How much do you really know about Santa Claus?   To begin , historians identify Bishop Nicholas of Myra, who was born around the year 260 in what is today southwestern Turkey, as the first Santa Claus.  He was known to be a miracle maker, and was known as the patron saint of schoolchildren. But it took until the end of the 11th century for his relics to be transferred to Italy for the cult to begin. The Feast of Saint Nicholas (this painting by Jan Steen in the 17th century) was welcomed in the Netherlands, which spread the tradition. Around this time, Dutch Calvinists fleeing religious persecution set sail for what became Nieuw Amsterdam, later named New York.  But Sinterklaas was introduced to the New World.  He was also called De Goedheiligman (The Good Holy Man), so who knows where this would have gone if it had prevailed. His Dutch name was Americanized to Santa Claus, as a symbol of resistance against the British around the time of the 1776 Revolution. In 1809 Washington Irving