It happened on this day, December 24
Events:
1610 – Signature in The Hague of the first agreement between Morocco and the Netherlands.
1638 – Baghdad falls again to the Ottomans, led by Sultan Murad IV, after a 39-day siege.
1777 – Explorer James Cook discovers the island of Kiritimati.
1800 – Napoleon Bonaparte is the victim of an assassination attempt.
1814 – Signing of the Treaty of Ghent which ends the war between England and the United States.
1851 – The Library of Congress burns.
1871 – The first performance of the opera Aida is presented in Cairo.
1924 – Albania becomes a republic.
1929 – Argentine President Hipólito Yrigoyen is the victim of an assassination attempt.
1939 – Pope Pius XII makes a Christmas Eve appeal for world peace during World War II.
1941 – British and allied forces occupy the city of Benghazi in Libya.
1943 – General Dwight Eisenhower is named commander of American forces operating in Europe against the Nazi army.
1946 – Creation of the French Fourth Republic.
1948 – The first home to use entirely solar energy in the United States.
1951 – King Muhammad Idris Al-Senussi declares Libya's independence and calls it the United Kingdom of Libya.
💥 Signature of a military agreement between France and Libya allowing the maintenance of French forces in Fezzan.
1954 – Declaration of independence of Laos.
1967 – China successfully carries out a nuclear test.
1968 – The Apollo 8 crew enters orbit around the Moon, making the first attempt in human history. The crew orbits the Moon 10 times and broadcasts images live on television. It has become one of the most famous Christmas Eve programs and one of the most famous. the most watched programs in television history.
1972 – King Hussein bin Talal of Jordan marries Alia Bahaa Al-Din Touqan.
1974 – “Cyclone Tracy” devastates Darwin, Australia.
1978 – Very violent demonstrations break out against the Americans in Tehran.
1979 – The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan to support the Marxist government there.
💥 Launch of the European Ariane rocket.
1983 – The kidnappers of wealthy Romanian jewelers “Anna” and “Giorgio Bulgari” free them in exchange for a ransom amounting to 51 million French francs.
1989 – Civil war begins in Liberia.
1997 – A French court sentences Carlos to life imprisonment.
💥 Armed men in Algeria massacre 59 people in the villages of Tabarit and Babnam near Algiers.
1999 – In Algeria, armed men kill 26 people at the entrances to the capital.
💥 Pakistanis hijack an Indian civilian plane between Kathmandu and New Delhi and fly it to Kandahar, Afghanistan, then ransom its passengers and crew along with three Kashmiri militants.
2002 – New Delhi Metro opens.
2004 – Qatar national football team won the 17th Gulf Cup hosted in the State of Qatar.
2008 – The leader of the coup d'état in Guinea, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, announces his accession to the presidency.
2015 – A fire breaks out at Jazan General Hospital in southwestern Saudi Arabia, killing 25 people and injuring 123 others.
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Births:
1166 – King John, king of England.
1809 – Kit Carson, American scout.
1818 – James Prescott Joule, English physicist.
1822 – Matthew Arnold, English poet.
1845 – King George I, second king of Greece.
1868 – Emanuel Lasker, German mathematician, philosopher and chess player.
1881 – Juan Ramón Jimenez, Spanish writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1956.
1905 – Howard Hughes, American inventor and film producer.
1917 – Omar Al-Gizawi, Egyptian singer and actor.
1924 – Abdel Moneim Ibrahim, Egyptian actor.
** Nour Al-Huda, Lebanese singer and actress.
1940 – Mohamed Farid, Egyptian actor.
1943 – Tarja Halonen, 11th president of Finland.
1955 – John Day, Australian politician.
1957 – Hamid Karzai, President of the Republic of Afghanistan.
1959 – Anil Kapoor, Indian actor.
1960 – Glenn McQueen, American animator.
1961 – Dr. Ilham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan.
1969 – Ed Miliband, British politician.
1970 – Amaury Nolasco, American actor.
1971 – Ricky Martin, Puerto Rican singer.
1974 – Marcelo Salas, Chilean footballer.
1975 – Maria Zakharova, first spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
1977 – Abdul Qader Hadhoud, Kuwaiti singer and actor.
1978 – Yildiray Basturk, Turkish footballer.
1982 – Tetsuya Kakihara, Japanese voice actor.
1986 – Ana Brenda, Mexican actress.
1991 – Louis Tomlinson, British singer.
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Death:
738 – Maslama bin Abd al-Malik, Umayyad military commander.
1453 – John Dunstable, English musician.
1524 – Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer.
1813 – Empress Go-Sakuramachi, 117th Empress of Japan.
1873 – Johns Hopkins, American businessman.
1892 – Gabriel Al-Dalal, Syrian poet and journalist.
1898 – Saint Charbel, Lebanese saint.
** Patriarch Jean Boutros Al-Hajj, seventy-first Maronite Patriarch.
1932 – Sheikh Isa bin Ali Al Khalifa, ruler of Bahrain.
1939 – Mahmoud Al-Karmi, Palestinian political journalist, poet and teacher.
1964 – Badr Shaker Al-Sayyab, Iraqi poet.
** Zahoor Hussein, Iraqi singer.
1968 – Sati' Al-Husri, Syrian thinker and politician, one of the pioneers of Arab nationalism.
1973 – Gerard Kuiper, Dutch/American astronomer.
1976 – Muhammad Al-Tabei, Egyptian writer.
1978 – Philip Hitti, American historian of Lebanese origin.
1979 – Hanna Al-Tabbaa, Lebanese poet.
1980 – Karl Dönitz, President of Germany.
1982 – Louis Aragon, French poet.
1984 – Minobe Ryukichi, Japanese politician.
1997 – Fahd Ballan, Syrian artist and singer.
2000 – Horace Parker, American biochemist and microbiologist.
2008 – Harold Pinter, English playwright.
2009 – Dr. Rafael Caldera, President of Venezuela
2011 – Johannes Geesters, Dutch actor.
** Mustafa Al-Maliki, Palestinian politician.
2017 – Hossein Shah Hosseini, Iranian politician.
2018 Mahmoud Al-Hashemi Al-Shahroudi, Iranian politician and religious authority.
** Mustafa Issa, Palestinian politician.
2020 – Ismail Al-Shamali, Palestinian writer and novelist and one of Syria's longest-serving political detainees. He died of Covid-19 in Syrian prisons.
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Holidays and Occasions:
⏪ Christmas Eve in Western Christian denominations.
⏪ Independence Day in Libya.
