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This Day in History: Dec. 24
By Bryan Robinson
Published December 24, 2020
In 1943, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt named Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower as supreme commander of Allied forces.
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.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/this-day-in-history-dec-24