[Amnorix]

December 24

1814. The Treaty of Ghent, ending the misbegotten War of 1812, is signed.

1851. The Library of Congress loses 2/3rds of its books to fire. This includes about 2/3rds of the contribution made by Thomas Jefferson.

1865. The Ku Klux Klan is formed in Pulaski, Tennessee by Confederate veterans. This "first" Klan incarnation never had any organization beyond the local level, but was widely copied throughout the South during the period of Reconstruction.

1943. Dwight David Eisenhower is named Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force (SCAEF). General Marshall and British Field Marshal Alanbrooke had hoped for the appointment, but Marshall could not be spared by President Roosevelt as Marshall's clout before Congress was tremendous, and Alanbrooke and the British had to give way to the eventual vast superiority of American numbers in Europe. IIRC, by December 1944, American forces on continental Europe would outnumber the British by 2:1.

1955. North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)'s predecessor tracks Santa for the first time in what will become an annual holiday tradition. The tradition began when a Sears department store placed an advertisement in a Colorado newspaper, telling children they could call Santa and providing a phone number which was actually the number for the Colorado Springs' Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center. Colonel Shoup, commanding officer that night, told the phone operators to give the children who called a "current location" for Santa.

In 1958 CONAD was replaced with NORAD. NORAD continues the tradition to this day, using volunteers -- mostly at Peterson Air Base and Cheyenne Mountain -- to staff the effort. The volunteers handle approximately 12,000 emails and 70,000 telephone calls each year.