November 24

Historic Events

2023

Hibiscus Rising, commemorating David Oluwale, is unveiled in Leeds. ›

2022

Five days after the general elections which resulted in a hung parliament, opposition leader and former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim is officially named as the 10th prime minister of Malaysia. ›

2017

A terrorist attack on a Mosque in Al-Rawda, North Sinai, Egypt kills 311 people and injures 128. ›

2016

The government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People's Army sign a revised peace deal, bringing an end to the country's more than 50-year-long civil war. ›

2015

A Russian Air Force Sukhoi Su-24 fighter jet is shot down by the Turkish Air Force over the Syria–Turkey border, killing one of the two pilots; a Russian marine is also killed during a subsequent rescue effort. ›

2015

A terrorist attack on a hotel in Al-Arish, Egypt, kills at least seven people and injures 12 others. ›

2015

An explosion on a bus carrying Tunisian Presidential Guard personnel in Tunisia's capital Tunis leaves at least 14 people dead. ›

2013

Iran signs an interim agreement with the P5+1 countries, limiting its nuclear program in exchange for reduced sanctions. ›

2012

A fire at a clothing factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, kills at least 112 people. ›

2009

The Avdhela Project, an Aromanian digital library and cultural initiative, is founded in Bucharest, Romania. ›

2001

Crossair Flight 3597 crashes in Bassersdorf near Zurich Airport, killing 24 people, including singer Melanie Thornton and two members of the German band Passion Fruit. ›

1992

China Southern Airlines Flight 3943 crashes on approach to Guilin Qifengling Airport in Guilin, China, killing all 141 people on board. ›

1991

Space Shuttle program: Atlantis launches on STS-44. ›

1989

After a week of mass protests against the Communist regime known as the Velvet Revolution, Miloš Jakeš and the entire Politburo of the Czechoslovak Communist Party resign from office. This brings an effective end to Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. ›

1976

The Çaldıran–Muradiye earthquake in eastern Turkey kills between 4,000 and 5,000 people. ›

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. ›

1973

A national speed limit is imposed on the Autobahn in Germany because of the 1973 oil crisis. The speed limit lasts only four months. ›

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 $200,000 in ransom money. He has never been found. ›

1969

Apollo program: The Apollo 12 command module splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second crewed mission to land on the Moon. ›

1966

Bulgarian TABSO Flight 101 crashes near Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, killing all 82 people on board. ›

1965

Joseph-Désiré Mobutu seizes power in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and becomes President; he rules the country (which he renames Zaire in 1971) for over 30 years, until being overthrown by rebels in 1997. ›

1963

Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is killed by Jack Ruby on live television. Robert H. Jackson takes a photograph of the shooting that will win the 1964 Pulitzer Prize in Photography. ›

1962

Cold War: The West Berlin branch of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany forms a separate party, the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin. ›

1962

The influential British satirical television programme That Was the Week That Was is first broadcast. ›

1944

World War II: The 73rd Bombardment Wing launches the first attack on Tokyo from the Northern Mariana Islands. ›

1943

World War II: At the battle of Makin the USS Liscome Bay is torpedoed near Tarawa and sinks, killing 650 men. ›

1941

World War II: The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French Forces. ›

1940

World War II: The First Slovak Republic becomes a signatory to the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers. ›

1935

The Senegalese Socialist Party holds its second congress. ›

1932

In Washington, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens. ›

1929

The Finnish far-right Lapua Movement officially begins when a group of mainly the former White Guard members, led by Vihtori Kosola, interrupted communism occasion at the Workers' House in Lapua, Finland. ›

1922

Nine Irish Republican Army members are executed by an Irish Free State firing squad. Among them is author Erskine Childers, who had been arrested for illegally carrying a revolver. ›

1917

In Milwaukee, nine members of the Milwaukee Police Department are killed by a bomb, the most deaths in a single event in U.S. police history until the September 11 attacks in 2001. ›

1906

A 13–6 victory by the Massillon Tigers over their rivals, the Canton Bulldogs, for the "Ohio League" Championship, leads to accusations that the championship series was fixed and results in the first major scandal in professional American football. ›

1877

Anna Sewell's animal welfare novel Black Beauty is published. ›

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. ›

1859

British naturalist Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species is published. ›

1850

Danish troops defeat a Schleswig-Holstein force in the town of Lottorf, Schleswig-Holstein. ›

1835

The Texas Provincial Government authorizes the creation of a horse-mounted police force called the Texas Rangers (which is now the Texas Ranger Division of the Texas Department of Public Safety). ›

1832

South Carolina passes the Ordinance of Nullification, declaring that the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were null and void in the state, beginning the Nullification Crisis. ›

1750

Tarabai, regent of the Maratha Empire, imprisons Rajaram II of Satara for refusing to remove Balaji Baji Rao from the post of peshwa. ›

1642

Abel Tasman becomes the first European to discover the island Van Diemen's Land (later renamed Tasmania). ›

1542

Battle of Solway Moss: An English army defeats a much larger Scottish force near the River Esk in Dumfries and Galloway. ›

1429

Hundred Years' War: Joan of Arc unsuccessfully besieges La Charité. ›

1359

Peter I of Cyprus ascends the throne of Cyprus after his father, Hugh IV of Cyprus, abdicates. ›

1248

An overnight landslide on the north side of Mont Granier, one of the largest historical rockslope failures ever recorded in Europe, destroys five villages. ›

1227

Gąsawa massacre: At an assembly of Piast dukes at Gąsawa, Polish Prince Leszek the White, Duke Henry the Bearded and others are attacked by assassins while bathing. ›

1221

Genghis Khan defeats the renegade Khwarazmian prince Jalal al-Din at the Battle of the Indus, completing the Mongol conquest of Central Asia. ›

1190

Conrad of Montferrat becomes King of Jerusalem upon his marriage to Isabella I of Jerusalem. ›

847

An earthquake hits Syria, causing multiple casualties and damages in Antioch, Damascus and Mosul. ›

380

Theodosius I makes his adventus, or formal entry, into Constantinople. ›