TODAY IN HISTORY: APRIL 24

 

April 24

 

1479 BC – Thutmose III ascends to the throne of Egypt, although power effectively shifts to Hatshepsut (according to the Low Chronology of the 18th dynasty).

1183 BC – Traditional reckoning of the Fall of Troy marking the end of the legendary Trojan War, given by chief librarian of the Library of Alexandria Eratosthenes, among others.

1547 – Battle of Mühlberg. Duke of Alba, commanding Spanish-Imperial forces of Charles I of Spain, defeats the troops of Schmalkaldic League.

1558 – Mary, Queen of Scots, marries the Dauphin of France, François, at Notre Dame de Paris.

1704 – The first regular newspaper in British Colonial America, The Boston News-Letter, is published.

1793 – French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat is acquitted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of charges brought by the Girondin in Paris.

1800 – The United States Library of Congress is established when President John Adams signs legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress".

1837 – The great fire in Surat city of India caused more than 500 deaths and destruction of more than 9000 houses.

1877 – Russo-Turkish War: Russian Empire declares war on Ottoman Empire.

1885 – American sharpshooter Annie Oakley is hired by Nate Salsbury to be a part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West.

1895 – Joshua Slocum, the first person to sail single-handedly around the world, sets sail from Boston, Massachusetts aboard the sloop "Spray".

1913 – The Woolworth Building, a skyscraper in New York City, is opened.

1914 – The Franck–Hertz experiment, a pillar of quantum mechanics, is presented to the German Physical Society.

1915 – The arrest of 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Istanbul marks the beginning of the Armenian genocide.

1916 – Easter Rising: Irish rebels, led by Patrick Pearse and James Connolly, launch an uprising in Dublin against British rule and proclaim an Irish Republic.

1916 – Ernest Shackleton and five men of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition launch a lifeboat from uninhabited Elephant Island in the Southern Ocean to organise a rescue for the crew of the sunken Endurance.

1918 – World War I: First tank-to-tank combat, during the second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux. Three British Mark IVs meet three German A7Vs.

1922 – The first segment of the Imperial Wireless Chain providing wireless telegraphy between Leafield in Oxfordshire, England, and Cairo, Egypt, comes into operation.

1924 – Thorvald Stauning becomes premier of Denmark (first term).

1926 – The Treaty of Berlin is signed. Germany and the Soviet Union each pledge neutrality in the event of an attack on the other by a third party for the next five years.

1932 – Benny Rothman leads the mass trespass of Kinder Scout, leading to substantial legal reforms in the United Kingdom.

1933 – Nazi Germany begins its persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses by shutting down the Watch Tower Society office in Magdeburg.

1944 – World War II: The SBS launches a raid against the garrison of Santorini in Greece.

1953 – Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

1955 – The Bandung Conference ends: Twenty-nine non-aligned nations of Asia and Africa finish a meeting that condemns colonialism, racism, and the Cold War.

1957 – Suez Crisis: The Suez Canal is reopened following the introduction of UNEF peacekeepers to the region.

1963 – Marriage of Princess Alexandra of Kent to Angus Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey in London.

1965 – Civil war breaks out in the Dominican Republic when Colonel Francisco Caamaño overthrows the triumvirate that had been in power since the coup d'état against Juan Bosch.

1967 – Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when its parachute fails to open. He is the first human to die during a space mission.

1967 – Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland says in a news conference that the enemy had "gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily".

1970 – China launches Dong Fang Hong I, becoming the fifth nation to put an object into orbit using its own booster.

1970 – The Gambia becomes a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, with Dawda Jawara as its first President.

1980 – Eight U.S. servicemen die in Operation Eagle Claw as they attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis.

1990 – STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery.

1990 – Gruinard Island, Scotland, is officially declared free of the anthrax disease after 48 years of quarantine.

1993 – An IRA bomb devastates the Bishopsgate area of London.

1996 – In the United States, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 is passed into law.

2004 – The United States lifts economic sanctions imposed on Libya 18 years previously, as a reward for its cooperation in eliminating weapons of mass destruction.

2005 – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.

2011 – WikiLeaks starts publishing the Guantanamo Bay files leak.

2013 – A building collapses near Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing 1,129 people and injuring 2,500 others.

2013 – Violence in Bachu County, Kashgar Prefecture, of China's Xinjiang results in death of 21 people.