Xmas carol marks 190th anniversary

Born on a cold night in the chapel of a small Austrian village, Silent Night, the world's most famous Christmas carol, is celebrating its 190th anniversary.

The song, known as Stille Nacht in the original German, was first performed on December 24, 1818, in the tiny hamlet of Oberndorf, as a local assistant priest, Joseph Mohr, sought to comfort his flock, racked by poverty and misery in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars.

"He asked his friend Franz Xaver Gruber, a teacher, to compose the music for six verses he had written two years prior, and they performed the song together at mass with the help of a simple guitar," says Renate Ebeling-Winkler, a historian and expert on the topic.