6. The slaughter of the Holy Innocents is a feast day of the Catholic Church
According to the story of the Nativity as rendered by the Gospel of Matthew (it is not recorded in other gospels), following the birth of Jesus an angel appeared to Joseph, warning him to move his wife and infant son to safety. The family fled to Egypt until the danger passed. The danger was the order of Herod the Great to execute all male children in and around Bethlehem that were under two years of age, in response to what he had learned from the Magi, who had visited him en route to pay homage to the newly born Jesus. Again, Matthew is the only of the gospels to mention the Magi, and nowhere does it specify their number as three, through it does mention the three gifts which they bore as gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
When the Magi did not report back to Herod after visiting Jesus, he allegedly ordered the murders of the young male children. The number of boys killed by Herod’s minions were reported in Syrian lists as 64,000, Coptic texts more than double that number, while the Catholic Encyclopedia estimates the number as being less than forty, given the population of Bethlehem and the surrounding area. The estimate does not take into account that as in the case of Joseph and Mary, many non-residents were in the area as a result of the census being taken, with the city so crowded that there were no accommodations for the family and presumably many others as well. The story was likely a creation of Matthew, meant to serve as fulfillment of biblical prophecy, though some argue that the event was based on fact despite the lack of evidence beyond the gospel.