Daily Calendar for Thursday, December 24, 2026

Daily Calendar

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Kit Carson (frontiersman) – 1809
Eliza Cook (poet) – 1818
Juan Ramon Jimenez (poet) – 1881
Charles Wakefield Cadman (composer) – 1881
Howard Hughes (industrialist, aviator, and movie producer; born in Houston, Texas) – 1905
Ava Gardner (actress) – 1922
Mary Higgins Clark (author) – 1929
Robert Joffrey (dancer) – 1930
Ricky Martin (singer) – 1971
Ryan Seacrest (television host) – 1974
Pepper (Bolivian gray titi monkey) – 2012

Treaty of Ghent signed between the U.S. and Great Britain, ending the War of 1812 – 1814
Stille Nacht (Silent Night) first performed, Oberndorf, Austria – 1818
Clement Moore’s “A Visit From St. Nicholas” likely written – 1822
The Eggnog Riot began at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York – 1826
First great fire of San Francisco – 1849
Two-thirds of the collection of the Library of Congress (35,000 volumes) and a portion of the Capitol were destroyed by fire – 1851
Canadian-born Reginald A. Fessenden sent the first extended radio broadcast from Brant Rock, Massachusetts – 1906
O Holy Night was played on the world’s first radio program broadcast, from Brant Rock, Massachusetts – 1906
Unofficial Christmas truce began in areas of the Western Front during World War I – 1914
CONAD (later, NORAD) began to track Santa Claus – 1955
Catcher Jason Varitek was named captain of the Boston Red Sox – 2004

Chicago set a record low temperature of -23 degrees F – 1874
In Fairfield, Montana, the temperature dropped from 63 degrees F at noontime to a chilly 21 degrees below zero F at midnight – 1924