Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 24

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 * 759 – The Tang-dynasty poet Du Fu departed for Chengdu, where he lived for the next five years and composed poems about life in his thatched cottage.
 * 1814 – The United Kingdom and the United States signed a peace treaty in Ghent, present-day Belgium, ending the War of 1812.
 * 1818 – The Christmas carol "Silent Night" (audio featured) by Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber was first performed in a church in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria.
 * 1846 – The Sultanate of Brunei ceded the island of Labuan to the British Empire.
 * 1865 – Six Confederate veterans of the American Civil War founded a social club they named the Ku Klux Klan, which later became a white supremacist group.
 * 1914 – World War I: British and German soldiers interrupted fighting to celebrate Christmas, beginning the Christmas truce.
 * 1955 – According to legend, the NORAD Tracks Santa program began after children began calling the Continental Air Defense Command Center to inquire about Santa Claus's whereabouts due to a misprinted phone number in an advertisement.
 * 1964 – The Viet Cong bombed the Brinks Hotel in Saigon, killing two U.S. Army officers and raising fears of an escalation of the Vietnam War.
 * 1968 – Piloted by Jim Lovell, Apollo 8 became the first human spaceflight to reach and orbit the Moon (Earthrise pictured).
 * 1973 – The U.S. Congress granted home rule to Washington, D.C., allowing the residents to elect their own mayor and a city council.
 * 1979 – The Soviet government deployed troops in Afghanistan, starting the Soviet–Afghan War.
 * 1983 – Aeroflot Flight 601 crashed on approach to Leshukonskoye in the Russian SSR, killing 44 out of 49 people on board.
 * 1987 – About 20,000 protestors marched in a civil rights demonstration in Forsyth County, Georgia, United States.
 * 1999 – Jihadists linked to al-Qaeda hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 to force the release of Islamist figures held in prison in India.
 * 2021 – Burmese military forces killed at least 40 civilians during the Mo So massacre in Kayah State, Myanmar.
 * Born/died: | Gongsun Shu |d|36| Yang Bin |d|950| Walter Bower |d|1449| Leonaert Bramer |b|1596|  William Warburton |b|1698|   Johnny Gruelle |b|1880|  Adam Exner |b|1928|