UPI Almanac for Saturday, Dec. 24, 2016

This is Saturday, Dec. 24, the 359th day of 2016 with seven to follow.

Tonight is Christmas Eve

The moon is waning. The morning stars are Jupiter and Saturn. The evening stars are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Neptune, and Uranus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Capricorn. They include English King John I in 1166; American diplomat Silas Deane in 1737; physician and chemist Benjamin Rush in 1745; frontiersman Christopher "Kit" Carson in 1809; English physicist and inventor James Prescott Joule in 1818; "Raggedy Ann" creator Johnny Gruelle in 1880; film director Michael Curtiz ("Casablanca") in 1886; composer Harry Warren ("Lullaby of Broadway," "Chattanooga Choo Choo") in 1893; industrialist, moviemaker and aviator Howard Hughes in 1905; investigative journalist I.F. Stone in 1907; actor Ava Gardner in 1922; U.S. Army Gen. George Patton IV in 1923; author Mary Higgins Clark in 1929 (age 87); author/director Nicholas Meyer in 1945 (age 71); writer Christopher Buckley in 1952 (age 64); basketball commentator Jay Bilas in 1963 (age 53); actor Diedrich Bader in 1966 (age 50); pop singer Ricky Martin in 1971 (age 45); "Twilight" series author Stephenie Meyer in 1973 (age 43); and television and radio personality Ryan Seacrest in 1974 (age 42).

On this date in history:

In 1814, the Treaty of Ghent was signed by representatives of the United States and Britain, ending the War of 1812.

In 1851, the Library of Congress and part of the Capitol building in Washington were destroyed by fire.

In 1865, a group of Confederate veterans met in Pulaski, Tenn., to form a secret society they called the Ku Klux Klan.

In 1871, Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Aida" premiered in Cairo. It had been commissioned to commemorate the opening of the Suez Canal.

In 1906, Reginald A. Fessenden, a Canadian-born radio inventor, broadcast the first musical program, a female singer's violin-accompanied "O Holy Night," from Brant Rock, Mass. He had discovered the superheterodyne principle, the basis for modern radio receivers.

In 1909, Miss Jean L. Clemens, younger daughter of Mark Twain, was found dead in a bath tub at the home of her father. Miss Clemens' cause of death is believed to have been the result of an epileptic convulsion.

In 1942, German rocket engineers launched the first surface-to-surface guided missile.

In 1983, officials said one of the United States' severest early season cold waves in history had claimed nearly 300 lives.

In 1990, the bells of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow rang to celebrate Christmas for the first time since the 1924 death of Lenin.

In 1997, a French court convicted the international terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal of the 1975 killings of three men in Paris and sentenced him to life in prison.

In 2005, Hwang Woo-suk, a South Korean scientist whose research on stem cells and cloning won him international acclaim, resigned after admitting he fabricated his groundbreaking paper in which he said he created stem cell colonies from 11 patients.

In 2009, the U.S. Senate passed a landmark $871 billion national healthcare reform bill after months of proposals, debate and revisions, guaranteeing access to health insurance for about 31 million Americans. Differences in the Senate and House bills had to be resolved before a plan went to the president.

In 2010, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration added insulated thermos jugs and coffee mugs to the list of items for special airport screening.

In 2012, an Afghan policewoman killed a U.S. adviser at police headquarters in Kabul. It was believed to be the first so-called Afghan insider attack by a woman.

In 2013, hundreds of thousands of Americans and Canadians remained without electricity on Christmas Eve, two days after an ice storm disabled power lines from the Midwest to New England and in the province of Ontario.

A thought for the day: "To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas." -- Calvin Coolidge