Today in History: October 24 | HistoryNet MENU

Today in History: October 24

What Happened This Day In History.


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.
1755   A British expedition against the French held Fort Niagara in Canada ends in failure.

Napoleon’s original plans for retreating from Moscow are thwarted by the Imperial Russian Army at the Battle of Maloyaroslavets. His battle-fatigued Grande Armée, forced to withdraw through heavily ravaged areas, will be hobbled by the lack of supplies, the onset of the brutal Russian winter, and constant attacks by Russian peasants and irregular troops. [From MHQ—The Quarterly Journal of Military History]

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.
1901   Annie Edson Taylor, 63, 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 takes place–the first day of the stock market crash which began the Great Depression.
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.
1970   Leftist Salvador Allende is elected president of Chile.
1973   The Yom Kippur War ends.
1980   Poland’s government legalizes the Solidarity Trade Union.
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 Delaney, 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, the US Army’s Deputy Director of Operations during the Iraq War that deposed dictator Saddam Hussein