This Day in History: Dec. 24

On this day, Dec. 24 …

1943: President Franklin D. Roosevelt appoints Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe as part of Operation Overlord.

Also on this day:

• 1814: The United States and Britain sign the Treaty of Ghent, which ends the War of 1812 following ratification by both the British Parliament and the U.S. Senate.
• 1865: Several veterans of the Confederate Army form a private social club in Pulaski, Tenn., that would become the original version of the Ku Klux Klan.
• 1871: Giuseppe Verdi’s opera "Aida" has its world premiere in Cairo, Egypt.
• 1906: Canadian physicist Reginald A. Fessenden becomes the first person to transmit the human voice (his own) as well as music over radio, from Brant Rock, Mass.
• 1913: A false cry of "Fire!" during a Christmas party for striking miners and their families at the Italian Hall in Calumet, Mich. sparks a stampede where 73 people, mostly children, die.
• 1943: President Franklin D. Roosevelt appoints Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe as part of Operation Overlord.
• 1968: The Apollo 8 astronauts, orbiting the moon, read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve telecast.
• 1980: Americans remember the U.S. hostages in Iran by burning candles or shining lights for 417 seconds -- one second for each day of captivity.
• 1990: Tom Cruise marries his "Days of Thunder" co-star, Nicole Kidman, during a private ceremony at a Colorado ski resort. (The marriage would end in 2001).
• 1992: President George H.W. Bush pardons former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five others in the Iran-Contra scandal.
• 2008: The Federal Reserve grants a request by the financing arm of General Motors to tap the government’s $700 billion rescue fund, bolstering GM’s ability to survive.
• 2013: Pope Francis lauds Jesus’ humble beginning as a poor and vulnerable baby as he celebrates his first Christmas Eve Mass as pontiff in St. Peter’s Basilica.