hale was to represent Charles I at his state trial, and conceived the defence Charles used. Despite the Royalist loss, Hale's reputation for integrity and his political neutrality saved him from any repercussions, and under the Commonwealth of England he was made Chairman of the Hale Commission, which investigated law reform. Following the Commission's dissolution, Oliver Cromwell made him a Justice of the Common Pleas
1683 Kara Mustafa Pasha an Ottoman military leader and grand vizier who was a central character in the Ottoman Empire's last attempts at expansion into both Central and Eastern Europe.
1711 Johann Nikolaus Hanff a North German organist and composer. Hanff was born in Wechmar in Thuringia and worked in Eutin, Hamburg and Schleswig
1717 Dirk Maas a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter.
1729 Christiane Charlotte of Württemberg-Winnental a German princess of the Württemberg-Winnental line. Born in Kirchheim unter Teck, her parents were Frederick Charles, Duke of Württemberg-Winnental, and his wife Eleonore Juliane of Brandenburg-Ansbach, a daughter of Albert II, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach
1731 Caspar Commelijn a Dutch botanist.
1758 James Hervey an English clergyman and writer.
1763 Suraj Mal ruler of Bharatpur in Rajasthan, India. A contemporary historian has described him as "the Plato of the Jat people" and by a modern writer as the "Jat Odysseus", because of his political sagacity, steady intellect and clear vision
1818 Catherine-Dominique de Pérignon Marshal of France.
1820 Joseph Fouché often translated as Duke of Otranto.
1824 Barbara von Krüdener a Baltic German religious mystic and author.
1842 Bedřich Diviš Weber a Bohemian composer and musicologist primarily remembered as the first Director of the Prague Conservatory, in whose foundation he played a leading role.
1845 Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach the eldest son of Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach and the only grandson of Johann Sebastian Bach to gain fame as a composer. He was music director to Frederick William II of Prussia. He said, "Heredity can tend to run out of ideas."
1849 Ernest Constantine Landgrave of Hesse-Philippsthal a member of the House of Hesse and Landgrave of Hesse-Philippsthal from 1816 until his death.
1853 Joseph von Radowitz a conservative Prussian statesman and general famous for his proposal to unify Germany under Prussian leadership by means of a negotiated agreement among the reigning German princes.
1854 Louis Vallin a French general. He was involved on the Royalist side in the French intervention in Spain. His name is inscribed in the 12th column on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris
1856 Princess Elisabeth of Savoy a Princess of Savoy and the aunt and mother-in-law of Vittorio Emanuele II, the first king of a united Italy.
1857 Joseph von Auffenberg a German dramatist.
1863 Francis Boott an American physician and botanist who was resident in Great Britain from 1820.
1867 Antonie Adamberger an Austrian stage actress.
1868 Linus Yale Jr. an American mechanical engineer and manufacturer, best known for his inventions of locks, especially the cylinder lock. His basic lock design is still widely distributed in today’s society, and constitute a majority of personal locks and safes. Linus Yale, was born in Salisbury, New York. Yale’s father, Linus Yale, opened a lock shop in the 1840s in Newport, New York, specializing in bank locks. Yale soon joined his father in his business and introduced some revolutionary locks that utilized permutations and cylinders. He later founded a company with Henry Robinson Towne called the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company in the South End section of Stamford, Connecticut. Throughout his career in lock manufacturing, Yale acquired numerous patents for his inventions and received widespread acclaim from clients regarding his products
1873 Hardin Richard Runnels a U.S. political figure. Runnels served as the sixth Governor of Texas, for only one term, but notably was the only person to ever defeat Sam Houston in a political contest
1875 Young Tom Morris one of the pioneers of professional golf, and was the first young prodigy in golf history. He won four consecutive titles in the Open Championship, an unmatched feat, and did this by the age of 21
1879 Giuseppe Avezzana an Italian soldier who fought in Europe and America.
1879 Rudolf Buchheim a German pharmacologist born in Bautzen.
1880 Fridolin Anderwert a Swiss politician.
1882 Bernhard Afinger a German sculptor who studied the works of old German sculptures. He was for a time a silversmith, and in 1840 began instruction under Christian Daniel Rauch at Berlin. In portrait medallions and works of a religious character he was particularly successful. There is an Arndt memorial by him at Bonn, a university memorial at Greifswald, and a statue of Newton in the National Museum, Pesth
1885 Eugène Emmanuel Amaury Duval a French painter. He was one of two sons of Amaury Duval and thus a nephew of the playwright Alexandre Pineux Duval
1892 Count Nikolay Adlerberg Vladimirovich Adlerberg , Councilor of State, Chamberlain, governor of Taganrog, Simferopol and Finland.
1898 Georges Rodenbach a Belgian Symbolist poet and novelist.
1899 Elliott Coues an American army surgeon, historian, ornithologist and author.
1899 Harry Bradshaw (footballer born 1873) an English international footballer who played in the outside-left and centre-forward positions for Liverpool, Northwich Victoria, Tottenham Hotspur and Thames Ironworks during the late 19th century.