December 24 belongs to Owner 359

On December 24, 1968, Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders photographed the Earth rising above the lunar horizon, creating the image known as Earthrise. The colour photograph showed our planet for the first time as a fragile sphere floating in the vastness of black space. It is considered one of the most influential photographs in history.

On December 24, 1914, during World War I, German and Allied soldiers spontaneously emerged from their trenches at several points along the Western Front to exchange greetings, cigarettes and play football in no man's land. The Christmas Truce was a moment of spontaneous humanity in the midst of the greatest carnage the world had known up to that point.

On December 24, 1979, the Soviet Union began its invasion of Afghanistan, its largest military intervention since World War II. The USSR expected a short war; it lasted ten years. The resistance of the mujahideen, backed by the US, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, turned the conflict into the Soviet Vietnam and contributed decisively to the collapse of the USSR in 1991.