Today in History
October 24
439
Carthage, the leading Roman city in North Africa, falls to Genseric and the Vandals.
1531
Bavaria, despite being a Catholic region, joins the League of Schmalkalden, a Protestant group which opposes Charles V.
1648
The signing of the Treaty of Westphalia ends the German Thirty Years' War.
1755
A British expedition against the French held Fort Niagara in Canada ends in failure.
1836
The match is patented.
1861
Western Union completes the first transcontinental telegraph line, putting the Pony Express out of business.
1863
General Ulysses S. Grant arrives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to find the Union Army there starving.
1897
The first comic strip appears in the Sunday color supplement of the New York Journal called the 'Yellow Kid.'
1901
Anna Edson Taylor, 43, is the first woman to go safely over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She made the attempt for the cash award offered, which she put toward the loan on her Texas ranch.
1916
Henry Ford awards equal pay to women.
1917
The Austro-German army routs the Italian army at Caporetto, Italy.
1929
Black Thursday–the first day of the stock market crash which began the Great Depression.
1930
John Wayne debuts in his first starring role in The Big Trail .
1931
Al (Alphonse) Capone, the prohibition-era Chicago gangster, is sent to prison for tax evasion.
1934
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, called Mahatma or "Great Soul," resigns from Congress in India.
1938
The Fair Labor Standards Act becomes law, establishing the 40-hour work week.
1944
The aircraft carrier USS Princeton is sunk by a single Japanese plane during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
1945
The United Nations comes into existence with the ratification of its charter by the first 29 nations.
1945
Vidkun Quisling, Norway's wartime minister president, is executed by firing squad for collaboration with the Nazis.
1952
Presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that if elected, he will go to Korea.
1970
Leftist Salvador Allende elected president of Chile.
1973
Yom Kippur War ends.
1980
Poland's government legalizes the Solidarity trade union.
1992
Toronto Blue Jays win the World Series, defeating the Atlanta Braves in the 11th inning of the 6th game, to become the first Major League Baseball team from outside the US to win the series.
2003
The supersonic Concorde jet made its last commercial passenger flight from New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport to London's Heathrow Airport, traveling at twice the speed of sound.
2008
Many stock exchanges worldwide suffer the steepest declines in their histories; the day becomes known as "Bloody Friday."
Born on October 24
1632
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Dutch naturalist.
1788
Sarah Josepha Hale, magazine editor and poet whose book Poems for Our Children included "Mary Had a Little Lamb" (the first words to be recorded in sound)
1904
Moss Hart, American playwright who, with George S. Kaufman, wrote plays such as You Can't Take it with You and The Man who came to Dinner.
1911
Sonny Terry, blues performer.
1923
Denise Levertov, English poet.
1929
George Henry Crumb, American composer.
1930
The Big Bopper (Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr.), singer, songwriter, musician; an early star of rock 'n' roll ("Chantilly Lace"), he died in the same plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the pilot, Roger Peterson.
1933
Ronald and Reginald Kray, gangsters whose gang, The Firm, was the most infamous organized crime group in London's East End in the 1950s and '60s.
1941
Dr. William H. Dobelle, biomedical researcher who developed technology that restored limited sight to blind patients.
1942
Frank Delany, Irish author, journalist, broadcaster; best known for his novel Ireland and non-fiction book Simple Courage: A True Story of Peril on the Sea.
1958
Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, US Army's Deputy Director of Operations during the Iraq War that deposed dictator Saddam Hussein; presently (2013) commander of Third Army.
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