Historical Events on 24 Nov

Historical Events on 24 Nov

1190 - Isabella of Jerusalem marries Conrad of Montferrat at Acre, making him de jure King.
1639 - Jeremiah Horrocks observes the transit of Venus, an event he had predicted.
1642 - Abel Tasman becomes the first European to discover the island Van Diemen's Land (later renamed Tasmania).
1859 - Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species.
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.
1898 - The International Conference of Rome for the Social Defense Against Anarchists opens.
1917 - Nine police officers and one civilian are killed when a bomb explodes at the Milwaukee, Wisconsin police headquarters building.
1922 - 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, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens.
1935 - The Senegalese Socialist Party holds its second congress.
1941 - World War II: The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French.
1943 - World War II: The USS Liscome Bay is torpedoed near Tarawa and sinks with nearly 650 men killed.
1944 - World War II: Bombing of Tokyo - The first bombing raid against the Japanese capital from the east and by land is carried out by 88 American aircraft.
1947 - Red Scare: After the so-called Hollywood 10 refuse 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 cit
1962 - The West Berlin branch of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany forms a separate party, the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin.
1963 - Lee Harvey Oswald is assassinated by Jack Ruby in the basement of Dallas police department headquarters on live television.
1963 - Vietnam War: Newly sworn-in US President Lyndon B. Johnson confirms that the United States intends to continue supporting South Vietnam both militarily and economically.
1965 - Joseph Désiré Mobutu seizes power in the Congo and becomes President; he goes on to rule the country (which he renames Zaire in 1971) for over 30 years, until being overthrown by rebels in 1997.
1966 - New York City experiences the smoggiest day in the city's history.
1966 - A Bulgarian plane with 82 people on board crashes near Bratislava, Slovakia.
1969 - Apollo program: The Apollo 12 command module splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second manned mission to the Moon.
1971 - During a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper (AKA D.B. Cooper) parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines plane with US$200,000 in ransom money - neither he nor the money have ever been found.
1974 - Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discover the 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, nicknamed "Lucy" after The Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar Depression.
1992 - In the People's Republic of China, a China Southern Airlines domestic flight crashes, killing all 141 people on-board.
1993 - In Liverpool, 11-year-olds Robert Thompson and Jon Venables are convicted of the murder of 2-year-old James Bulger.
2005 - Conservative leader Stephen Harper, the leader of the Official Opposition in the Canadian Parliament, introduces a motion of no confidence, which NDP leader Jack Layton seconds. The motion is passed on November 28 leading to the dissolution of the 38th Ca
2006 - Israeli rapist Benny Sela escapes from police custody while being transferred to a court hearing.
380 - Theodosius I makes his adventus, or formal entry, into Constantinople.