Today in History
24 April
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24 April |
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| 1061 Halley's Comet sparks English monk to predict country'll be destroyed | ||
| 1185 Battle at Danoura: Yoshitsune Minamoto's fleet beats imperial fleet | ||
| 1288 Jews of Yroyes France are accused of ritual murder | ||
| 1311 Gen Malik Kafur returns to Delhi after campaign in South India | ||
| 1364 Pope Urbabus V names John V van Virneburg as bishop of Utrecht | ||
| 1524 Duke of Bourbon drives admiral Bonnivet out of Milan | ||
| 1533 William the Silent, prince of Orange, was born. He led the revolt against Spanish rule and helped create an autonomous Netherlands. | ||
| 1538 Gugliemo Gonzaga, composer was born | ||
| 1547 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V defeated the Protestants at Muehlberg, near Leipzig, Germany. | ||
| 1558 Mary Queen of Scots, aged 16, married the dauphin of France, the future Francois II. | ||
| 1570 Battles between Spanish troops & followers of sultan Suleiman | ||
| 1596 Pacificatie of Ireland drawn | ||
| 1620 John Graunt, statistician, founder of science of demography was born | ||
| 1660 Cornelis Dusart, Dutch painter/engraver was born | ||
| 1704 The Boston News-Letter, one of the earliest newspapers in the American colonies, was first published. | ||
| 1731 Daniel Defoe, British journalist and author of "Robinson Crusoe," died. | ||
| 1743 Edmund Cartwright, England, cleric, inventor (power loom) was born | ||
| 1762 Russia & Prussia signs peace treaty | ||
| 1766 Robert Bailey Thomas, founder (Farmer's Almanac) was born | ||
| 1769 Arthur Wellesley, General/Duke of Wellington was born | ||
| 1800 The U.S. Congress voted to establish a Library of Congress. | ||
| 1801 1st performance of Joseph Haydn's oratorio "Die Jahreszeiten" | ||
| 1815 Anthony Trollope, English novelist, was born; he was best known for the Barchester novels, a series of books set in the fictional English county of Barsetshire. | ||
| 1833 Jacob Evert & George Dulty patent soda fountain | ||
| 1854 Austria's Franz Joseph I marries Elisabeth A E "Sissi" | ||
| 1856 Philippe Petain, French statesman, was born. A national hero after his victory at Verdun in World War I, he was later discredited as a Nazi collaborator for heading the Vichy government in World War II. | ||
| 1865 Fire alarm & police telegraph system put into operation (SF) | ||
| 1872 Volcano Vesuvius erupts | ||
| 1874 Willem E Roelofs, Dutch painter/cartoonist was born | ||
| 1877 Russia declares war on Turkey through Romania | ||
| 1882 Lord Dowding, British air force commander who directed the 1940 Battle of Britain, was born. | ||
| 1883 28 Surinamers depart to Amsterdam World's Fair | ||
| 1888 Eastman Kodak forms | ||
| 1891 Start of Sherlock Holmes adventure "Final Problem" | ||
| 1895 Joshua Slocum completes around-the-world voyage in 11-m boat | ||
| 1897 1st reporter, William Price (Wash Star), assigned to White House | ||
| 1898 Spain declared war on the United States after receiving an ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba. | ||
| 1898 US fleet under commodore Dewey sails from Hong Kong to Philippines | ||
| 1899 Transvaal British Uitlanders ask Queen Victoria for aid | ||
| 1905 Robert Penn Warren, U.S. poet and novelist ("All The King's Men"), was born. | ||
| 1906 William Joyce, U.S.-born British Nazi collaborator during World War II, was born. He broadcast German propaganda to Britain, where he earned the derisive nickname "Lord Haw-Haw," and was later hanged for treason. | ||
| 1910 German Catholic youth movement Quickborn forms | ||
| 1915 German army fires chloroform gas in Ieper | ||
| 1915 Massacre of Armenians by Turks starts (Armenian Martyrs Day) | ||
| 1916 The Easter Rising in Dublin, an insurrection aimed at setting up an Irish Republic, began. | ||
| 1920 British Mandate over Palestine goes into effect (lasts 28 years) | ||
| 1920 Polish troops attack Ukraine | ||
| 1921 1st municipal elections for men & women in Belgium | ||
| 1921 The Tyrol region of central Europe voted for union with Germany. | ||
| 1923 Colonel Jacob Schick patents Schick shavers | ||
| 1923 General harbor strike begins in NYC | ||
| 1929 1st non-stop England to India flight takes-off | ||
| 1929 Thorvald Stauning becomes premier of Denmark | ||
| 1932 In German elections, the Nazis made gains in Prussia, Bavaria, Wurttemberg and Hamburg. | ||
| 1938 Lindenheuvel soccer team forms | ||
| 1941 British army begins evacuation of Greece | ||
| 1941 Dutch Prince Bernhard becomes an RAF pilot | ||
| 1942 Luftwaffe bombs Exeter | ||
| 1944 1st Boeing B-29 arrives in China "over the Hump" | ||
| 1944 RAF bombs Munich | ||
| 1944 United Negro College Fund incorporates | ||
| 1945 American forces liberated Dachau concentration camp. | ||
| 1950 Independent republic of South Molukkas declared | ||
| 1950 Pres Truman denies there are communists in US govt | ||
| 1950 The state of Jordan was formed by the union of Jordanian-occupied Palestine and the Kingdom of Transjordan. | ||
| 1953 Winston Churchill knighted by Queen Elizabeth II | ||
| 1954 1st American, civilian pilot, P.R. Holden, wounded in Indochina | ||
| 1954 Australia & USSR break diplomatic relations | ||
| 1955 The Bandung Conference, organized by five Asian states, ended. It condemned colonialism in both the West and the Soviet Union. | ||
| 1955 Gaullists lose elections in France | ||
| 1960 Heavy earthquake strikes South Persia, 500 killed | ||
| 1963 English princess Alexandra marries sir Angus Ogilvy | ||
| 1965 The body of murdered Portuguese opposition leader Humberto Delgado was found in Spain. | ||
| 1965 The Indonesian government formally took control of all foreign companies in the country. | ||
| 1967 Vladimir Komarov, the first Russian to fly in the Soyuz craft, was killed when he crash-landed in Russia after his 17th orbit of Earth. | ||
| 1969 Gen Lin Piao succeeds Mao, is seriously wounded | ||
| 1969 Lebanese army in battle with Palestinians | ||
| 1970 The Gambia was proclaimed a republic within the British Commonwealth. | ||
| 1970 Senegal adopts constitution | ||
| 1970 China launched its first satellite into orbit. | ||
| 1975 Three people died when Baader-Meinhof terrorists attacked the German embassy in Stockholm. | ||
| 1979 Rhodesian bishop Muzorewa wins general election | ||
| 1980 US military operation to save 52 hostages in Iran, fails, 8 die | ||
| 1981 IBM-PC computer introduced | ||
| 1982 150 Khomeini followers assault student dormitory in West Germany | ||
| 1983 Austrian socialist party loses parliamentary election | ||
| 1986 The Duchess of Windsor (Wallis Warfield) died. As Wallis Simpson, her romance with King Edward VIII led to his abdication in 1936. | ||
| 1989 10s of thousands of students strikes in Beijing China | ||
| 1990 West & East Germany agree to merge currency & economies on July 1st | ||
| 1990 East and West Germany agreed on July 2 as the date for economic union, a prelude to full political unification. | ||
| 1990 Michael Milken, former junk bond chief at the defunct Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc., pleaded guilty to six felony charges, settling a massive criminal racketeering and securities fraud suit brought by the U.S. government. | ||
| 1991 Kurdish rebel leaders reached an agreement in principle with Saddam Hussein on greater autonomy | ||
| 1992 David Bowie marries model Iman in Switzerland | ||
| 1992 Guerrilla leaders in Afghanistan agreed on a 50-member council to take power in Kabul. | ||
| 1993 A huge IRA bomb exploded in the heart of London's financial district, killing one person. | ||
| 1993 ABC news analyst Jeff Greenfield weds Karen Gannett | ||
| 1994 Bomb attack in center of Johannesburg, 9 killed | ||
| 1995 Package bomb, linked to Unabomber, blows up killing Gilbert B Murray | ||
| 1995 A U.N. tribunal named Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and two of his senior aides as war crimes suspects. | ||
| 1996 the Palestinian parliament-in-exile voted to amend clauses in the PLO charter which call for Israel's destruction. | ||
| 1996 Russian President Boris Yeltsin met Chinese President Jiang Zemin at the start of a visit to Beijing hailed by both sides as signaling a new relationship between them. | ||