Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 24
This is a list of selected December 24 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
- 1777 – An expedition led by English explorer James Cook reached Christmas Island, the largest coral atoll in the world.
- 1814 – The Treaty of Ghent was signed in Ghent, present-day Belgium, ending the War of 1812 between the United Kingdom and the United States.
- 1818 – "Silent Night", a Christmas carol by Josef Mohr and Franz Gruber, was first performed in a church in Austria.
- 1953 – In the worst rail accident in New Zealand, an overnight North Island Main Trunk train fell into the Whangaehu River after a railway bridge collapsed, killing over 150 people.
- 1968 – Astronaut William Anders of the NASA spacecraft Apollo 8, the first manned voyage to orbit the Moon, took the famous photograph known as "Earthrise" (pictured), showing the Earth rising above the lunar surface.