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Today is Tuesday, December 24, the 359th day of 2024. There are seven days left in the year. This is Christmas Eve.
Today in history:
On December 24, 1992, President George HW Bush pardoned former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and five others in the Iran-Contra scandal.
Also on this date:
In 1814, the United States and Great Britain signed the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812 after ratification by both the British Parliament and the U.S. Senate.
In 1851, a fire destroyed the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., killing approximately 35,000 books (about two-thirds of the library’s collection).
In 1865, several Confederate Army veterans formed a private social club in Pulaski, Tennessee, the original version of the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1913, 73 people, most of them children, died in 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 the First World War, improvised Christmas truces began to emerge between British and German soldiers along parts of the Western Front.
In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed General Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe.
In 2013, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II posthumously pardoned codebreaker Alan Turing, who was criminally convicted of homosexual behavior in the 1950s.
Today’s Birthdays:
- Immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci is 84.
- Filmmaker Lee Daniels is 65.
- Basketball Hall of Fame coach Jay Wright is 63.
- Singer Ricky Martin is 53.
- Author Stephenie Meyer is 51.
- TV host Ryan Seacrest is 50.
- Rock singer Louis Tomlinson (One Direction) is 33.
- NFL wide receiver Davante Adams is 32.