On This Day — 24 April

2025

A mass stabbing at a school in Nantes, France, leaves one person dead and three others wounded.

2025 Nantes school stabbing

2013

A building collapses near Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing 1,134 people and injuring about 2,500 others.

Rana Plaza collapse

2013

Violence in Bachu County, Kashgar Prefecture, of China's Xinjiang results in death of 21 people.

April 2013 Bachu unrest

2011

WikiLeaks starts publishing the Guantanamo Bay files leak.

WikiLeaks

2006

Bombings in the Egyptian resort city of Dahab kill 23 people and injure about 80.

2006 Dahab bombings

2005

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.

Cardinal (Catholic Church)

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.

Economic sanctions

1996

In the United States, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 is passed into law.

Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996

1994

A Douglas DC-3 ditches in Botany Bay after takeoff from Sydney Airport. All 25 people on board survive.

Douglas DC-3

1993

An IRA bomb devastates the Bishopsgate area of London.

Provisional Irish Republican Army

1990

STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery.

STS-31

1990

Gruinard Island, Scotland, is officially declared free of the anthrax disease after 48 years of quarantine.

Gruinard Island

1980

Eight U.S. servicemen die in Operation Eagle Claw as they attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis.

Operation Eagle Claw

1970

China launches Dong Fang Hong I, becoming the fifth nation to put an object into orbit using its own booster.

Dong Fang Hong 1

1970

The Gambia becomes a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, with Dawda Jawara as its first President.

The Gambia

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.

Astronaut

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".

Vietnam War

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.

Dominican Civil War

1963

Marriage of Princess Alexandra of Kent to Angus Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey in London.

Princess Alexandra (born 1936)

1957

Suez Crisis: The Suez Canal is reopened following the introduction of UNEF peacekeepers to the region.

Suez Crisis

1955

The Bandung Conference ends: Twenty-nine non-aligned nations of Asia and Africa finish a meeting that condemns colonialism, racism, and the Cold War.

Bandung Conference

1953

Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

Winston Churchill

1944

World War II: The SBS launches a raid against the garrison of Santorini in Greece.

World War II

1933

Nazi Germany begins its persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses by shutting down the Watch Tower Society office in Magdeburg.

Nazi Germany

1932

Benny Rothman leads the mass trespass of Kinder Scout, leading to substantial legal reforms in the United Kingdom.

Benny Rothman

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.

Treaty of Berlin (1926)

1924

Thorvald Stauning becomes premier of Denmark (first term).

Thorvald Stauning

1922

The first segment of the Imperial Wireless Chain providing wireless telegraphy between Leafield in Oxfordshire, England, and Cairo, Egypt, comes into operation.

Imperial Wireless Chain

1918

World War I: First tank-to-tank combat, during the second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux. Three British Mark IVs meet three German A7Vs.

World War I

1916

Easter Rising: Irish rebels, led by Patrick Pearse and James Connolly, launch an uprising in Dublin against British rule and proclaim an Irish Republic.

Easter Rising

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 crew of the sunken Endurance.

Ernest Shackleton

1915

The arrest of 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Istanbul marks the beginning of the Armenian genocide.

Deportation of Armenian intellectuals on 24 April 1915

1914

The Franck–Hertz experiment, a pillar of quantum mechanics, is presented to the German Physical Society.

Franck–Hertz experiment

1913

The Woolworth Building, a skyscraper in New York City, is opened.

Woolworth Building

1895

Joshua Slocum, the first person to sail single-handedly around the world, sets sail from Boston, Massachusetts aboard the sloop Spray.

Joshua Slocum

1885

American sharpshooter Annie Oakley is hired by Nate Salsbury to be a part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West.

Sharpshooter

1877

Russo-Turkish War: The Russian Empire declares war on the Ottoman Empire.

Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878)

1837

The great fire in Surat, India causes more than 500 deaths and destruction of more than 9,000 houses.

1837 Surat fire

1800

The United States Library of Congress is established when President John Adams signs legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress".

Library of Congress

1793

French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat is acquitted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of charges brought by the Girondin in Paris.

Jean-Paul Marat

1704

The first regular newspaper in British Colonial America, The Boston News-Letter, is published.

Thirteen Colonies

1558

Mary, Queen of Scots, marries the Dauphin of France, François, at Notre-Dame de Paris.

Mary, Queen of Scots

1547

Battle of Mühlberg. Duke of Alba, commanding Spanish-Imperial forces of Charles I of Spain, defeats the troops of Schmalkaldic League.

Battle of Mühlberg

934

Abbasid Caliph Al-Qahir is deposed and blinded. His nephew al-Radi suceeds him as caliph.

List of Abbasid caliphs

858

Consecration of Pope Nicholas I following the death of Pope Benedict III earlier that month.

Pope Nicholas I

-1183

Traditional reckoning of the Fall of Troy marking the end of the legendary Trojan War, given by chief librarian of the Library of Alexandria Eratosthenes, among others.

Troy

-1479

Thutmose III ascends to the throne of Egypt, although power effectively shifts to Hatshepsut (according to the Low Chronology of the 18th dynasty).

Thutmose III