CNN Interactive - Almanac - December 24, 1998

I think that it would be pretty hard to do this -- the censure route -- without talking at all with the White House, the people who are going to be censured.

-- Sen. John Chafee, R-Rhode Island

Pope John Paul II is scheduled to observe Christmas Eve Midnight Mass at the Vatican City.
New York City's largest soup kitchen will offer Christmas Eve dinner to more than 1,000 men, women and children.
About 176 prisoners in Belfast, Northern Ireland, have been told they will be let out for Christmas parole.
The State Duma in Moscow is scheduled to meet to discuss the 1999 budget.

On Friday, December 25, Cuba will observe a national holiday. It was re-established by the Cuban Communist Party 29 years after it was abolished by President Fidel Castro.
On Saturday, December 26, Kwanzaa, an African-American holiday, begins.
On Sunday, December 27, the liftoff of a joint U.S. and Australian around-the-world balloon flight at Alice Springs, Australia, is scheduled.
On Monday, December 28, President Clinton is scheduled to address an event on the economy in Washington.
On Tuesday, December 29, The Conference Board in New York is scheduled to release its monthly consumer confidence index.

NEWSLINK:		NOTABLE:
Get some last minute tips for the holidays. Click here.		Actress Jill Bennett is 67. Author Mary Higgins Clark is 67. Governor of American Samoa A.P. Lutali is 79. U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama is 52.

In 1491, Ignatius Loyola, who founded the Jesuits, was born.
In 1814, the War of 1812 between America and Britain ended with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent.
In 1863, William Makepeace Thackeray, the English author of "Vanity Fair," died.
In 1865, the Ku Klux Klan white supremacy organization was formed in Pulaski, Tennessee.
In 1871, "Aida," an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi, was first performed in Cairo, Egypt, where the story of the opera is set.
In 1888, Michael Curtiz, the American film director of "Casablanca" and "White Christmas," was born in Hungary as Mihaly Kertesz.
In 1905, Howard Hughes, the U.S. millionaire industrialist and film producer, was born.
In 1914, the first air raid on Britain took place when a German monoplane dropped a single bomb on Dover.
In 1942, the German research station at Peenemunde successfully tested a new surface-to-surface weapon system. Called the FZG76, it later became better known as the V1 Flying Bomb.
In 1943, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force preparing for the invasion of France.
In 1951, Libya declared its independence and proclaimed a monarchy under King Idriss I.
In 1989, deposed Panamanian strongman Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega turned himself in to the pope's envoy in Panama and asked for political asylum.
In 1992, President George Bush pardoned Caspar Weinberger and five other Reagan aides involved in the Iran-Contra affair.
In 1995, thousands of Palestinians gathered at Bethlehem's Manger Square to celebrate the city's first Christmas in 28 years free from Israeli occupation.