MONDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2012

Today is Monday, December 24, the 359th day of 2012. There are seven days left in the year.

1476 ― 400 Burgundy soldiers freeze to death during siege of Nancy

1818 ― "Silent Night" composed by Franz Joseph Gruber; sung for first time the next day

1865 ― Several Confederate veterans form the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tenn.

1870 ― Giusseppi Verdi's "Aida" premieres at Cairo Opera, one year after the opening of the Suez Canal, for which it was commissioned

1893 ― Henry Ford completes his first useful gas motor

1920 ― Enrico Caruso gives his last public performance (New York, N.Y.)

1943 ― FDR appoints General Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces

1948 ― First U.S. house completely sun-heated is occupied (Dover, Mass.)

1968 ― Apollo 8 astronauts' Christmas reading (Book of Genesis) while orbiting Moon

1991 ― Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Soviet Union