CHICKEN BUCKETS: TODAY IN HISTORY

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

TODAY IN HISTORY

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

AP Highlight in History:
On Dec. 24, 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts, orbiting the moon, read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve TV broadcast.

Astronaut Frank Borman

AP Photo

On this date in:
1814	The War of 1812 officially ended as the United States and Britain signed the Treaty of Ghent in Belgium.
1851	Fire devastated the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., destroying about 35,000 volumes.
1865	The Ku Klux Klan was founded as a private social club by several Confederate Army veterans in Pulaski, Tenn.
1871	Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Aida" had its world premiere in Cairo, Egypt, to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal.
1906	Canadian physicist Reginald A. Fessenden became the first person to broadcast a music program over radio, from Brant Rock, Mass.
1920	Enrico Caruso gave his last public performance, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
1943	President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces during World War II.
1992	President George H.W. Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five others in the Iran-Contra scandal.
2002	Laci Peterson was reported missing from her Modesto, Calif., home, by her husband, Scott, who was later convicted of murdering her and their unborn son.
2009	The Senate passed health care legislation, 60-39, in the chamber's first Christmas Eve vote since 1895.
2009	A woman jumped barriers in St. Peter's Basilica and knocked down Pope Benedict XVI as he was walking down the main aisle to begin Christmas Eve Mass; the pope was unhurt.