April 24 - Events

Events

• 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).
• 1184 BC – Traditional date of the fall of Troy.
• 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 the United States, the News-Letter, is published in Boston, Massachusetts.
• 1800 – The United States Library of Congress is established when President John Adams signs legislation to appropriate $5,000 USD to purchase "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress".
• 1877 – Russo-Turkish War: Russian Empire declares war on Ottoman Empire.
• 1885 – American sharpshooter Annie Oakley was hired by Nate Salsbury to be a part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West.
• 1898 – The Spanish-American War: The United States declares war on Spain.
• 1904 – The Lithuanian press ban is lifted after almost 40 years.
• 1907 – Hersheypark, founded by Milton S. Hershey for the exclusive use of his employees, is opened.
• 1907 – Al Ahly was founded.
• 1913 – The Woolworth Building skyscraper in New York City is opened.
• 1915 – The arrest of 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Istanbul marks the beginning of the Armenian Genocide.
• 1916 – Easter Rising: The Irish Republican Brotherhood led by nationalists Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, and Joseph Plunkett starts a rebellion in Ireland.
• 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 ice-trapped ship Endurance.
• 1918 – First tank-to-tank combat, at Villers-Bretonneux, France, when three British Mark IVs met 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.
• 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.
• 1953 – Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
• 1955 – The Bandung Conference ends: 29 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 HRH Princess Alexandra of Kent to the Hon 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."
• 1968 – Mauritius becomes a member state of the United Nations.
• 1970 – The first Chinese satellite, Dong Fang Hong I, is launched.
• 1970 – The Gambia becomes a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, with Dawda Jawara as the first President.
• 1971 – Soyuz 10 docks with Salyut 1.
• 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 introduced.
• 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 Roman Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.
• 2005 – Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog, is born in South Korea.
• 2006 – King Gyanendra of Nepal gives into the demands of protesters and restores the parliament that he dissolved in 2002.