December 24

1818: James Joule, discoverer of the current/resistance/heat relationship and after whom the unit of energy is named, was born. 1865: Several veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club called the Ku Klux Klan (U.S. Senator Robert Byrd of WV, was a KKK Exalted Cyclops when in his 30s). 1872: Scottish physicist William Rankine, an early investigator of thermodynamics who developed the Rankine Cycle, died. 1873: Johns Hopkins, endower of the college named after him, died. 1904: Billionaire Howard Hughes was born. 1906: Reginald Fessenden gave what is generally considered to be the first broadcast of entertainment by radio. 1947: The point-contact transistor, invented days earlier by American physicists John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William Shockley, was presented to Bell Labs management. 1963: New York International Airport was rededicated as John F. Kennedy Airport.  1966: The unmanned Russian Luna 13 spacecraft landed on Moon. 1968: The crew of the Apollo 8 spacecraft, the first manned mission to the moon, transmitted a Christmas message from lunar orbit. 1979: The first European-built rocket, Ariane 1, successfully completed its maiden flight.