On This Day, Dec. 24: Coolidge lights first national Christmas tree
Dec. 24 (UPI) -- On this date in history:
In 1814, the Treaty of Ghent was signed by representatives of the United States and Britain, ending the War of 1812.
In 1851, the Library of Congress and part of the Capitol building in Washington were destroyed by fire.
In 1865, a group of Confederate veterans met in Pulaski, Tenn., to form a secret society they called the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1871, Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Aida" premiered in Cairo. It had been commissioned to commemorate the opening of the Suez Canal.
In 1906, Reginald A. Fessenden, a Canadian-born radio inventor, broadcast the first musical program, a female singer's violin-accompanied "O Holy Night," from Brant Rock, Mass. He had discovered the superheterodyne principle, the basis for modern radio receivers.
In 1909, Miss Jean L. Clemens, younger daughter of Mark Twain, was found dead in a bath tub at the home of her father. Miss Clemens' cause of death is believed to have been the result of an epileptic convulsion.
In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge lit the first national Christmas tree on the White House lawn. Members of the First Congregational Church sang carols and the Marine band performed.
In 1942, German rocket engineers launched the first surface-to-surface guided missile.
In 1943, President Frankin D. Roosevelt named Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower as supreme commander of the Allied forces.
In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, kicking off the nine-year Soviet-Afghan War.
In 1983, officials said one of the United States' severest early-season cold waves in history had claimed nearly 300 lives.
In 1990, the bells of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow rang to celebrate Christmas for the first time since the 1924 death of Lenin.
In 1992, President George H.W. Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger for his role in the Iran-Contra affair.
In 1994, gunmen seized Air France Flight 8969 as it prepared to leave Algiers for Paris, killing three hostages. The hostage takers were killed and remaining hostages freed two days later.
In 1997, a French court convicted the international terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal of the 1975 killings of three men in Paris and sentenced him to life in prison. The terrorist, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, was given a third life sentence in 2017.
In 2005, Hwang Woo-suk, a South Korean scientist whose research on stem cells and cloning won him international acclaim, resigned after admitting he fabricated his groundbreaking paper in which he said he created stem cell colonies from 11 patients.
In 2021, a fire that consumed a river ferry in Bangladesh killed at least 40 people and left dozens injured. Investigators blamed a fault in the boat's engine.
