{"id":20515,"date":"2022-12-12T12:20:35","date_gmt":"2022-12-12T11:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=221485"},"modified":"2022-12-12T13:12:14","modified_gmt":"2022-12-12T12:12:14","slug":"why-did-norad-begin-tracking-santa-claus-in-the-cold-war","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/why-did-norad-begin-tracking-santa-claus-in-the-cold-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Why did NORAD begin tracking Santa Claus in the Cold War?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Lauren Good\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 12 December 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been giving updates on the progress of Santa<\/a>\u2019s sleigh since the 1950s. It\u2019s now followed worldwide each Christmas<\/a> (via noradsanta.org\/en).<\/p>\n

The official version is that in 1955 an advert for an American department store Santa phone line misprinted the phone number, sending callers to NORAD\u2019s predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) instead. Colonel Harry Shoup, in charge that night, assigned an officer to give other callers a \u201clocation\u201d for Santa and his sleigh, and so the tradition was born. There are variations on this foundation story, but basically it happened by accident.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the US military saw a public relations opportunity, or a Cold War<\/a> message about how the free world has Santa and those communists do not. But the best answer really seems to be that Americans love Christmas, and that modern \u201cradar tracking\u201d Santa just added to the magic.<\/p>\n

Eugene Byrne is a visiting research fellow at the University of the West of England<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article first appeared in the Christmas 2021 issue of\u00a0 BBC History Magazine<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n

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By Lauren Good Published: Monday, 12 December 2022 at 12:00 am The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been giving updates on the progress of Santa\u2019s sleigh since the 1950s. It\u2019s now followed worldwide each Christmas (via noradsanta.org\/en). The official version is that in 1955 an advert for an American department store Santa phone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":20516,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"< 1"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2022\/12\/why-did-norad-begin-tracking-santa-claus-in-the-cold-war.jpg",620,413,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2022\/12\/why-did-norad-begin-tracking-santa-claus-in-the-cold-war-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2022\/12\/why-did-norad-begin-tracking-santa-claus-in-the-cold-war-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2022\/12\/why-did-norad-begin-tracking-santa-claus-in-the-cold-war.jpg",620,413,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2022\/12\/why-did-norad-begin-tracking-santa-claus-in-the-cold-war.jpg",620,413,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2022\/12\/why-did-norad-begin-tracking-santa-claus-in-the-cold-war.jpg",620,413,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2022\/12\/why-did-norad-begin-tracking-santa-claus-in-the-cold-war.jpg",620,413,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Lauren Good Published: Monday, 12 December 2022 at 12:00 am The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been giving updates on the progress of Santa\u2019s sleigh since the 1950s. It\u2019s now followed worldwide each Christmas (via noradsanta.org\/en). The official version is that in 1955 an advert for an American department store Santa phone…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/20515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}