Historical EventsToday: 24 September

Events

• 622 - Prophet Muhammad completes his hegira from Mecca to Medina.


• 1180 - Manuel I Komnenos, last Emperor of the Komnenian restoration dies. The Byzantine Empire slips into terminal decline.


• 1664 - The Netherlands surrenders New Amsterdam to England.


• 1789 - The office of the Attorney General of the United States of America, and the United States Post Office Department are established.


• 1841 - The Sultan of Brunei cedes Sarawak to Britain.


• 1852 - The first airship is displayed.


• 1869 - "Black Friday": Gold prices plummet after Ulysses S. Grant orders the Treasury to sell large quantities of gold after Jay Gould and James Fisk plot to control the market.


• 1877 - Battle of Shiroyama, decisive victory of the Imperial Japanese Army over the Satsuma Rebellion


• 1890 - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially renounces polygamy.


• 1903 - Edmund Barton steps down as Prime Minister of Australia and is succeeded by Alfred Deakin.


• 1906 - U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaims Devils Tower the nation's first National Monument.


• 1935 - Earl Bascom and Weldon Bascom produce the first rodeo ever held outdoors under electric lights at Columbia, Mississippi


• 1946 - Cathay Pacific Airways is founded in Hong Kong


• 1947 - Majestic 12 is allegedly established by secret executive order of President Harry Truman


• 1948 - The Honda Motor Company is founded.


• 1950 - Forest fires black out the sun over portions of Canada and New England. A Blue moon (in the astronomical sense) is seen as far away as Europe.


• 1957 - Camp Nou, the largest stadium in Europe, is opened in Barcelona.


• 1957 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends 101st Airborne Division troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce desegregation.


• 1962 - United States court of appeals orders the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith.


• 1973 - Guinea-Bissau declares its independence from Portugal.


• 1988 - Summer Olympics: Ben Johnson beats Carl Lewis and Linford Christie in the 100 metres sprint in a record time of 9.79 seconds. (Johnson would later be disqualified in a high profile case of doping.)


• 1990 - Periodic Great White Spot observed on Saturn


• 1994 - National League for Democracy is formed by Aung San Suu Kyi and various others to help fight against dictatorship in Myanmar.


• 1996 - U.S. President Bill Clinton signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty at the United Nations.


• 2005 - Hurricane Rita makes landfall in the United States, devastating Beaumont, Texas and portions of southwestern Louisiana.


• 2007 - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gives a controversial speech on the campus of Columbia University.