Traditionally every holiday season the Morgan Library displays Charles Dickens’s only original manuscript of his novella A Christmas Carol. In drastic financial straits Dickens wrote the five “staves” or chapters of this iconic tale over six weeks at the end of 1843.

In 1300 Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed the first ordinary Jubilee or Holy Year, with the Papal Bull, “Antiquorum Habet Fida Relatio.”

On July 31 UNESCO proclaimed the Via Appia or Appian Way Italy’s 60th World Heritage Site.

On March 19 Sergio Mattarella, The President of Italy, inaugurated the new headquarters of the Foreign Press Association in what had been the Roman residence of former Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi.