Today is Wednesday, Dec. 23, the 357th day of 2015. There are eight days left in the year.

Today’s birthdays: Emperor Akihito of Japan is 82. Football Hall of Famer Paul Hornung is 80. Actor Frederic Forrest is 79. Actor James Stacy is 79. Actor-comedian Harry Shearer is 72. Army General Wesley K. Clark (retired) is 71. Actress Susan Lucci is 69. Musician Adrian Belew is 66. Rock singer Eddie Vedder is 51. The former first lady of France, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, is 48.

In 1788, Maryland passed an act to cede an area ‘‘not exceeding ten miles square’’ for the seat of the national government; about 2/3 of the area became the District of Columbia.

In 1823, the poem ‘‘Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas’’ was published anonymously in the Troy (New York) Sentinel; the verse, more popularly known as ‘‘’Twas the Night Before Christmas,’’ was later attributed to Clement C. Moore.

In 1913, the Federal Reserve System was created as President Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act.

In 1948, former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese war leaders were executed in Tokyo.

In 1954, the first successful human kidney transplant took place at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston as a team led by Dr. Joseph Murray removed a kidney from Ronald Herrick and implanted it in Herrick’s twin brother, Richard.

In 1968, North Korea releases 82 members of the US intelligence ship Pueblo, 11 months after they had been captured.

In 1995, a fire in Dabwali, India, killed 446 people, more than half of them children, during a year-end party.