What Happened on December 24th in History
30 historical events on this date
World War II: Kuching is conquered by Japanese forces.
Kuching, officially the City of Kuching, is the capital and the most populous city in the state of Sarawak in Malaysia. It is also the capital of Kuching Division. The city is on the Sarawak River...
World War II: Benghazi is conquered by the British Eighth Army.
Benghazi is the second-most-populous city in Libya as well as the largest city in Cyrenaica, with an estimated population of 859,000 in 2023. Located on the Gulf of Sidra in the Mediterranean,...
World War II: French monarchist, Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle, assassinates Vichy French Admiral François Darlan in Algiers, Algeria.
Monarchism in France is the advocacy of restoring the monarchy in France, which was abolished after the 1870 defeat by Prussia, arguably before that in 1848 with the establishment of the French...
World War II: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower is named Supreme Allied Commander for Operation Overlord.
Dwight David Eisenhower, also known as Ike, was the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. He led the Allied Expeditionary Force during the Second World War, launching decisive...
World War II: The Belgian Troopship Leopoldville was torpedoed and sank with the loss of 763 soldiers and 56 crew.
SS Léopoldville was a 11,509 GRT passenger liner of the Compagnie Belge Maritime du Congo. She was converted for use as a troopship in the Second World War, and on 24 December 1944, while sailing...
Five of nine children become missing after their home in Fayetteville, West Virginia, is burned down.
Early Christmas morning, December 25, 1945, a fire destroyed the Sodder residence in Fayetteville, West Virginia, United States. At the time, it was occupied by George Sodder, his wife Jennie, and...
Libya becomes independent. Idris I is proclaimed King of Libya.
Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad to the south,...
First flight of Britain's Handley Page Victor strategic bomber.
The Handley Page Victor is a British jet-powered strategic bomber developed and produced by Handley Page during the Cold War. It was the third and final 'V bomber' to be operated by the Royal Air...
Tangiwai disaster: In New Zealand's North Island, at Tangiwai, a railway bridge is damaged by a lahar and collapses beneath a passenger train, killing 151 people.
The Tangiwai disaster was a railway accident that occurred at 10:21 p.m. on 24 December 1953, when a railway bridge over the Whangaehu River collapsed beneath an express passenger train at Tangiwai,...
A flood devastates California, killing 74 people across portions of the state.
From December 16 to 25, 1955, devastating flooding struck portions of California. It was caused by heavy rainfall and a levee break on the Feather River, and directly resulted in the deaths of 74...
Vietnam War: Viet Cong operatives bomb the Brinks Hotel in Saigon, South Vietnam to demonstrate they can strike an American installation in the heavily guarded capital.
The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while...
Flying Tiger Line Flight 282 crashes after takeoff from San Francisco International Airport, killing three.
Flying Tiger Line Flight 282 refers to the crash of a Lockheed Super Constellation aircraft, N6915C, shortly after takeoff from San Francisco International Airport in the early morning hours of...
A Canadair CL-44 chartered by the United States military crashes into a small village in South Vietnam, killing 111.
The Canadair CL-44 was a Canadian turboprop airliner and cargo aircraft based on the Bristol Britannia that was developed and produced by Canadair in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Although...
Apollo program: The crew of Apollo 8 enters into orbit around the Moon, becoming the first humans to do so. They performed ten lunar orbits, took the Earthrise photograph, broadcast live TV pictures, and read the first ten verses of Genesis.
The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo was conceived in 1960 in the...
Allegheny Airlines Flight 736 crashes on approach to Bradford Regional Airport, killing 20.
Allegheny Airlines Flight 736 was a regularly scheduled flight that crashed while attempting to land at Bradford Regional Airport in Bradford, Pennsylvania, on December 24, 1968. Of the 47 occupants...
Nigerian troops capture Umuahia, the Biafran capital.
Umuahia is the capital city of Abia State in southeastern Nigeria. Umuahia is located along the rail road that lies between Port Harcourt to its south, and Enugu city to its north. Umuahia has a...
LANSA Flight 508 is struck by lightning and crashes in the Puerto Inca District in the Department of Huánuco in Peru, killing 91.
LANSA Flight 508 was a Lockheed L-188A Electra turboprop operated as a scheduled domestic passenger flight by Lineas Aéreas Nacionales Sociedad Anonima (LANSA) that crashed in a thunderstorm en...
District of Columbia Home Rule Act is passed, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to elect their own local government.
The District of Columbia Home Rule Act is a United States federal law passed on December 24, 1973, which devolved certain congressional powers of the District of Columbia to local government,...
Cyclone Tracy devastates Darwin, Australia.
Severe Tropical Cyclone Tracy was a small but destructive tropical cyclone that devastated the city of Darwin, in the Northern Territory of Australia, in December 1974. The small but developing...
The first Ariane 1 rocket is launched from ELA-1 at the Guiana Space Centre.
Ariane 1 was the first rocket in the Ariane family of expendable launch systems. It was developed for and operated by the European Space Agency (ESA), which had been formed in 1973, the same year...
Aeroflot Flight 601 crashes during takeoff from Leshukonskoye Airport, Russia, killing 44 of the 49 people on board.
Aeroflot Flight 601 was a scheduled Soviet domestic passenger flight from Arkhangelsk to Leshukonskoye in the Russian SSR, operated by Aeroflot. The Antonov An-24RV that was involved crashed on 24...
Air France Flight 8969 is hijacked on the ground at Houari Boumediene Airport, Algiers, Algeria. Over the course of three days three passengers are killed, as are all four terrorists.
Air France Flight 8969 was an Air France flight that was hijacked on 24 December 1994 by the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA) at Houari Boumediene Airport, Algiers. The militants murdered three...
A Learjet 35 crashes into Smarts Mountain near Dorchester, New Hampshire, killing both pilots on board.
The Learjet Model 35 and Model 36 are a series of American multi-role business jets and military transport aircraft manufactured by Learjet between 1973 and 1993. When used by the United States Air...
The Sid El-Antri massacre in Algeria kills between 50 and 100 people.
The Sid El-Antri massacre was a mass killing of civilians in the hamlets of Shari and Sidi el Antar, near Tiaret, Algeria, on the night of 23-24 December 1997, during the Algerian Civil War....
Indian Airlines Flight 814 is hijacked in Indian airspace between Kathmandu, Nepal, and Delhi, India. The aircraft landed at Kandahar in Afghanistan. The incident ended on December 31 with the release of 190 survivors (one passenger is killed).
Indian Airlines Flight 814, commonly known as IC 814, was an Indian Airlines Airbus A300 that was hijacked on 24 December 1999 by five members of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. The passenger flight, en route...
The Spanish police thwart an attempt by ETA to detonate 50 kg of explosives at 3:55 p.m. inside Madrid's busy Chamartín Station.
ETA, an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, was an armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization active in Spain and France between 1959 and 2018. It was founded in 1959, during Francoist...
Chad–Sudan relations: Chad declares a state of belligerence against Sudan following a December 18 attack on Adré, which left about 100 people dead.
The populations of eastern Chad and western Sudan established social and religious ties long before either nation's independence, and these remained strong despite disputes between governments. In...
The Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan rebel group, begins a series of attacks against civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, massacring more than 400.
The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is a Christian extremist and Acholi nationalist organization operating in Central and East Africa. Its origins were in the Ugandan insurgency (1986–1994) against...
A helicopter crash kills Martha Érika Alonso, first female Governor of Puebla, Mexico, and her husband Rafael Moreno Valle Rosas, former governor.
On December 24, 2018, a helicopter carrying Martha Érika Alonso Hidalgo, the newly elected governor of the Mexican state of Puebla, and her husband, senator and former governor Rafael Moreno Valle...
Burmese military forces commit the Mo So massacre, killing at least 44 civilians.
The Tatmadaw, also known as the Sit-Tat, is the armed forces of Myanmar. It is administered by the Ministry of Defence and composed of the Myanmar Army, the Myanmar Navy and the Myanmar Air Force....