24 April History


Month:                           Date:     

  • 858    -    St. Nicholas I begins his reign as Catholic Pope.
  • 1519    -    Envoys of Montezuma II attend the first Easter mass in Central America.
  • 1547    -    Charles V's troops defeat the Protestant League of Schmalkalden at the battle of Muhlburg.
  • 1558    -    Mary, Queen of Scotland, marries the French dauphin, Francis.
  • 1792    -    Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle composes "La Marseilles". It will become France's national anthem.
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  • 1800    -    The Library of Congress is established in Washington, D.C. with a $5,000 allocation.
  • 1805    -    U.S. Marines attack and capture the town of Derna in Tripoli from the Barbary pirates.
  • 1833    -    A patent is granted for first soda fountain.
  • 1877    -    Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
  • 1884    -    Otto von Bismarck cables Cape Town, South Africa that it is now a German colony.
  • 1898    -    Spain declares war on United States, rejecting an ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.
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  • 1915    -    Turks of the Ottoman Empire begin massacring the Armenian minority in their country.
  • 1916    -    Irish nationalists launch the Easter Uprising against British occupation.
  • 1944    -    The first B-29 arrives in China, over the Hump of the Himalayas.
  • 1948    -    The Berlin airlift begins to relieve surrounded city.
  • 1953    -    Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
  • 1961    -    President John Kennedy accepts "sole responsibility" for the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.
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  • 1968    -    Leftist students take over Columbia University in protest over the Vietnam War.
  • 1980    -    A rescue attempt of the U.S. hostages held in Iran fails when a plane collides with a helicopter in the Iranian desert.
  • 1981    -    The IBM Personal Computer is introduced.
  • 1989    -    Thousands of Chinese students strike in Beijing for more democratic reforms.

  • 24 April Birthdays

  • 1620    -    John Graunt, statistician, founder of demography.
  • 1743    -    Edmund Cartwright, English parson who invented the power loom.
  • 1766    -    Robert Bailey Thomas, founder of the Farmer's Almanac.
  • 1769    -    Arthur Wellesley, general during the Napoleonic Wars, Duke of Wellington.
  • 1815    -    Anthony Trollope, British novelist.
  • 1856    -    Henri Philippe Pétain, French Marshall, WWI hero, Nazi collaborator.
  • 1900    -    Elizabeth Goudge, English author.
  • 1904    -    Willem de Kooning, abstract impressionist painter.
  • 1905    -    Robert Penn Warren, novelist, America's first poet laureate.
  • 1906    -    William Joyce, 'Lord Haw-Haw,' British traitor, Nazi propagandist.