Christmas 1941 was not the first time that Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill had met in person, nor would it be the last. But the meeting over the first holiday season as allies in the largest war in human history was, perhaps, the most consequential, and, quite possibly, the most important Christmas ever at the White House.
On October 7, 1864 a battle between a Confederate commerce raider and a US sloop of war brought the nation to the brink of a foreign war.