December 24

December 24 is the 358th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (359th in leap years). There are 7 days remaining.

Events

640 - John IV becomes Pope
1814 - The Treaty of Ghent was signed which ended the War of 1812
1818 - Silent Night composed by Franz Xaver Gruber
1851 - Library of Congress burns
1865 - Several US Civil War Confederate veterans form the Ku Klux Klan
1906 - The first radio program, a poetry reading, a violin solo, and a speech, broadcasts
1914 - World War I: The "Christmas truce" begins
1924 - Albania becomes a republic
1943 - US General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the supreme Allied commander
1946 - France's Fourth Republic founded
1951 - Libya becomes independent from Italy
1953 - 153 people die as a result of the Tangiwai disaster when the railway bridge collapses at Tangiwai, New Zealand sending a fully loaded passenger train into the Whangaehu River
1953 - NBC's Dragnet becomes the first network-sponsored television program
1954 - Laos becomes independent
1966 - A CL-44 chartered by the United States military crashes into a small village in South Vietnam killing 129
1968 - The crew of the USS Pueblo was released by North Korea after being held for 11 months on suspicion of spying.
1979 - The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan to support the country's Marxist government
2000 - The Texas 7 holds up a sports store in Irving, Texas. Police officer Aubrey Hawkins is shot in the incident.
2003 - The Spanish police thwarts an attempt by ETA to detonate 50 kg of explosives at 3:55 PM inside Madrid's busy Chamartín Station.

December 24 is celebrated as the day before Christmas, thus called Christmas Eve.
It is the day when food is set out for Santa Claus and his reindeer and children around the world are urged to go to bed early so they are not awake when he comes.


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