TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS THURSDAY, DEC. 24, the 358th day of 2015. There are seven days left in the year. This is Christmas Eve.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1955, the Continental Air Defense Command Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., found itself fielding phone calls from children wanting to know the whereabouts of Santa Claus after a newspaper ad mistakenly gave the Center’s number; the result was a tradition continued by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) of tracking Santa’s location the night before Christmas.
In 1814, the United States and Britain signed the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812 following ratification by both the British Parliament and the U.S. Senate.
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., that was the original version of the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1871, Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Aida” had its world premiere in Cairo, Egypt.
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 1939, Pope Pius XII delivered a Christmas Eve address in which he offered a five-point program for peace and denounced “premeditated aggressions.”
In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe as part of
Operation Overlord.
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.
In 1990, actor Tom Cruise married his “Days of Thunder” co-star, Nicole Kidman, during a private ceremony at a Colorado ski resort (the marriage ended in 2001).
In 1995, fire broke out at the Philadelphia Zoo, killing 23 rare gorillas, orangutans, gibbons and lemurs.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Songwriter-bandleader Dave Bartholomew is 97. Author Mary Higgins Clark is 88. Rock singer-musician Lemmy (Motorhead) is 70. Actress Sharon Farrell and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., are 69. Actors Grand L. Bush and Clarence Gilyard are 60. The former president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, and rock musician Ian Burden (The Human League) are 58. Actor Anil Kapoor is 56. Actor Wade Williams is 54. Designer Kate Spade is 53. Rock singer Mary Ramsey (10,000 Maniacs) is 52.