Today is Saturday, Dec. 24, the 358th day of 2011. There are seven days left in the year. This is Christmas Eve.
Today’s Highlight:
On Dec. 24, 1814, the War of 1812 officially ended as the United States and Britain signed the Treaty of Ghent.
On this date:
In 1524, Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama — who had discovered a sea route around Africa to India — died in Cochin, India.
In 1809, legendary American frontiersman Christopher “Kit” Carson was born in Madison County, Ky.
In 1851, fire devastated the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., destroying about 35,000 volumes.
In 1865, several veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club in Pulaski, Tenn., called the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1871, Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Aida” had its world premiere in Cairo, Egypt.
In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe as part of Operation Overlord.
In 1951, Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors,” the first opera written specifically for television, was first broadcast by NBC-TV.
In 1961, the Houston Oilers won the second American Football League Championship Game, defeating the San Diego Chargers, 10-3.
In 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts, orbiting the moon, read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve telecast.
In 1980, Americans remembered the U.S. hostages in Iran by burning candles or shining lights for 417 seconds — one second for each day of captivity. Karl Doenitz, the last leader of the Third Reich following the suicides of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, died in West Germany at age 89.
Associated Press
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