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more events on December 24
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2005
Chad declares a state of war against Sudan in the wake of the Dec. 18 attack on the town of Adre, in which approximately 100 people were killed.
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1974
Ryan Seacrest, radio personality, TV host; host of American Idol TV talent competition.
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Cyclone Tracy devastates Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, destroying more than 70 percent of the city’s buildings, including 80 percent of its houses.
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An oil tanker’s spill pollutes 1,600 square miles of Japan’s Inland Sea.
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1973
Stephenie Meyer, author best known for her young-adult, vampire romance series Twilight.
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1972
Hanoi bars all peace talks with the United States until U.S. air raids over North Vietnam stop.
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1971
Ricky Martin, Puerto Rican pop musician, actor, author; was a member of the boy group Menudo before launching a successful solo career (“Livin’ la Vida Loca”).
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1970
Nine GIs are killed and nine are wounded by friendly fire in Vietnam.
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1968
The first pictures of an Earth-rise over the moon are seen as the crew of Apollo 8 orbits the moon.
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1967
The Greek Junta frees ex-Premier Papandreou.
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1966
A Soviet research vehicle soft-lands on the moon.
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1964
The U.S. headquarters in Saigon is hit by a bomb killing two officers.
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1963
New York’s Idlewild Airport is renamed JFK Airport in honor of the murdered President Kennedy.
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1956
African Americans defy a city law in Tallahassee, Florida, and occupy front bus seats.
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1955
Scott Fischer, mountain climber and guide; first American to reach the summit of Lhotse, the world’s fourth-highest mountain.