Historical Events on April 24

  • 1704: The Boston News Letter – the first regularly distributed paper in British Colonial America – is published on this day.
  • 1800: United States’ President John Adams signs legislation that makes a $5,000 dollar appropriation to purchase “books that may be necessary for Congress’ use.” This establishes the U.S Library of Congress.
  • 1885: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show hires American sharpshooter Annie Oakley.
  • 1913: The Woolworth Building in New York is officially opened.
  • 1914: The German Physical Society is presented with the Franck-Hertz Experiment.
  • 1926: Germany and the Soviet Union sign the Treaty of Berlin. This treaty pledges that each party will remain neutral in the event of an attack on the other by a third party to last for a period of 5-years.
  • 1933: Nazi German shuts down the Watch Tower Society office in Magdeburg as they begin persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
  • 1953: Queen Elizabeth II knights Winston Churchill.
  • 1980: 8 United States servicemen die as they try to end the Iran hostage crisis in an operation known as Operation Eagle Claw.
  • 1990: From the Space Shuttle Discovery, the Hubble Space Telescope is launched.
  • 1996: The Anti-terrorism & Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 is passed into law in the U.S.
  • 2013: Over eleven hundred people are killed and another twenty-five hundred are wounded when a building collapses near Dhaka, Bangladesh.
  • 2013: Twenty-one people die as a result of violence in the Kashgar Prefecture of China.

Famous Birthdays on April 24

  • American director and screenwriter, William Castle is born in 1914.
  • American chef and author, Justin Wilson is born in 1914.
  • American actress and singer, Ruth Kobart is born in 1924.
  • American actress, singer and dancer, Shirley MacLaine is born in 1934.
  • English actress Jill Ireland is born in 1936.
  • American author Sue Grafton is born in 1940.
  • American singer and actress, Barbra Streisand is born in 1942.
  • American biochemist and Nobel Prize laureate, Roger D. Kornberg is born in 1947.
  • American actor and author, Eric Bogosian is born in 1953.
  • American actor Michael O’Keefe is born in 1955.
  • American comedian and actor, Cedric the Entertainer is born in 1964.
  • Irish actor Aidan Gillen is born in 1968.