OTD in 1945, General George S. Patton died of injuries sustained in a car crash on December 9, 1945.
Quote:
At noon Marshall Ratliff, Henry Helms, Robert Hill, and Louis Davis entered the First National Bank of Cisco with guns drawn. Ratliff, dressed in a borrowed Santa Claus costume, entered the bank vault. Some of the bank customers escaped and alerted the police and town citizens. Gunfire ensued when Ratliff came out of the vault with a sack containing money. Two policemen were mortally wounded, and Ratliff and Davis were also wounded, Davis severely. As their escape car was almost out of gas and one of the tires had been shot out, the robbers commandeered another car, but the driver took the keys with him. They then left the wounded Davis in the car, forgetting the moneybag. The fugitives escaped on foot, stole a series of cars, and had more gunfights over the next several days. They were finally captured in Graham, Texas. The infamous Santa Claus Bank Robbery led to the largest manhunt ever seen in the state at that time.
#OTD in 1910: Lt. Theodore G. Ellyson becomes the first naval officer sent to flight training when he was ordered to report to the Glenn H. Curtiss Aviation Camp at North Island, San Diego, California. pic.twitter.com/VLANOPDPuS
— U.S. Naval Institute (@NavalInstitute) December 23, 2025
On this day in 1814, the Treaty of Ghent was signed in Belgium, ending the War of 1812 between the United States and Britain—restoring pre-war boundaries with no territorial changes or clear victor. Signed on Christmas Eve, news took weeks to cross the Atlantic, so fighting… pic.twitter.com/dMxuSqkYyV
— Manifest History (@ManifestHistory) December 24, 2025
Quote:
December 24, 1865: The Ku Klux Klan had its beginnings in the law office of Thomas M. Jones in Pulaski, Tennessee. The name evolved from the Greek kyklos (circle), suggested by John B. Kennedy ('always an unswerving Democrat'). It was broken down into the more euphonic form Ku Klux by James R. Crowe, who added Klan as a reflection of the area's predominantly Scottish-Irish population.