Wikimedia CommonsYule marked the end of the solar year and was celebrated with many festivities on the darkest night of winter. Christmastime. Noël. Nativity. Yuletide. Even the many different ...

Credit: Anna Efetova via Getty Images It's often claimed that many of today's Christmas traditions derive from the pre-Christian observances of pagan cults suppressed by Roman authorities.

Like many European Christmas traditions, the burning of the Yule Log is based on ancient pagan rituals – in this case, the celebration of the Winter Solstice just a few days before Christmas.

And Christmas isn't the only Christian celebration to co-opt pagan festivals ... and in many languages it gets its name from them too. Take Yule, for instance (Old English spelling: Geol).

However, the Yule log as we know it began in the 1960s on New York City's WPIX. Decades later, the television channel still airs the footage on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, including original ...