In 1943, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt named Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower as supreme commander of Allied forces.

In 1943, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt named Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower as supreme commander of Allied forces.

On this day, Dec. 24 …

1943: President Franklin D. Roosevelt appoints Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe as part of Operation Overlord.

Also on this day:

  • 1814: The United States and Britain sign the Treaty of Ghent, which ends the War of 1812 following ratification by both the British Parliament and the U.S. Senate.
  • 1865: Several veterans of the Confederate Army form a private social club in Pulaski, Tenn., that would become the original version of the Ku Klux Klan.
  • 1871: Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Aida” has its world premiere in Cairo, Egypt.
  • 1906: Canadian physicist Reginald A. Fessenden becomes the first person to transmit the human voice (his own) as well as music over radio, from Brant Rock, Mass.
  • 1913: A false cry of “Fire!” during a Christmas party for striking miners and their families at the Italian Hall in Calumet, Mich. sparks a stampede where 73 people, mostly children, die.
  • 1943: President Franklin D. Roosevelt appoints Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe as part of Operation Overlord.
  • 1968: The Apollo 8 astronauts, orbiting the moon, read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve telecast.
  • 1980: Americans remember the U.S. hostages in Iran by burning candles or shining lights for 417 seconds — one second for each day of captivity.
  • 1990: Tom Cruise marries his “Days of Thunder” co-star, Nicole Kidman, during a private ceremony at a Colorado ski resort. (The marriage would end in 2001).
  • 1992: President George H.W. Bush pardons former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five others in the Iran-Contra scandal.
  • 2008: The Federal Reserve grants a request by the financing arm of General Motors to tap the government’s $ 700 billion rescue fund, bolstering GM’s ability to survive.
  • 2013: Pope Francis lauds Jesus’ humble beginning as a poor and vulnerable baby as he celebrates his first Christmas Eve Mass as pontiff in St. Peter’s Basilica.