24 July - Definition and Overview

July 24 is the 205th day (206th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 160 days remaining.

Events

1500-1899

• 1567 - Mary Queen of Scots is deposed.
• 1701 - Detroit, Michigan founded.
• 1814 - War of 1812: General Phineas Riall advances toward Niagara to halt Jacob Brown's American invaders.
• 1832 - Benjamin Bonneville leads the first wagon train across the Rocky Mountains by using Wyoming's South Pass.
• 1847 - After 17 months of travel, Brigham Young leads 148 Mormon pioneers into Salt Lake Valley, resulting in the establishment of Salt Lake City.
• 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Kernstown - Confederate General Jubal Early defeats Union troops led by General George Crook in an effort to keep Yankees out of the Shenandoah Valley.
• 1866 - Reconstruction: Tennessee becomes the first U.S. state to be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War.

1900-1999

• 1901 - O. Henry is released from prison in Austin, Texas after serving three years for embezzlement from a bank.
• 1910 - James MacGillivray publishes first account of Paul Bunyan in the Detroit News.
• 1911 - Hiram Bingham III re-discoveres Machu Picchu "the Lost City of the Incas".
• 1923 - The Treaty of Lausanne, settling the boundaries of modern Turkey, is signed in Switzerland by Greece, Bulgaria and other countries that fought in the First World War.
• 1927 - The Menin Gate war memorial is unveiled at Ypres.
• 1929 - The Kellogg-Briand Pact, renouncing war as an instrument of foreign policy, goes into effect (it was first signed in Paris on August 27, 1928 by most leading world powers).
• 1935 - The dust bowl heat wave reaches its peak, sending temperatures to 109°F (44°C) in Chicago, Illinois and 104°F (40°C) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
• 1937 - Alabama drops rape charges against the so-called "Scottsboro Boys."
• 1943 - World War II: Operation Gomorrah begins: British and Canadian aeroplanes bomb Hamburg by night, those of the Americans by day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of explosives will have killed more than 30,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings.
• 1956 - At New York City's Copacabana Club, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis perform their last comedy show together which started on July 25, 1946.
• 1959 - At the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, US vice-president Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev have a "kitchen debate."
• 1965 - Vietnam War: Four F-4C Phantoms escorting a bombing raid at Kang Chi are the targets of antiaircraft missiles in the first such attack against American planes in the war. One is shot down and the other three sustain damage.
• 1967 - During an official state visit to Canada, French President Charles de Gaulle declares to a crowd of over 100,000 in Montreal: Vive le Québec libre! (Long live free Quebec!). The statement, interpreted as support for Quebec independence, delighted many Quebecers but angered the Canadian government and many English Canadians.
• 1969 - Apollo program: Apollo 11 splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean.
• 1974 - Watergate Scandal: The United States Supreme Court unanimously rule that President Richard Nixon did not have the authority to withhold subpoenaed White House tapes and they order him to surrender the tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor.
• 1983 - George Brett, batting for the Kansas City Royals against the New York Yankees, has a game-winning home run nullified in the "Pine Tar Incident".
• 1998 - Russel Eugene Weston Jr. bursts into the United States Capitol and opens fire killing two police officers. He is later ruled to be incompetent to stand trial.

2000-2099

• 2001 - Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Tsar of Bulgaria when he was a child, was sworn in as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, and became the only monarch in history to regain political power through democratic election to a different office.
• 2001 - The Taiwan Solidarity Union is established.
• 2002 - James Traficant is expelled from the United States House of Representatives on a vote of 420 to 1.
• 2002 - Alfred Moisiu becomes President of Albania.

Births

1700-1899

• 1725 - John Newton cleric, songwriter (Amazing Grace) (d. 1807)
• 1783 - Simón Bolívar, South American liberator (d. 1830)
• 1786 - Joseph Nicollet, mathematician and explorer (d. 1843)
• 1802 - Alexandre Dumas pere (La Pailleterie), playwright, novelist (d. 1870)
• 1853 - William Gillette, actor, author (d. 1937)
• 1860 - Alfons Mucha, graphic artist (d. 1939)
• 1864 - Frank Wedekind, dramatist, lyricist, narrator (d. 1918)
• 1878 - Lord Dunsany, writer (d. 1957)
• 1892 - Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Japanese writer (d. 1927)
• 1895 - Robert Graves, author (d. 1985)
• 1896 - Hermann Kasack, writer (d. 1966)
• 1898 - Amelia Earhart, aviator (first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic) (d. 1937 (disappeared))
• 1899 - Chief Dan George, Native American actor (d. 1981)

1900-1999

• 1908 - Cootie Williams, trumpeter (d. 1985)
• 1914 - Edwin Mirvish - retailer, impresario
• 1916 - John D. MacDonald, novelist, (d. 1986)
• 1917 - Robert Farnon, conductor, composer and arranger
• 1918 - Ruggiero Ricci, American violinist
• 1926 - Hans Günter Winkler, equestrian jumper
• 1929 - Oriana Fallaci, Italian journalist and author
• 1931 - Ermanno Olmi, italian director
• 1933 - Doug Sanders, golfer
• 1934 - Rudy Collins, drummer for the Dizzy Gillespie quintet
• 1935 - Pat Oliphant, political cartoonist
• 1936 - Ruth Buzzi, comedienne
• 1942 - Chris Sarandon, actor
• 1945 - Azim Premji, businessman
• 1947 - Robert Hays, actor
• 1947 - Peter Serkin, American pianist
• 1949 - Michael Richards, comedian
• 1951 - Lynda Carter, actress
• 1951 - Chris Smith, British politician, first "out" gay MP
• 1952 - Gus Van Sant, film director
• 1957 - Pam Tillis, country and western singer
• 1963 - Karl Malone, National Basketball Association player
• 1964 - Barry Bonds, Major League Baseball player
• 1965 - Kadeem Hardison, actor
• 1968 - Laura Leighton, actress
• 1970 - Jennifer Lopez, actress, singer
• 1981 - Gauge, erotic actress
• 1982 - Anna Paquin, actress
• 1984 - Dhani Lennevald, tallest in the A-Teens

Deaths

• 1862 - Martin Van Buren, eighth president of the United States
• 1965 - Constance Bennett, actress
• 1969 - Witold Gombrowicz, Polish novelist and dramatist (b. 1904)
• 1980 - Peter Sellers, actor
• 1991 - Isaac Bashevis Singer, author, received Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978
• 1996 - Mohammed Farah Aidid, Somali warlord
• 1997 - William J. Brennan, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (b. 1906)

Holidays and observances

• Ecuador - Simón Bolívar Day
• Utah - Pioneer Day (1847)
• Vanuatu - Children's Day
• Venezuela - Birth of the Libertador (Simón Bolívar Day)
• Ancient Latvia - Jekaupa Diena held

July 23 - July 25 - June 24 - August 24 -- listing of all days