History for December 24

History for December 24 - On-This-Day.com:
Benjamin Rush 174, Kit Carson 1809, James Joule 1818, Howard Hughes 1905



I.F. Stone 1907, Ava Gardner 1922, Ricky Martin 1971


1814 - The War of 1812 between the U.S. and Britain was ended with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent in Belgium.


1818 - Franz Gruber of Oberndorf, Germany composed the music for "Silent Night" to words written by Josef Mohr.


1865 - Several veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club in Pulaski, TN, called the Ku Klux Klan.


1906 - Reginald A. Fessenden became the first person to broadcast a music program over radio, from Brant Rock, MA.


1914 - In World War I, the first air raid on Britain was made when a German airplane dropped a bomb on the grounds of a rectory in Dover.


1943 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces as part of Operation Overlord.


1968 - Three astronauts, James A. Lovell, William Anders and Frank Borman, reached the moon. They orbited the moon 10 times before coming back to Earth. Seven months later man first landed on the moon.


1979 - Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in support of the country's Marxist government.