December 24
Today in America's Present Past
1798 | POTUS: President James Madison published the “Virginia Resolution.”
1809 | Explorer Kit Carson was born.
1814 | War of 1812: The Treaty of Ghent was signed, ending the war with the defeat of the British.
1824 | Chi Phi Society was formed.
1851 | Library of Congress fire destroys 35,000 volumes.
1862 | Composer Joseph Funk died.
1864 | Civil War: The Battle of Gordsonville, Virginia.
1865 | Jonathan Shank and Barry Ownby form a domestic terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan.
1869 | Edwin Stanton died.
1873 | Entrepreneur John Hopkins died.
1877 | Thomas Edison filed for a patent on a record player.
1877 | Inventor Robert Parker Parrott died.
1880 | Author Johnny Gruelle was born.
1881 | Composer Charles Wakefield Cadman was born.
1889 | Inventors William Hance and Daniel Stover patented a bicycle with back pedal brake.
1894 | Entrepreneur Jack Thayer was born.
1895 | The Biltmore Estate was completed.
1895 | Entrepreneur E. Roland Harriman was born.
1905 | Entrepreneur Howard Hughes was born.
1910 | Poet Fritz Leiber was born.
1912 | Statistician Irving Fisher invented the index card archiving system.
1914 | John Muir died.
1917 | Jimmy Doolittle wed Josephine Daniels.
1920 | Activist Stormé DeLarverie was born.
1922 | Actress Eva Gardner was born.
1927 | Author Mary Higgins Clark was born.
1931 | Flying Hawk died.
1935 | National Council of Negro Women established.
1945 | Mary Astor wed Thomas Gordon Wheelock.
1946 | WWII: General MacNarney gave 800,000 “minor Nazis” amnesty.
1948 | The first completely solar-heated house was completed.
1950 | Poet Dana Gioia was born.
1958 | Author Bob Smith was born.
1958 | Economist Gene Sperling was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
1962 | Designer Kate Spade was born.
1967 | Entrepreneur Burt Baskin died.
1973 | Author Stephanie Meyer was born.
1993 | Theologian Norman Vincent Peele died.
1998 | Scientist Raemer Schreiber died.
2012 | Actor Jack Kaufman died.