For more than 60 years, NORAD (and before them, the Continental Air Defense Command -CONAD) have tracked Santa’s flight. It’s a great story how it all started.

Back in 1955 a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement misprinted the telephone number for children to call Santa. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline.”

So, the Director of Operations then had his staff check the radar for where Santa was making his way south from the North Pole…and the tradition was born. In 1958, the governments of Canada and the United States created a bi-national air defense command for North America called the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, which then took on the tradition of tracking Santa.

Ahhhh, a misprint has now led to a Christmas tradition for people around the world. Cool.

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