Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 26
December 26: Boxing Day; Kwanzaa begins; St. Stephen's Day in Western Christianity.
- 1606 – The first recorded performance of William Shakespeare's King Lear, based on the legend of King Lear of Britain, was held.
- 1790 – French Revolution: Louis XVI of France gave his Royal Assent to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, subordinating the Roman Catholic Church in France to the French government.
- 1898 – Physicists Pierre and Marie Curie announced the discovery of a new element, naming it radium.
- 1908 – Boxer Jack Johnson became the first African American Heavyweight Champion of the World after defeating Canadian Tommy Burns in Sydney.
- 2004 – An undersea earthquake in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia generated a series of devastating tsunamis that killed more than 225,000 people in eleven countries (a tsunami in Ao Nang, Thailand pictured).
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