Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 24

This is a list of selected December 24 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.

Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.

To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.

← December 23	December 25 →

Staging area

Images

Use only ONE image at a time

• 
  Du Fu
• 
  A radio
• 
  Reginald Fessenden
• 
  KKK rituals
• 
  Ariane 1 replica
• 
  Earthrise as seen by the crew of Apollo 8
• 
  Christmas Island (Kiritimati)
• 
  Christmas truce
• 
  Earthrise as seen by the crew of Apollo 8
• 
  The advertisement that spurred the creation of NORAD Tracks Santa
• "Silent Night"
• 
  Wreckage of the Tangiwai disaster

Ineligible

Blurb	Reason
Christmas Eve (Gregorian calendar)	unreferenced section
1294 – Boniface VIII began his papacy, replacing St. Celestine V, who had declared that it was permissible for a Pope to resign, and then promptly did so.	refimprove section
1777 – An expedition led by English explorer James Cook reached Christmas Island, the largest coral atoll in the world.	refimprove
1826 – More than a third of U.S. Military Academy cadets in West Point, New York, rioted after consuming eggnog with whiskey during a Christmas party.	{Single source} {Self-published source}
1968 – Astronaut William Anders of the NASA Apollo 8 mission, the first manned voyage to orbit the Moon, took the famous photograph known as "Earthrise", showing the Earth rising above the lunar surface.	unreferenced section
1974 – Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin, Australia, eventually destroying more than 70% of the city.	refimprove section
1979 – Ariane 1, the first launch vehicle to be developed by the European Space Agency, had its first launch.	no orbital elements, unreferenced section
Jeff Sessions |b|1946	outdated

Eligible

• 1818 – The Christmas carol "Silent Night" (audio featured) by Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber was first performed in a church in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria.
• 1846 – The Sultanate of Brunei ceded the island of Labuan to the British Empire.
• 1865 – Six Confederate veterans of the American Civil War founded a social club they named the Ku Klux Klan, which later became a white supremacist group.
• 1871 – Aida, one of Giuseppe Verdi's most popular operas, made its debut in Cairo, Egypt.
• 1913 – Seventy-three people were crushed to death in a stampede after someone falsely yelled "fire" at a crowded Christmas party in Calumet, Michigan, U.S.
• 1914 – World War I: British and German soldiers interrupted fighting to celebrate Christmas, beginning the Christmas truce .
• 1918 – Forces united in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes defeated Hungarian forces to end the occupation of Međimurje.
• 1953 – A railway bridge at Tangiwai on New Zealand's North Island was damaged by a lahar and collapsed beneath a passenger train (wreckage pictured), killing 151 people.
• 1955 – According to legend, the NORAD Tracks Santa program began after children began calling the Continental Air Defense Command Center to inquire about Santa Claus's whereabouts due to a misprinted phone number in an advertisement.
• 1964 – The Viet Cong bombed the Brinks Hotel in Saigon, killing two U.S. Army officers and raising fears of an escalation of the Vietnam War.
• 1968 – Piloted by Jim Lovell, Apollo 8 became the first human spaceflight to reach and orbit the Moon (Earthrise pictured).
• 1973 – The U.S. Congress granted home rule to Washington, D.C., allowing the residents to elect their own mayor and a city council.
• 1983 – Aeroflot Flight 601 crashed on approach to Leshukonskoye in the Russian SSR, killing 44 out of 49 people on board.
• 2008 – The Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan rebel group, began attacks on several villages in the north of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing hundreds and committing numerous atrocities.
• 2021 – Burmese military forces killed at least 40 civilians during the Mo So massacre in Kayah State, Myanmar.
• Born/died: | Gongsun Shu|d|36| Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik|d|738| Yang Bin|d|950| Walter Bower|d|1449| Leonaert Bramer|b|1596| William Warburton|b|1698| George Crabbe|b|1754| Adam Mickiewicz |b|1798| Johnny Gruelle|b|1880| Adam Exner|b|1928| Anthony Fauci |b|1940| Pernilla Wahlgren |b|1967| Turid Birkeland|d|2015|

Notes

• Apollo 8 appears on December 21, so Earthrise should not appear in the same year
• Christmas Island appears on December 25, so Kiritimati (aka Christmas Island, the 1777 blurb) should not appear in the same year

December 24

Christmas Island (Kiritimati)

• 759 – The Tang-dynasty poet Du Fu departed for Chengdu, where he lived for the next five years and composed poems about life in his thatched cottage.
• 1777 – An expedition led by English explorer James Cook reached Christmas Island (pictured), the largest coral atoll in the world.
• 1814 – The United Kingdom and the United States signed a peace treaty in Ghent, present-day Belgium, ending the War of 1812.
• 1979 – The Soviet government deployed troops in Afghanistan, starting the Soviet–Afghan War.
• 1999 – Jihadists linked to al-Qaeda hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 to force the release of Islamist figures held in prison in India.

• Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik (d. 738)
• George Crabbe (b. 1754)
• Adam Exner (b. 1928)
• Turid Birkeland (d. 2015)

More anniversaries:

• December 23
• December 24
• December 25