November 24

November 24 is the 328th day (329th on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 37 days remaining in the year.

Events

• 380 - Theodosius I makes his adventus, or formal entry, into Constantinople.
• 642 - Theodore succeeds John IV as Pope.
• 1639 - Jeremiah Horrocks observes the transit of Venus (November 24 in the Julian calendar, or December 4 in the Gregorian calendar).
• 1642 - Abel Tasman becomes the first European to discover the island Van Diemen's Land (later renamed Tasmania).
• 1859 - British naturalist Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species, a book which argues that organisms gradually evolve through natural selection (it immediately sold out its initial print run).
• 1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Lookout Mountain - Near Chattanooga, Tennessee, Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant capture Lookout Mountain and begin to break the Confederate siege of the city led by General Braxton Bragg.
• 1904 - The first successful caterpillar track is made (it would later revolutionize construction vehicles and land warfare).
• 1922 - Popular author and Irish Republican Army member Robert Erskine Childers is executed by an Irish Free State firing squad for illegally carrying a revolver.
• 1932 - In Washington, DC, the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens.
• 1941 - World War II: The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French.
• 1944 - World War II: Bombing of Tokyo - The first bombing raid against the Japanese capital of Tokyo from the east and by land was made by 88 American aircraft.
• 1947 - Red Scare: After refusing to co-operate with the House Un-American Activities Committee concerning allegations of Communist influence in the movie industry, the United States House of Representatives votes 346 to 17 to approve citations of contempt of Congress against the so-called Hollywood 10.
• 1947 - Robert Schuman becomes Prime Minister of France
• 1951 - The Broadway play Gigi opens starring little known actress Audrey Hepburn playing the lead character (the play ran for six months and led to Hepburn's film debut in Roman Holiday).
• 1963 - John F. Kennedy assassination: Alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is mortally shot by Jack Ruby in Dallas, Texas on live national television.
• 1963 - Vietnam War: Newly sworn in US President Lyndon B. Johnson confirms that the United States intends to continue supporting South Vietnam militarily and economically.
• 1969 - Apollo program: The Apollo 12 spacecraft splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second manned mission to the Moon.
• 1971 - During a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a man calling himself Dan Cooper (commonly remembered as D. B. Cooper) parachutes from the Northwest Orient Airlines plane he hijacked with US$200,000 in ransom money (he was never heard from again).
• 1976 - The Band gives its last public performance; Martin Scorsese is on hand to film it (see: The Last Waltz).
• 1992 - In the People's Republic of China, a China Southern Airlines domestic flight crashes, killing all 141 people on-board.
• 1993 - In the United Kingdom, 11-year olds Robert Thompson and Jon Venables are convicted of the child murder of 2-year-old James Bulger of Liverpool (they were sentenced to "indefinite detention").
• 1996 - Rusty Wallace wins the Suzuka NASCAR Thunder 100 racing event at Suzuka Circuitland in Suzuka City (this was the first NASCAR competition held in Japan).
• 1998 - America Online announces it will acquire Netscape Communications in a stock-for-stock transaction worth US$4.2 billion.

Births

• 1394 - Charles, Duke of Orléans, French poet (d. 1465)
• 1615 - Philipp Wilhelm, Elector Palatine (d. 1690)
• 1630 - Etienne Baluze, French scholar (d. 1718)
• 1632 - Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher (d. 1677)
• 1655 - King Charles XI of Sweden (d. 1697)
• 1690 - Charles Theodore Pachelbel, German composer (d. 1750)
• 1713 - Laurence Sterne, novelist (d. 1768)
• 1713 - Junipero Serra, Spanish missionary (d. 1784)
• 1729 - Alexander Suvorov, Russian general (d. 1800)
• 1784 - Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States (d. 1850)
• 1787 - Franz Xaver Gruber, organist and composer (d. 1863)
• 1801 - Ludwig Bechstein, narrator and poet (d. 1860)
• 1811 - Ulrich Ochsenbein, member of the Swiss Federal Council (d. 1890)
• 1826 - Carlo Collodi, author (d. 1890)
• 1849 - Frances Hodgson Burnett, author (d. 1924)
• 1853 - Bat Masterson, American gunslinger and policeman (d. 1921)
• 1859 - Cass Gilbert, architect (d. 1934)
• 1864 - Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French painter (d. 1901)
• 1868 - Scott Joplin, American musician (d. 1917)
• 1874 - Charles Miller, father of football in Brazil
• 1876 - Walter Burley Griffin, architect
• 1877 - Alben W. Barkley, Vice President of the United States (d. 1956)
• 1881 - Al Christie, Hollywood director and producer (d. 1951)
• 1884 - Itzhak Ben-Zvi, President of Israel (d. 1963)
• 1888 - Dale Carnegie, writer (d. 1955)
• 1894 - Herbert Sutcliffe, English cricketer (d. 1978)
• 1905 - Irving Allen, producer, director (d. 1987)
• 1912 - Garson Kanin, writer (d. 1999)
• 1912 - Teddy Wilson, jazz musician (d. 1986)
• 1913 - Geraldine Fitzgerald, actress
• 1916 - Forrest J. Ackerman, writer and publisher
• 1917 - Howard Duff, actor
• 1921 - John Lindsay, American politician (d. 2000)
• 1921 - Yoshiko Uchida, Japanese-American writer (d. 1992)
• 1924 - Victor Grinich Croatian-American businesman (d. 2000)
• 1925 - William F. Buckley Jr., writer and political commentator
• 1925 - Simon van der Meer, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1926 - Tsung-Dao Lee, Chinese physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1927 - Ahmadou Kourouma, Ivorian writer (d. 2003)
• 1927 - Alfredo Kraus, Spanish tenor (d. 1999)
• 1930 - Bob Friend, baseball pitcher
• 1934 - Alfred Schnittke, composer (d. 1998)
• 1936 - Sophie Daumier, actress
• 1938 - Oscar Robertson, Basketball Hall of Famer
• 1941 - Pete Best, drummer
• 1943 - Dave Bing, basketball player
• 1946 - Ted Bundy, serial killer (d. 1989)
• 1947 - Dwight Schultz, actor
• 1948 - Steve Yeager, baseball player
• 1949 - Linda Tripp, figure in Lewinsky scandal
• 1951 - Chet Edwards, American politician
• 1952 - Thierry Lhermitte, actor
• 1953 - Mudbone Cooper, singer (P Funk)
• 1955 - Ian Botham, British cricketer
• 1955 - Elvis Ramone, American drummer (The Ramones)
• 1955 - Takashi Yuasa, Japanese international lawyer
• 1957 - Denise Crosby, American actress
• 1960 - Amanda Wyss, American actress
• 1964 - Brad Sherwood, comedian
• 1964 - Robert Trujillo, American bass player (Metallica)
• 1967 - Russell Watson, British singer
• 1971 - Keith Primeau, Canadian hockey player
• 1976 - Chen Lu, figure skater
• 1978 - Katherine Heigl, actress

Deaths

• 654 - Emperor Kōtoku, emperor of Japan
• 1541 - Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII (b. 1489)
• 1572 - John Knox, Scottish reformer
• 1722 - Johann Adam Reinken, German organist (b. 1623)
• 1741 - Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden (b. 1688)
• 1770 - Charles-Jean-François Hénault, French historian (b. 1685)
• 1781 - James Caldwell, American revolutionary
• 1848 - Lord Melbourne, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1779)
• 1870 - Comte de Lautréamont, French writer (b. 1846)
• 1890 - August Belmont, Sr., Prussian-born financier (b. 1816)
• 1916 - Hiram Stevens Maxim, weapons inventor (b. 1840)
• 1922 - Robert Erskine Childers, Irish author and nationalist (executed) (b. 1870)
• 1929 - Georges Clemenceau, Premier of France (b. 1841)
• 1956 - Guido Cantelli, conductor (b. 1920)
• 1957 - Diego Rivera, painter (b. 1886)
• 1973 - John Neihardt, writer (b. 1881)
• 1974 - Nick Drake, musician (b. 1948)
• 1980 - George Raft, actor (b. 1895)
• 1985 - Big Joe Turner, blues singer (b. 1911)
• 1991 - Freddie Mercury, singer (Queen), of AIDS (b. 1946).
• 1996 - Sorley MacLean, Scottish Gaelic poet
• 2001 - Arthur Hailey, Bahamian author

External links

• BBC: On This Day

November 23 - November 25 - October 24 - December 24 -- listing of all days