Today is Saturday, Dec. 24, the 359th day of 2016. There are seven days left in the year. This is Christmas Eve; the Jewish Festival of Lights, Hanukkah, begins at sunset.
Today’s highlight:
On Dec. 24, 1906, Canadian physicist Reginald A. Fessenden became the first person to transmit the human voice (his own) as well as music over radio, from Brant Rock, Massachusetts.
On this date:
In 1865, several veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club in Pulaski, Tennessee, that was the original version of the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1914, during World War I, impromptu Christmas truces began to take hold along parts of the Western Front between British and German soldiers.
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.
Today’s Birthdays: Author Mary Higgins Clark is 89. Actor Clarence Gilyard is 61. Rock musician Ian Burden (The Human League) is 59. Designer Kate Spade is 54. Rock singer Mary Ramsey (10,000 Maniacs) is 53. Actor Diedrich Bader is 50. Singer Ricky Martin is 45. Author Stephenie Meyer is 43. Former “American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest is 42. Rock singer Louis Tomlinson (One Direction) is 25.
Thought for Today: “Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.” — The Rev. Norman Vincent Peale (born 1898, died this day in 1993).
Associated Press
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