Wednesday 24th of December 1524

Explorer Vasco da Gama dies of malaria at the age of 64 in Kochi, Kerala, India.

Wednesday 24th of December 1681

Composer Georg Philipp Telemann is born in Magdeburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany.

Sunday 24th of December 1809

Frontiersman, fur trapper and wilderness guide Kit Christopher Houston Carson is born in Richmond, Kentucky, United States.

Friday 24th of December 1824

Serial poisoner Lydia Sherman aka The Derby Poisoner is born in Burlington, New Jersey, United States.

Thursday 24th of December 1885

Mrs. Patrick Rooney dies of Spontaneous Human Combustion in Seneca, Illinois, United States.

Mrs. Rooney's formerly one-hundred and sixty pound body had been reduced to just twelve pounds worth of remains. Nothing else in the kitchen was damaged by fire directly, but most of the house's interior walls and furniture were coated with a "dirty, greasy, sooty substance." It was further stated that her husband had been asphyxiated by the fumes rising from his wife's burning body while sleeping.

Friday 24th of December 1886

Aristocrat and patient of Sigmund Freud Sergei Konstantinovitch Pankejeff aka Der Wolfsmann is born in Odessa, Odessa Oblast, Ukraine.

Monday 24th of December 1888

35-year-old Impressionist painter Vincent Willem van Gogh cuts off the lobe of his left ear in Rue du Bout d'Arles, Arles, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France.

Van Gogh supposedly gave it to Gabrielle Berlatier, a farmer’s daughter who worked as a maid at a brothel frequented by Van Gogh. He was found unconscious the next morning by a policeman and taken to hospital where Félix Rey, a young doctor still in training, treated him. The ear was delivered to the hospital but Rey did not attempt to reattach it as too much time had passed.

Sunday 24th of December 1905

Business magnate, aviator, aerospace engineer, film director and eccentric Howard Robard Hughes is born in Houston, Texas, United States.

Wednesday 24th of December 1913

Abstract expressionist painter Ad Adolph Frederick Reinhardt is born in Buffalo, New York, United States.

Sunday 24th of December 1922

Actress Ava Lavinia Gardner is born in Smithfield, North Carolina, United States.

Monday 24th of December 1934

Music teacher and victim of the Manson Family Gary Allen Hinman is born in Grand Junction, Colorado, United States.

Tuesday 24th of December 1935

Composer Alban Maria Johannes Berg dies from blood poisoning apparently caused by an insect-sting-induced carbuncle on his back at the age of 50 in Wien, Wien, Austria.

Sunday 24th of December 1939

Serial killer Dean Arnold Corll aka The Candyman is born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States.

Wednesday 24th of December 1941

Double murderer Robert Lee Massie is born in Virginia, United States.

Massie was born to a 15-year-old woman and a man who had married her only to avoid a charge of statutory rape.

Thursday 24th of December 1953

151 die in Wellington-Auckland express passenger train derailment in Whangaehu River Bridge, Tangiwai, North Island, New Zealand.

One of the bridge piers was destroyed by a mudflow minutes before the train approched.

Sunday 24th of December 1961

Serial killer Charles Chi-Tat Ng is born in Hong Kong, China.

Tuesday 24th of December 1963

Dada artist Tristan Tzara dies of unknown causes at the age of 67 in Paris, Île-de-France, France.

Saturday 24th of December 1966

17-year-old Janina Kozielska is slashed dead by serial killer Łucjan Staniak aka The Red Spider of Katowice in Warszawa, Województwo Mazowieckie, Poland.

Kozielska was found on the night-train from Krakow to Warsaw.

Wednesday 24th of December 1969

Serial killer Stephen Shaun Griffiths aka The Crossbow Cannibal is born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom.

Tuesday 24th of December 1974

58-year-old Ernst Dorf is beaten to death by serial killer Kurt-Friedhelm Steinwegs aka Die Bestie vom Niederrhein in Gifhorn, Sachsen, Germany.

Wednesday 24th of December 1975

Composer Bernard Herrmann dies of cardiovascular disease at the age of 64 in Los Angeles, California, United States.

Herrmann's last work he completed the day before his death was his sombre score for 'Taxi Driver'.

Wednesday 24th of December 1975

22-year-old Serial killer David Richard Berkowitz aka Son of Sam attacks Michelle Forman and another unidentified girl with a knife in New York City, New York, United States.

They both survived.

Sunday 24th of December 1978

13-year-old Andrew Robinson is stabbed to death by serial killer Kurt-Friedhelm Steinwegs aka Die Bestie vom Niederrhein in Gifhorn, Sachsen, Germany.

Monday 24th of December 1979

Student leader Rudi Alfred Willi Dutschke aka Rote Rudi dies of drowning after an epileptic seizure while in his bathtub at the age of 39 in Århus, Midtjylland, Denmark.

Because of massive brain damage from an assassination attempt on 11 april 1968 Dutschke continued to suffer health problems which finally led to his death.

Wednesday 24th of December 1980

Commander of the Kriegsmarine and successor of the Führer Karl Dönitz dies of a heart attack at the age of 89 in Aumühle, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

Friday 24th of December 1982

Poet and writer Louis Aragon dies of unknown causes at the age of 85 in Paris, Île-de-France, France.

Sunday 24th of December 1995

36-year-old Serial killer Anatoly Yuriyovych Onoprienko aka The Terminator aka Citizen O kills the forestry teacher Zaichenko, his wife and two children with a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun during a robbery in Gamarnya, Zhitomirskaya Oblast, Ukraine.

Afterwards Onoprienko set the house on fire.

Friday 24th of December 1999

An evening stroll through Chinatown with intriguing foodstalls selling flattened duck and pig heads in Bangkok, Central Thailand, Thailand.

Friday 24th of December 1999

A homeless person spending Christmas Eve in front of the shop of a gas station in Taling Chan, Central Thailand, Thailand.

Sunday 24th of December 2000

Victim of John Wayne Gacy aka The Killer Clown Jeffrey Rignall dies of AIDS at the age of 49 in Pinellas County, Florida, United States.

Rignall survived an attack by serial killer John Wayne Gacy on 22 March 1978.

Wednesday 24th of December 2008

Writer and playwright Harold Pinter dies of liver cancer at the age of 78 in Hammersmith Hospital, London, Hammersmith, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Saturday 24th of December 2011

Chimpanzee Cheetah-Mike aka Org known from Tarzan movies dies of kidney failure at the age of 80 in Suncoast Primate Sanctuary, 4600 U.S. 19 Alt, Palm Harbor, Florida, United States.