Today in History - Famous Events for Tomorrow

🏰 On this day in History - December 24, 2024

1982 Chaminade, with a student body of only 850 students, beats #1 ranked Virginia 77-72 in a Honolulu holiday basketball classic

1966 Luna 13 lands on Moon

1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of Soviet Union

1951 United Kingdom of Libya gains independence from Italy via UN

1943 FDR appoints Gen Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces

1851 Fire devastates Library of Congress in Wash, destroys 35,000 volumes

1894 Soccer team Achilles '94 forms in Axes

1968 Apollo 8 astronauts read passages from Book of Genesis

1981 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR

1818 Franz Xaver Gruber composes "Silent Night"

1933 Paris express train derails & kills 160, injures 300 (France)

1961 Houston Oilers beat San Diego Chargers 10-3 in AFL championship game

1941 1st ships of admiral Nagumo's Pearl Harbor-fleet return to Japan

1914 German plane drops bombs on Dover England

1860 Joseph Jefferson's "Rip Van Winkle," premieres in NYC

1930 Bandung, Java: ir Sukarno 4 years jail sentenced

1981 Guardian Angels Curtis Sliwa & Lisa Evers marry

1515 Thomas Wolsey appointed English Lord Chancellor

1935 Bradman scores 233 in 191 mins, SA v Queensland, 28 fours 1 six

1832 HMS Beagle anchors in Wigwam Bay at Cape Receiver

1954 Laos gains its independence

1884 Austria-Hungary admits King Leopold II's Congo Free State

1953 Ren‚ Coty elected pres of France

1948 Greek govt disbands due to state of war, press censorship

1715 Swedish troops occupy Norway

1932 Arturo Alessandri wins presidental election in Chile

1942 1st powered flight of V-1 buzz bomb, PeenemЃnde, Germany

1898 Herman Heijermans' "Ghetto," premieres in Amsterdam

1990 Saddam says Israel will be Iraq's 1st target

1950 Cleveland Browns win NFL championship, beat LA 30-28

1724 Benjamin Franklin arrives in London

1953 Wellington-Auckland (NZ) express train swept away in flood kills 166

1953 2 fast express trains crash head-on killing 103 (Czechoslovakia)

1966 USAF C144 military charter crashes near Binh Thai Vietnam kills 129

1930 F GarcЎa Lorca's "La Zapatera Prodigiosa," premieres in Madrid

1937 Dutch govt recognizes Italian king Emanuel III as emperor of Abyssinia

1889 Daniel Stover & William Hance patent bicycle with back pedal brake

1851 US Library of Congress catches fire; 35,000 books burn

1973 Ferryboat capsized off coast of Equador, drowning 200

1989 Charles Taylor enters Liberia to unseat President Samuel K Doe

1966 "Joyful Noise" closes at Mark Hellinger Theater NYC after 12 perfs

1943 Terence Rattigan's "While the Sun Shines," premieres in London

1865 Several Confederate veterans form Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tn

1864 Battle of Gordonsville, VA

1924 School in Babb's Switch, Oklahoma catches fire, 36 die

1046 Pope Clement II, [Suitger] elected

1994 4 Moslem fundamentalists capture Air France pilot in Algiers

1963 Greek & Turks riot in Cyprus

1956 "I Love Lucy" Christmas show airs, never put in syndication

1974 Cardinals' Lou Brock is named Sportsman of the Year

1951 1st televised opera (Amahl & Night Visitor)

1989 Panama's dictator, Manual Noriega seeks asylum at Vatican embassy

1942 Red army occupies German airports at Tasjinskaja & Morozowsk

1967 Pirate Radio Pegasus starts broadcasting off New Zealand

1874 Pope Pius IX proclaims a jubilee for 1875

1924 Albania becomes a republic (ex-premier Ahmed Zogoe's coup)

1922 BBC sends 1st British radio play "Truth about Father Christmas"

1934 Grimmett takes 9-180 for SA as Queensland make 430

1946 US General MacNarney gives 800,000 "minor nazi's" amnesty

1946 4th French republic established

1476 400 Burgundy soldiers freeze to death during siege of Nancy

1967 China PR performs nuclear test at Lop Nor PRC

1960 Dutch bishops question papacy values

1904 German SW Africa abolishes slavery of young children

1970 Walt Disney's "Aristocats" is released

1651 John van Riebeeck departs to Cape of Good Hope

1294 Cardinal Benedetto Gaetani chosen as Pope Boniface VIII

1980 Americans remembered Iran hostages by shining lights for 417 seconds

1927 Test Cricket debut of Walter Hammond, who scored 51 & took 5-36 v S Af

1936 1st radioactive isotope medicine administered, Berkeley, Ca

1953 KHOL (now KHGI) TV channel 13 in Kearney, NB (ABC) begins broadcasting

1871 Giusseppi Verdi's "Aida" premieres in Cairo, at Suez canal opening

1968 WATU (now WAGT) TV channel 26 in Augusta, GA (CBS) begins broadcasting

1798 Russia & England sign Second anti-French Coalition

1900 Herman Heijermans' "Hope of Blessing" premieres in Amsterdam

1818 "Silent Night" composed by Franz Joseph Gruber; 1st sung next day

1992 Pres Bush pardons Caspar Weinberger of Iran-contra affair

1799 Jakobijns plot against Napoleon uncovered

1984 Palace coup in Mauritania

1568 Uprising of Morisco's in Granada

1990 Expos trade Tim Raines to White Sox for Ivan Calderon & Barry Jones

1970 9 Jews are convicted in Leningrad of hijacking a plane

1924 Richard Rodgers Theater (46th St Chanin's) opens at 226 W 46th NYC

1593 Storm hits Texel: 40 ships hit, 500 killed

1910 Luisa Tetrazzini sings to 250,000 people at Lotta's Fountain

1964 Shooting begins on "The Cage" the pilot for Star Trek

1924 1st radio transmission of NCRV in Netherlands

1956 Ferdinand de Lesseps statue blown up in Port Said Egypt

1928 George Abbott Theater (Adelphi, 54 St) opens at 152 W 54th St NYC

1906 Reginald A Fessenden became 1st to broadcast music over radio (Mass)

1962 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR

1894 Scheveningse fishing boats destroyed by storm

1997 1st time a Channukah candle is officially lit in Vatican City

1986 Iran offensive against Iraqi islands of Shatt al-Arab

1814 Treaty of Ghent (end of US-Britain's War of 1812) signed

1832 1st US Negro hospital founded by whites chartered, Savannah, Ga

1920 Enrico Caruso gives his last public performance (NYC)

1922 London Coloseum opens

0640 John IV begins his reign as Catholic Pope

1979 1st Ariane-rocket launched

1893 Henry Ford completes his 1st useful gas motor

1953 KOA (now KCNC) TV channel 4 in Denver, CO (NBC) begins broadcasting

1935 National Council of Negro Women forms

1986 French hostage Aurel Cornea, held in Lebanon for 9 months, released

1912 Irving Fisher patents archiving system with index cards

1954 Council for the Children Protection forms in Neth

1948 1st US house completely sunheated is occupied (Dover Mass)

1565 Compromise of the Nobles closes against inquisition

1971 Peruvian Airlines Electra crashes at headwaters of Amazon, killing all except Juliane Margaret Koepcke found 10 days later

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