The History Channel

• On Dec. 25, 1884, Mr. Layne Hall of Silver Creek, N.Y., is born. At his death on Nov. 20, 1990, he had a valid driver’s license. He was 105 years old, making him the oldest legal driver ever.

• On Dec. 28, 1895, the world’s first commercial movie screening takes place at the Grand Cafe in Paris. French siblings Louis and Auguste Lumiere screened a series of short scenes from everyday French life, and charged admission.

• On Dec. 23, 1912, Keystone Pictures releases its first “Keystone Kop” movie, “Hoffmeyer’s Release.” The Keystone Kops films were silent, black-and-white movies starring a crew of bumbling policemen who bumped into and fell over each other in a frenetic sequence of slapstick gags.

• On Dec. 24, 1923, President Calvin Coolidge touches a button and lights up the first national Christmas tree to grace the White House grounds. The tree was also the first to be decorated with electric lights. The tradition has been repeated with every administration since then.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

By Samantha Weaver

• It’s getting harder and harder to remember life before the Internet: Statistics show that computer users make nearly 8 billion online searches every month.

• It was Austrian physician and psychologist Wilhelm Stekel who made the following sage observation: “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.”

• The prehistoric megalodon shark got its name from the Greek words meaning “big tooth” — and rightly so. The megalodon’s huge jaws could clamp down on its prey with a force of 12 to 20 tons. To put that in perspective, the great white shark has the strongest bite of any animal alive today, with a comparatively puny 2-ton bite. That 2 tons, though, is still 23 times as strong as the biting force of the human jaw.

(c) 2008 King Features Synd. Inc.