Today in History for Dec. 24, 2017

2nd Lt. Dale V. Grimes of Melrose, Iowa.

Dec. 24, 1524 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama died from malaria in Kochi, Portuguese India, somewhere between 55 and 65 years old.

Dec. 24, 1745 – Revolutionary War Patriot, physician and social reformer Benjamin Rush was born in Byberry Township, Pa.

Dec. 24, 1777 – Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, was discovered by James Cook.

Dec. 24, 1814 – Following the American victory on Lake Champlain which led to the conclusion of the U.S.-British peace negotiations in Belgium, the Treaty of Ghent was signed, formally ending the War of 1812.

Dec. 24, 1824 - A Chief of the old Choctaw Nation, Pushmataha (Apushmataha) was in Washington, D.C., in hopes of negotiating a better treaty for his people. He had led Choctaw warriors many times in battle and fought on the U.S. side in the War of 1812. He suddenly got sick on this day and died while at Tennison’s Hotel. He had told President Jackson of his wishes to be buried with military honors. Jackson led thousands of mourners when Pushmataha was buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington D.C.

Dec. 24, 1824 – During his tour of the United States, the Marquis de Layayette arrived at the "Jug Bridge" crossing the Monocacy River on the National Pike east of Frederick, Md.

Dec. 24-25, 1826 - The Eggnog Riot, sometimes known as the Grog Mutiny, took place at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. The incident involved two Alabama cadets, William R. Burnley and Samuel Alexander Roberts, as well as future Confederate president Jefferson Davis.

Dec. 24, 1828 - William Burke who, with his partner William Hare, dug up the dead and murdered to sell the corpses for dissection, went on trial in Edinburgh.

Dec. 24, 1851 - A fire devastated the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., destroying about 35,000 volumes.

Dec. 24, 1861 – During the Civil War, a skirmish was fought at Wadesburg, Mo.

Dec. 24, 1861 – The first of two days of Federal operations near Fairfax Courthouse, Va. began.

Dec. 24, 1862 – During the Civil War, a Federal operation began between Helena, Ark. and the Tallahatchie River, in Mississippi. Skirmishes were also fought at Glasgow and Green‘s Chapel in Kentucky.; and at Bolivar, Middleburg, near Nashville, and at Perkin’s Mill in Tennessee.

Dec. 24, 1863 - At the height of the Civil War, the Battle of Dandridge occurred at Dandridge, Tenn. as Confederate General James Longstreet and Union General Ambrose Burnside struggled for control of Knoxville.

Dec. 24, 1863 – 59^TH ALABAMA: The 59^th Alabama took part in operations at Dandridge, Tenn. and Mossy Creek.

Dec. 24, 1863 – Capt. David William Kelly of Co. F of the 36th Alabama Infantry Regiment died from wounds he received on Nov. 25, 1863 at Rossville Gap on the left at Missionary Ridge, Tenn. After getting wounded, he was sent to a Union hospital and was then transferred to the U.S. Army of Cumberland Hospital at Chattanooga. He was buried in a trench grave at Confederate Cemetery in Chattanooga.

Dec. 24, 1863 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought at Rodney, Miss.; at Estenaula, near Dandridge, at Jack’s Creek, new Market and Mossy Creek Station, in Tennessee; and near Germantown and in Lee County, Va. A six-day Federal operation also began out from Cassville, Mo. to determine the movement of Confederate Col. Stand Watie.

Dec. 24, 1864 - A Union fleet of 66 ships, under Admiral David Dixon Porter, began a bombardment of Fort Fisher, North Carolina. Although an impressive display of firepower, the attack failed to destroy the fort, and a ground attack the next day did not succeed either.

Dec. 24, 1864 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought near Fort Smith, Richland and Pine Bluff, in Arkansas; at Lynnville and Richland Creek, in Tennessee; and at Taylorstown, Va.

Dec. 24, 1865 – In Pulaski, Tenn., a group of Confederate veterans convened to form a secret society that they christen the “Ku Klux Klan.” The KKK rapidly grew from a secret social fraternity to a paramilitary force bent on reversing the federal government’s progressive Reconstruction Era-activities in the South. Former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest was the KKK’s first grand wizard, but in 1869, he unsuccessfully tried to disband it after he grew critical of the Klan’s excessive violence.

Dec. 24, 1886 - Samuel Sixkiller, a prominent Native American leader during the American Civil War and the postbellum period, was appointed to the positions of High Sheriff of the Cherokee Nation and Warden of the National Penitentiary, and served as a Deputy United States Marshal. On Christmas Eve in 1886, Samuel Sixkiller went into Muskogee to pick up medicine. While on his way to Turner & Byrne's store he was confronted by two men by the names of Dick Vann and Alf Cunningham. The two men supposedly had a grudge from a previous run in with Sixkiller weeks before. Vann and Cunningham were armed with a shotgun and a pistol. Sixkiller managed to knock away the gun of Cunningham before being shot by Vann multiple times. He was dead on the scene. The two men then jumped onto their horses and left town. The pursuing men did not find the gunmen. Some state that justice was eventually found by Samuel Sixkiller's son Lucas. A funeral was held the following Sunday. Lawmen from across the territory attended the funeral and even overflowed the church. The procession following the service was one of the largest ever assembled in that part of the country.

Dec. 24, 1893 – Outlaw Charles Kelley was arrested in Monroe County, five miles south of Pine Apple, hiding in a cotton house owned by H.L. Solomon. Solomon and some of his neighbors captured him and took him to Greenville the next day, which was Christmas. On Dec. 17, he and accomplice John Hipp robbed and murdered Butler County Tax Collector C.J. Armstrong. On Dec. 28, Hipp and Kelley were taken by a mob of 100 armed, masked men and lynched on the courthouse columns.

Dec. 24, 1895 – The Rev. J.W. Killough, the new pastor of the Monroeville Circuit M.E. Church, arrived in Monroeville “with his interesting family” on this Tuesday, and began living at the parsonage.

Dec. 24, 1903 – Polish-Russian geographer and explorer Ernst Krenkel was born in Białystok, now Poland, to a German family.

Dec. 24, 1905 – Tycoon, aviation pioneer and film producer Howard Hughes was born in Houston, Texas.

Dec. 24, 1906 – Canadian electrician and chemist Reginald A. Fessenden transmited the first radio broadcast, which consisted of a poetry reading, a violin solo and a speech.

Dec. 24, 1914 – Monroe Journal editor Q. Salter announced that “following our usual custom” there would be no Dec. 31 edition, so that his employees could have the holidays off from work.

Dec. 24, 1914 – The Evergreen Courant reported that 18 prisoners in the Conecuh County Jail almost escaped “one night last week.” Some of them used iron bar supports from their cots to remove enough bricks around a window a big enough for them to escape from their cell. They also torn their blankets into “strings” that they’d tied together to help them reach the ground. Sheriff Hines discovered their plot in time to prevent their escape.

Dec. 24, 1914 – The last known Christmas truce occurred, during World War I. German troops fighting in Belgium began decorating their trenches and singing Christmas carols. Their enemy, the British, soon joined in the caroling. The war was put on hold, and these soldiers greeted each other in “No Man’s Land,” exchanging gifts of whiskey and cigars.

Dec. 24, 1918 - On Christmas Eve, Major John N. Douglas wrote to his wife and young daughter from Mayenne, France, telling them of the challenges still faced by the soldiers in his regiment more than a month after World War I officially ended.

Dec. 24, 1921 – Pro Footall Hall of Fame halfback Bill Dudley was born in Bluefield, Va. He went on to play for Virginia, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Detroit Lions and the Washington Redskins. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1966.

Dec. 24, 1930 - W.G. Rabun, a pioneer citizen of Conecuh County, died at the age of 73 at his home in Brooklyn, Ala. on this Tuesday. He was buried the following day in his family burial grounds in the Brooklyn Cemetery with the Rev. C.O. Stewart officiating.

Dec. 24, 1939 – Former Monroeville Pressing Shop manager L.D. Moore died suddenly early on this morning at the home of his sister, Mrs. Rex Russell. He was buried in the Baptist Cemetery in Monroeville, Ala.

Dec. 24, 1940 – On this Christmas Eve, Jean-Paul Sartre’s first play was performed, in a German POW camp where he himself was a prisoner. The play was called “Bariona, or the Son of Thunder,” and it was Sartre’s take on the Nativity story.

Dec. 24, 1942 – The survivors of the Little Eva crash, including Grady Gaston of Frisco City, Ala., found a shack. Also on that day, survivor 2nd Lt. Dale Grimes, the bombardier, drowned in the Robinson River when the current took him out to sea and he was too weak to swim back. His body was later recovered.

Dec. 24, 1944 – The Evergreen Hotel, built around 1895, burned to the ground on this Christmas Eve night. This hotel was built after Evergreen suffered its second great fire around 1893 to 1894. The Evergreen Hotel of that era was on the same site as the one that burned in 1944.

Dec. 24, 1946 – U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, who also served as the 44th Attorney General of Alabama, was born in Selma, Ala.

Dec. 24, 1947 – The 20-room Geneva High School was dynamited around 10 p.m., resulting in all the windows in the building being shattered and “considerable repairs” being necessary before the school could be reopened. Sheriff W.P. Register believed that a “bunch of boys” set off the blast as part of a “prank.”

Dec. 24, 1955 – NORAD Tracks Santa for the first time in what will become an annual Christmas Eve tradition.

Dec. 24, 1964 – During the Vietnam War, Viet Cong operatives bombed the Brinks Hotel in Saigon, South Vietnam to demonstrate they could strike an American installation in the heavily guarded capital.

Dec. 24, 1966 – A Canadair CL-44 chartered by the United States military crashed into a small village in South Vietnam, killing 129.

Dec. 24, 1967 – Army Spc. Travis Robert Sutton, 20, of Andalusia, Ala. was killed in Vietnam while serving with Co. B, 20^th Engineering Battalion. Born on Aug. 13, 1947, he was buried in the Oak Grove Baptist Church Cemetery at Gantt in Covington County, Ala. According to the Jan. 4, 1968 edition of The Andalusia Star News, Sutton, a former student at Andalusia High School, was killed in non-military action. He was driving a truck in a road construction project when the brakes on the vehicle failed. The truck plunged over an embankment resulting in injuries that were fatal for Sutton. Sutton was employed at the Opp Micolas Cotton Mill before entering the Army. He was trained at Ft. Benning and a Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo., before going to Vietnam in March 1967.

Dec. 24, 1967 – In an incident attributed to the Bermuda Triangle, the owner and a passenger on the cabin cruiser “Witchcraft” disappeared while the craft was at a harbor buoy one mile from Miami, Fla.

Dec. 24, 1967 - Joe Namath of the New York Jets became the first NFL quarterback to pass for 4,000 yards.

Dec. 24, 1968 – In the first manned space mission to the moon, the Apollo 8 spacecraft entered orbit around the moon. Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders became the first humans to orbit a celestial body other than our Earth. Apollo 8 circled the moon 10 times over the next 20 hours, while the astronauts tested equipment and took many photographs of the moon’s surface.

Dec. 24, 1969 - Center fielder Curt Flood of the St. Louis Cardinals wrote a letter to Bowie Kuhn, the commissioner of major league baseball, protesting the Cardinals' decision to trade him to the Philadelphia Phillies and asking to be made a free agent.

Dec. 24, 1972 - Comedian Bob Hope gave what he said was his last Christmas show to U.S. servicemen in Saigon.

Dec. 24, 1972 - President Nixon suspended Operation Linebacker II for 36 hours to mark the Christmas holiday.

Dec. 24, 1973 – On this day before Christmas, cars lined up at the few gas stations that were open in the Monroeville, Ala. area. According to The Monroe Journal, “it was the last chance for many motorists to fill up before a Christmas Day that saw all but a handful of stations around the nation close down, largely because of the energy crisis.”

Dec. 24, 1975 – In connection with the “Amityville Horror” case, Father Ralph J. Pecoraro called George Lutz and advised him to stay out of the second floor room where he had heard a mysterious voice telling him to “get out.”

Dec. 24, 1978 – Weather observer Earl Windham reported 1.43 inches of rain in Evergreen, Ala.

Dec. 24, 1980 – Witnesses reported the first of several sightings of unexplained lights near RAF Woodbridge, in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England, United Kingdom, an incident called "Britain's Roswell."

Dec. 24, 1981 - Reggie Jackson announced that he would join Gene Autry’s California Angels for the 1982 season.

Dec. 24, 1985 - Richard Parker Ivey, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Johnny Ivey of Scottsboro and the grandson of Mr. and Mrs. Wilburn Nall of Lenox, killed a 38-pound bobcat on this Christmas Eve at the Nall’s farm near Lenox, Ala.

Dec. 24, 1991 - Alabama author Virginia Sorensen died in Florida.

Dec. 24, 1997 – In “V for Vendetta,” Finch related to Susan V’s transformation and escaped from Larkhill.

Dec. 24, 2000 – Thirty-six minutes after the end of a game, both the New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins were called back to the playing field. The teams had to play the final three seconds of the game, which the Dolphins had won, 27-24. The end result did not change.

Dec. 24, 2012 - One interpretation of the Maya calendar predicted that the end of world or the present creation would take place on this day.

Dec. 24, 2015 – A UFO was reported around 5:13 p.m. on this Thursday in Huntsville. The witness in this case and his wife were driving home from dinner on Christmas Eve, and passed by the Space and Rocket Museum in Huntsville. The man’s wife used her iPhone to snap a few pictures of the Saturn 5 rocket on display outside the museum, and when she viewed the pictures later she noticed something unusual. A mysterious object in the sky showed up in five different photos she took. In some photos, the object looks spherical, in others it looks cylindrical and in others it appears to possibly have wings. In at least one of the photos, the object appears to feature two white lights. In all five of the photos, the object is blurry and hard to see clearly.