TODAY IN HISTORY

the 359th day of 2016. There are seven days left in the year. This is Christmas Eve; the Jewish Festival of Lights, Hanukkah, begins at sunset.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:

On this date in 1906, Canadian physicist Reginald A. Fessenden became the first person to transmit the human voice (his own), as well as music, over radio, from Brant Rock, Mass.

In 1814,

the United States and Britain signed the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812 following ratification by both the British Parliament and the U.S. Senate.

In 1851,

fire devastated the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

In 1865,

several veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club in Pulaski, Tenn., that was the original version of the Ku Klux Klan.

In 1871,

Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Aida” had its world premiere in Cairo, Egypt.

In 1914,

during World War I, impromptu Christmas truces began along parts of the Western Front between British and German soldiers.

In 1939,

Pope Pius XII delivered a Christmas Eve address in which he offered a five-point program for peace and denounced “premeditated aggressions.”

In 1943,

President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe.

In 1951,

Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors,” the first opera written specifically for television, was first broadcast by NBC-TV.

In 1968,

the Apollo 8 astronauts, orbiting the moon, read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve telecast.

In 1974,

Cyclone Tracy began battering the Australian city of Darwin and causing some 65 deaths.

In 1995,

fire broke out at the Philadelphia Zoo, killing 23 rare gorillas, orangutans, gibbons and lemurs.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:

Songwriterband leader Dave Bartholomew is 98. Recording company executive Mike Curb is 72. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., is 70. Actor Anil Kapoor is 57. Actor Wade Williams is 55. Designer Kate Spade is 54. Actor Mark Valley is 52. Actor Amaury Nolasco is 46. Author Stephenie Meyer is 43. Former “American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest is 42. Rock singer Louis Tomlinson (One Direction) is 25.