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On December 23, 1947, physicists John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley of Bell Laboratories demonstrated for the first time the operation of the transistor, the electronic component that would make the digital revolution possible. The invention, which replaced bulky vacuum tubes, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 and underlies all modern electronics.

On December 23, 1972, Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda was found in the jungle of the Philippine island of Lubang, where he had been fighting for 27 years without knowing that World War II had ended in 1945. Onoda refused to surrender until his former commander travelled to the Philippines in 1974 to give him the order in person. He returned to Japan as a hero and symbol of loyalty.

On December 23, 1888, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear — or part of it — during a psychotic crisis in Arles, France, following a heated argument with his friend and colleague Paul Gauguin. Van Gogh wrapped the ear and delivered it to a woman at a nearby brothel. The episode symbolises the tormented life of the artist, who died the following year.