24 September History
- 1788 - After having been dissolved, the French Parliament of Paris reassembles in triumph.
- 1789 - Congress passes the Judiciary Act of 1789, establishing a strong federal court system with the powers it needs to ensure the supremacy of the Constitution and federal law. The new Supreme Court will have a chief justice and five associate justices.
- 1842 - Branwell Bronte, the brother of the Bronte sisters and the model for Hindley Earnshaw in Emily's novel Wuthering Heights, dies of tuberculosis. Emily and Anne die the same year.
- 1862 - President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus against anyone suspected of being a Southern sympathizer.
- 1904 - Sixty-two die and 120 are injured in head-on train collision in Tennessee.
- 1914 - In the Alsace-Lorraine area between France and Germany, the German Army captures St. Mihiel.
- 1915 - Bulgaria mobilizes troops on the Serbian border.
- 1929 - The first flight using only instruments is completed by U.S. Army pilot James Doolittle.
- 1930 - Noel Coward's comedy Private Lives opens in London starring Gertrude Lawrence and Coward himself.
- 1947 - The World Women's Party meets for the first time since World War II.
- 1956 - The first transatlantic telephone cable system begins operation.
- 1957 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends federal troops into Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect nine black students entering its newly integrated high school.
- 1960 - The Enterprise, the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, is launched.
- 1962 - The University of Mississippi agrees to admit James Meredith as the first black university student, sparking more rioting.
- 1969 - The "Chicago Eight," charged with conspiracy and crossing state lines with the intent to incite a riot, go on trial for their part in the mayhem during the 1968 Democratic Party National Convention in the "Windy City."
- 1970 - The Soviet Luna 16 lands, completing the first unmanned round trip to the moon.
- 1993 - Sihanouk is reinstalled as king of Cambodia.
24 September Birthdays
- 1501 - Gerolamo Cardano, mathematician, author of Games of Chance, the first systematic computation of probabilities.
- 1717 - Horace Walpole, author, creator of the Gothic novel genre.
- 1755 - John Marshall, fourth chief justice of the Supreme Court and U.S. secretary of state.
- 1870 - George Claude, French engineer, inventor of the neon light.
- 1894 - E. Franklin Frazier, first African-American president of the American Sociological Society.
- 1896 - Francis Scott Key (F. Scott) Fitzgerald, novelist best known for The Great Gatsby.
- 1911 - Konstantin Chernenko, president of the Soviet Union 1984-1985.
- 1936 - Jim Henson, puppeteer who created the "Muppets" in 1954 and television's Sesame Street.