Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date

1814

The War of 1812 officially ended as the United States and Britain signed the Treaty of Ghent in Belgium.

1851

Fire devastated the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., destroying about 35,000 volumes including 2/3 of Thomas Jefferson's personal library, sold to the institution in 1815.

1865

Several veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club in Pulaski, Tenn., called the Ku Klux Klan. A name derived from the Greek word kuklos, meaning circle, and clann, a Scottish Gaelic word for the traditional tribal units of Scotland.

1871

Giuseppe Verdi's opera ''Aida'' had its world premiere in Cairo, Egypt, to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal.

1906

Canadian physicist Reginald A. Fessenden became the first person to broadcast a music program over radio, from Brant Rock, Mass.

1914

In World War I, the first air raid on Britain was made when a German airplane dropped a bomb on the grounds of a rectory in Dover.

1919

John D. Rockefeller, thought to be the world's richest man, gave away $100 million dollars. Half the money was to increase teachers' salaries while the Rockefeller Foundation would give away the rest.

1920

Enrico Caruso gave his last public performance, singing in Jacques Halevy's ''La Juive'' at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

1942

German rocket engineer Wernher von Braun launched the first surface-to-surface guided missile.

1943

President Roosevelt appointed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces as part of Operation Overlord. Most thought Chief of Staff George C. Marshall would get the nod.

1948

"The Perry Como Show" premiered on TV.

1951

Gian Carlo Menotti's ''Amahl and the Night Visitors,'' the first opera written specifically for television, was first broadcast by NBC.

1951

Libya achieved independence as the United Kingdom of Libya, under King Idris I.

1962

More than 1,000 men taken prisoner at the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba return to the United States in time for Christmas.

1963

New York's Idlewild Airport was renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport in honor of the assassinated President.

1968

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

1979

The first European-built rocket, Ariane 1, successfully blasts off into space.

1979

Afghanistan was invaded by Soviet Union troops as the Kabul government fell.

1980

Americans remembered the U.S. hostages in Iran by burning candles or shining lights for 417 seconds - one second for each day of captivity.

1989

Ousted Panamanian ruler Manuel Noriega, who had succeeded in eluding U.S. forces, took refuge at the Vatican's diplomatic mission in Panama City.

1992

President Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five others in the Iran-Contra scandal.

1992

President George Bush pardoned six Reagan aides involved in the Iran-Contra Affair, including Caspar W. Weinberger, former secretary of defense, and Robert C. McFarlane, former national security advisor.

1997

Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the aging revolutionary known as ''Carlos the Jackal,'' was sentenced by a French court to life in prison for the 1975 murders of two French investigators and a Lebanese national.

2002

Laci Peterson was reported missing from her Modesto, California home by her husband, Scott, who was later convicted of murdering her and their unborn son.

1491

Ignatius of Loyola, Spanish founder of the Jesuits.

1745

Benjamin Rush, American medical pioneer and signer of the Declaration of Independence.

1809

Kit Carson, American frontiersman, subject of adventure novels, fur trapper, guide, American Indian agent, and Union general.

1822

Matthew Arnold, English poet and essayist.

1905

Howard Hughes, American industrialist, pilot, Hollywood producer and director.

1922

Ava Gardner (Lucy Johnson), American actress.

1524

Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama, who had discovered a sea route around Africa to India, died in Cochin, India.

1863

William Makepeace Thackeray, English novelist and author of "Vanity Fair" and other works.

1914

John Muir, American naturalist, born in Dunbar, Scotland.

1993

Norman Vincent Peale, American theologian and author.