July 24 in History

Historical Events on July 24

1132

Battle of Nocera between Ranulf II of Alife and Roger II of Sicily.
1148

Louis VII of France lays siege to Damascus during the Second Crusade.
1304

Wars of Scottish Independence: Fall of Stirling Castle: King Edward I of England takes the stronghold using the War Wolf.
1411

Battle of Harlaw, one of the bloodiest battles in Scotland, takes place.
1487

Citizens of Leeuwarden, Netherlands strike against a ban on foreign beer.
1534

French explorer Jacques Cartier plants a cross on the Gaspé Peninsula and takes possession of the territory in the name of Francis I of France.
1567

Mary, Queen of Scots, is forced to abdicate and replaced by her 1-year-old son James VI.
1701

Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founds the trading post at Fort Pontchartrain, which later becomes the city of Detroit.
1783

The Kingdom of Georgia and the Russian Empire sign the Treaty of Georgievsk.
1814

War of 1812: General Phineas Riall advances toward the Niagara River to halt Jacob Brown's American invaders.
1823

Slavery is abolished in Chile.
1823

In Maracaibo, Venezuela the naval Battle of Lake Maracaibo takes place, where Admiral José Prudencio Padilla, defeats the Spanish Navy, thus culminating the independence for the Gran Colombia.
1847

After 17 months of travel, Brigham Young leads 148 Mormon pioneers into Salt Lake Valley, resulting in the establishment of Salt Lake City.
1847

Richard March Hoe, American inventor, patented the rotary-type printing press.
1864

American Civil War: Battle of Kernstown: Confederate General Jubal Early defeats Union troops led by General George Crook in an effort to keep them out of the Shenandoah Valley.
1866

Reconstruction: Tennessee becomes the first U.S. state to be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War.
1901

O. Henry is released from prison in Columbus, Ohio after serving three years for embezzlement from a bank.
1910

The Ottoman Empire captures the city of Shkodër, putting down the Albanian Revolt of 1910.
1911

Hiram Bingham III re-discovers Machu Picchu, "the Lost City of the Incas".
1915

The passenger ship S.S. Eastland capsizes while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. A total of 844 passengers and crew are killed in the largest loss of life disaster from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes.
1922

The draft of the British Mandate of Palestine was formally confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations; it came into effect on 26 September 1923.
1923

The Treaty of Lausanne, settling the boundaries of modern Turkey, is signed in Switzerland by Greece, Bulgaria and other countries that fought in World War I.
1924

Themistoklis Sofoulis becomes Prime Minister of Greece.
1927

The Menin Gate war memorial is unveiled at Ypres.
1929

The Kellogg-Briand Pact, renouncing war as an instrument of foreign policy, goes into effect (it is first signed in Paris on August 27, 1928 by most leading world powers).
1935

The Dust Bowl heat wave reaches its peak, sending temperatures to 109 °F (43 °C) in Chicago and 104 °F (40 °C) in Milwaukee.
1937

Alabama drops rape charges against the "Scottsboro Boys".
1943

World War II: Operation Gomorrah begins: British and Canadian aeroplanes bomb Hamburg by night, and American planes by day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of explosives will have killed more than 30,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings.
1950

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station begins operations with the launch of a Bumper rocket.
1959

At the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev have a "Kitchen Debate".
1963

The ship Bluenose II was launched in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. The schooner is a major Canadian symbol.
1966

Michael Pelkey makes the first BASE jump from El Capitan along with Brian Schubert. Both came out with broken bones. BASE jumping has now been banned from El Cap.
1967

During an official state visit to Canada, French President Charles de Gaulle declares to a crowd of over 100,000 in Montreal: Vive le Québec libre! ("Long live free Quebec!"); the statement angered the Canadian government and many Anglophone Canadians.
1969

Apollo program: Apollo 11 splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean.
1974

Watergate scandal: The United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Richard Nixon did not have the authority to withhold subpoenaed White House tapes and they order him to surrender the tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor.
1977

End of a four-day-long Libyan-Egyptian War.
1980

The Quietly Confident Quartet of Australia wins the Men's 4 x 100 metre medley relay at the Moscow Olympics, the only time the United States has not won the event at Olympic level.
1982

Heavy rain causes a mudslide that destroys a bridge at Nagasaki, Japan, killing 299.
1983

The Black July anti-Tamil riots begin in Sri Lanka, killing between 400 and 3,000. Black July is generally regarded as the beginning of the Sri Lankan Civil War.
1983

George Brett batting for the Kansas City Royals against the New York Yankees, has a game-winning home run nullified in the "Pine Tar Incident".
1987

US supertanker SS Bridgeton collides with mines laid by IRGC causing a 43-square-meter dent in the body of the oil tanker.
1987

Hulda Crooks, at 91 years of age, climbed Mt. Fuji. Hulda became the oldest person to climb Japan’s highest peak.
1998

Russell Eugene Weston, Jr. bursts into the United States Capitol and opens fire killing two police officers. He is later ruled to be incompetent to stand trial.
2001

Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Tsar of Bulgaria when he was a child, is sworn in as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, becoming the first monarch in history to regain political power through democratic election to a different office.
2001

The Bandaranaike Airport attack is carried out by 14 Tamil Tiger commandos. 11 civilian and military aircraft are destroyed and 15 are damaged. All 14 commandos are shot dead, while 7 soldiers from the Sri Lanka Air Force are killed. In addition, 3 civilians and an engineer die. This incident slowed down the Sri Lankan economy.
2013

A high-speed train derails in Spain rounding a curve with an 80 km/h (50 mph) speed limit at 190 km/h (120 mph), killing 78 passengers.
2014

Air Algérie Flight 5017 loses contact with air traffic controllers 50 minutes after takeoff. It was travelling between Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and Algiers. The wreckage is later found in Mali. All 116 people onboard are killed.

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