TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS TUESDAY, DEC. 24, the 358th day of 2019. There are seven days left in the year. This is Christmas Eve. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts, orbiting the moon, read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve telecast.
In 1809, legendary American frontiersman Christopher “Kit” Carson was born in Madison County, Kentucky.
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 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 1913, 73 people, most of them children, died in a crush of panic after a false cry of “Fire!” during a Christmas party for striking miners and their families at the Italian Hall in Calumet, Michigan.
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 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe as part of Operation Overlord.
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 1984, actor Peter Lawford, 61, died in Los Angeles.
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 1992, President Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five others in the Iran-Contra scandal.
In 1993, the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, who blended Christian and psychiatric principles into a message of “positive thinking,” died in Pawling, New York, at age 95.
In 1994, militants hijacked an Air France Airbus A-300 at the Algiers airport; three passengers were slain during the siege before all four hijackers were killed by French commandos in Marseille two days later.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Author Mary Higgins Clark is 92. Federal health official Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., is 79. Recording company executive Mike Curb is 75. Actress Sharon Farrell and former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions are 73. Actors Grand L. Bush and Clarence Gilyard are 64. Actress Stephanie Hodge is 63. The former president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, and rock musician Ian Burden (The Human League) are 62. Actor Anil Kapoor is 60. Actress Eva Tamargo is 59. Actor Wade Williams is 58. Rock singer Mary Ramsey (10,000 Maniacs) is 56. Actor Mark Valley is 55. Actor Diedrich Bader is 53. Actor Amaury Nolasco is 49. Singer Ricky Martin is 48. Author Stephenie Meyer is 46. TV personality Ryan Seacrest (TV: “Live With Kelly & Ryan”) is 45. Actor Michael Raymond-James is 42. Actor Austin Stowell is 35. Actress Sofia BlackD’Elia and rock singer Louis Tomlinson are 28.