On December 26, 1972, former 33rd President of the United
States Harry S. Truman died in Independence, Missouri.

Then-President Richard Nixon called Truman a man of
“forthrightness and integrity” who had a deep respect
for the office he held and for the people he served, and
who “supported and wisely counseled each of his
successors.” Truman was in office from April 12, 1945
to January 20, 1953.

On December 5, 1972, Truman was admitted to Kansas City’s
Research Hospital and Medical Center with pneumonia.

He developed multiple organ failure, fell into a coma, and
died at 7:50 a.m. on December 26, at the age of 88.

Truman in September 1917.

Harry and Bess Truman on their wedding
day, June 28, 1919.

President Harry Truman holds up a copy of the Chicago
Daily Tribune declaring his "defeat" to Thomas Dewey
in the presidential election, St Louis, Missouri, in Nov.
1948. 

Truman was so widely expected to lose the 1948 election that
the Chicago Tribune had printed papers with this erroneous
headline when few returns were in.

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August
6 and 9, 1945 respectively, were authorized by President
Truman at the end of World War II.

On December 26, 1973, The Exorcist, a horror film starring
the actress Linda Blair as a girl possessed by an evil spirit,
made its debut in theaters; it went on to earn a reputation
as one of the scariest movies in history.

The post-holiday release served to help The Exorcist sell
tickets, as most moviegoers had time off.

It was the highest-grossing Christmas week release after
1997’s Titanic, and is still in second place.

William David Friedkin 
(August 29, 1935 – August 7, 2023)

On December 25, 1971, Garo Yepremian kicked a 37-yard field
goal in the second overtime of an AFC playoff game to give the
Miami Dolphins a 27-24 win over the Kansas City Chiefs in the
longest game in NFL history.

Game time elapsed for the Christmas contest: 82 minutes and
40 seconds.

"After I kicked the ball," Yepremian told reporters, "I look up
at the sky and thank God for giving me the chance to kick it." 

Garabed Sarkis "Garo" Yepremian
(2 June 1944 – 15 May 2015)

Martin was a singer, actor and comedian. One of the most
popular entertainers of the mid-20th century, he was
nicknamed "The King of Cool."

Martin retired from public life in early 1995 and died of acute
respiratory failure resulting from emphysema at his Beverly
Hills home on Christmas Day, 1995, at the age of 78.

Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra. (1961)

Although most Christians celebrate December 25 as the birthday
of Jesus Christ, few in the first two Christian centuries claimed
any knowledge of the exact day or year in which he was born.

The oldest existing record of a Christmas celebration is found in
a Roman almanac that tells of Christ’s Nativity festival led by the
church of Rome in 336 A.D.