Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 24
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a list of selected December 24 anniversaries that appears on the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition may be controversial, or on a day that is or soon will be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors.
- 1777 – An expedition led by English explorer James Cook reached Christmas Island (pictured), the largest coral atoll in the world.
- 1814 – The Treaty of Ghent was signed in Ghent, present-day Belgium, ending the War of 1812 between the United Kingdom and the United States.
- 1865 – Six Confederate veterans of the American Civil War founded the Ku Klux Klan, which would later become a white supremacist group.
- 1906 – Canadian inventor Reginald Fessenden transmitted the first radio broadcast, which included his playing a song on the violin and reading a passage from the Bible.
- 1914 – British and German soldiers interrupted World War I to celebrate Christmas, beginning the Christmas truce.
- 1968 – The crew of the NASA spacecraft Apollo 8 became the first humans to orbit the Moon.
- 1974 – Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin, Australia, eventually destroying more than 70 percent of the city.
More events: December 23 – December 24 – December 25
