History for December 24

History for December 24 - On-This-Day.com:
Ignatius (Loyola) 1491, Benjamin Rush 1745, Kit Carson 1809



James Joule 1818, Howard Hughes 1905, I.F. Stone 1907



1814 - The War of 1812 between the U.S. and Britain was ended with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent in Belgium.


1865 - Several veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club in Pulaski, TN, called the Ku Klux Klan.


1943 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces as part of Operation Overlord.


1966 - Luna 13 landed on the moon.


1968 - Three astronauts, James A. Lovell, William Anders and Frank Borman, reached the moon. They orbited the moon 10 times before coming back to Earth. Seven months later man first landed on the moon.


1979 - Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in support of the country's Marxist government.



1985 - Fidel Castro, the Cuban president, announced that he was a non-smoker.


1990 - Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were married.