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Today in History, December 25th

On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as Soviet president as the USSR dissolved. Plus Washington's Delaware crossing and the Christmas Truce.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 3 min read Sources checked

Silent Night, Church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorf, Austria.

Published December 25, 2025 · Last updated November 10, 2026

December 25 is best known, beyond Christmas itself, as the day in 1991 when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as Soviet president, closing the book on the USSR. The date also saw George Washington lead his army across the Delaware in 1776 and the Christmas Truce along parts of the Western Front in 1914.

The big story: Gorbachev Resigns and the Soviet Union Fades Out (1991)

Mikhail Gorbachev had spent six years trying to reform the Soviet system without breaking it. By Christmas 1991, there was almost nothing left to lead. An attempted coup in August had failed, but it badly weakened him, and Boris Yeltsin, the president of the Russian republic, came out of it as the stronger figure. Four days before Christmas, 11 former Soviet republics formed the Commonwealth of Independent States, which left the central government with no real job. On December 25, Gorbachev gave a farewell speech to the nation and stepped down. He said he had no regrets about his reforms, though he admitted mistakes had been made, and he worried aloud that people were losing their sense of being citizens of a great power. Yeltsin moved into the Kremlin and its offices, and Russia’s flag replaced the Soviet hammer and sickle. A superpower that had shaped the 20th century ended not with a war, but with a speech on Christmas.

More events on December 25

Year	What happened
800	Charlemagne, king of the Franks, was crowned emperor, a title later counted as the start of the Holy Roman Empire.
1776	George Washington led about 2,400 troops across the icy Delaware River on Christmas night to strike the Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey.
1914	British and German soldiers on parts of the Western Front observed an informal Christmas Truce, swapping greetings in no man’s land.
1941	Bing Crosby introduced Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” on his NBC radio show.
1950	Four Scottish students took the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey. It was returned permanently to Scotland in 1996.
1962	The film To Kill a Mockingbird, based on Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, opened in Los Angeles.
1971	The Miami Dolphins beat the Kansas City Chiefs 27-24 in double overtime, the longest game in NFL history.
2002	Katie Hnida, kicking for New Mexico in the Las Vegas Bowl, became the first woman to play in a Division I college football game.
2021	The James Webb Space Telescope launched from French Guiana.