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24 December| 24 December 1046 | Holy Roman Empire [administration] | Benedict IX is formally deposed from the papacy by Emperor Henry III and Bishop Suidger of Bamberg, is elected as Pope Clement II. Together Henry and Clement begin the reform of the papacy. | | 24 December 1144 | County of Edessa, Zangid Emirate, Turkey [Crusades (1095–1272)] | 'Imad ad-Din Zangi, the Muslim governor of Mosul, takes Edessa (Urfa) (in eastern Turkey) after a four-week siege; though he massacres the Frankish inhabitants the native Armenian Christians are spared. The fall of the city calls for a new crusade. | | 24 December 1167 | England [births and deaths] | John I (‘John Lackland’), King of England 1199–1216, son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, brother of Richard I, born in Oxford, England (–1216). | | 24 December 1618 | Poland, Sweden, Ottoman Empire [political events] | Poland signs a two-year truce with Sweden (afterwards extended to July 1621). The Poles also sign a 14-year truce with the Ottoman Empire. | | 24 December 1801 | UK [railways] | English engineer Richard Trevithick builds a steam-powered carriage, which he successfully drives up a hill in Camborne, Cornwall, England. | | 24 December 1818 | England [births and deaths] | James Prescott Joule, English physicist who demonstrated that the various forms of energy can be transformed one into another, born in Salford, Lancashire, England (–1889). | | 24 December 1865 | USA [civil rights] | Former Confederate cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest founds the Ku Klux Klan, allegedly as a social club for Confederate veterans and their families. | | 24 December 1906 | USA [radio] | Canadian-born US physicist Reginald Fessenden makes the first wireless transmission of speech and music from Brant Rock, Massachusetts using amplitude modification. He broadcasts music, a poem, and a talk, all heard by ships' radio operators. | | 24 December 1936 | UK [television] | Harry Pringle's Old Veterans, a variety show in the UK, is the first television programme to have a studio audience. | | 24 December 1946 | France [legislation] | The Fourth Republic is declared in France when a new constitution is narrowly ratified by a referendum. | | 24 December 1951 | Libya [United Nations] | Libya (an Italian colony from 1911–42, and under British military administration since then) becomes an independent federation under King Idris I, previously emir of Cyrenaica, a region of eastern Libya. This follows a resolution of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly of 21 November 1949 that Libya should become independent, and makes Libya the first independent state to be created by the UN. |
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