June 24 - Definition and Overview

June 24 is the 175th day of the year (176th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 190 days remaining.

Events

1100-1899

• 1128 - Battle of St.Mamede, near Guimarães. Portuguese forces led by Afonso I beat his mother D.Teresa and D.Fernão Peres de Trava. After this battle, the future king calls himself "Prince of Portugal", the first step towards independence in 1143.
• 1314 - Battle of Bannockburn. Scottish forces led by Robert the Bruce beat Edward II of England. Scotland regains its independence.
• 1374 - A sudden outbreak of St. John's Dance causes people in the streets of Aix-la-Chapelle, Prussia, to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion.
• 1441 - Eton College founded.
• 1497 - John Cabot lands on North America, either at Newfoundland or Cape Breton; first European discovery of the region since the Vikings.
• 1497 - Cornish traitors Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank executed at Tyburn, London
• 1509 - Henry VIII crowned King of England.
• 1534 - Jacques Cartier makes the European discovery of Prince Edward Island.
• 1535 - The Anabaptist state of Münster is conquered and disbanded.
• 1597 - The first Dutch voyage to the East Indies reaches Bantam (on Java).
• 1604 - Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford dies. Leading candidate for true authorship of the Shakespeare canon.
• 1662 - Dutch attempt but fail to capture Macao.
• 1664 - The colony of New Jersey is founded.
• 1692 - Kingston, Jamaica founded.
• 1793 - First republican constitution in France adopted.
• 1812 - Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon's invasion of Russia begins.
• 1859 - Battle of Solferino (Battle of the Three Sovereigns). Sardinia and France defeat Austria in northern Italy.
• 1861 - Tennessee becomes the 11th and last state to secede from the US.
• 1880 - First performance of O Canada, the song that would become the national anthem of Canada, at the Congrès national des Canadiens-Français.
• 1894 - The IOC decides to hold the Olympic Games every four years.

1900-1999

• 1901 - First exhibition of Pablo Picasso's work opens.
• 1910 - Japan invades Korea.
• 1913 - Greece and Serbia annul their alliance with Bulgaria.
• 1915 - The steamer Eastland capsizes in Chicago. 800 people die.
• 1916 - Mary Pickford becomes first film star to get million dollar contract.
• 1918 - First airmail service in Canada from Montreal to Toronto.
• 1918 - The giant cannon Big Bertha begins bombardments on Paris
• 1932 - A military coup ends the absolute power of the king of Siam (Thailand).
• 1940 - France and Italy sign an armistice.
• 1941 - The Germans capture Vilna, Brest-Litovsk, and Kaunas.
• 1945 - The U.S.S.R. capture the Free Republic of Schwarzenberg.
• 1946 - Georges Bidault becomes Prime Minister of France
• 1947 - First known sighting of UFOs: Kenneth Arnold, flying over Washington, notices nine luminous disks in the form of saucers.
• 1948 - Start of the Berlin Blockade. The Soviet Union makes overland travel between the West with West Berlin impossible.
• 1957 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules that obsecnity is not protected by the First Amendment.
• 1963 - Zanzibar is granted internal self-government by the UK.
• 1974 - The UPC label is used for the first time to ring up purchases at a supermarket.
• 1975 - An Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 crashes at John F. Kennedy Airport, New York. 113 people die.
• 1983 - Sally Ride, first female American astronaut, returns to earth.
• 1983 - Yasir Arafat banned from Damascus.
• 1993 - Yale computer science professor Dr. David Gelernter loses the sight in one eye, the hearing in one ear, and part of his right hand after receiving a mailbomb from the Unabomber.
• 1996 - Michael Johnson breaks the world record in the 400 metres with a time of 19.66 seconds
• 1999 - The guitar which Eric Clapton recorded Layla is sold at auction for the astounding price of $497,500.

Births

1700-1899

• 1777 - John Ross, naval officer and explorer (d. 1856)
• 1795 - Ernst Heinrich Weber, anatomist and physiologist (d. 1878)
• 1803 - George James Webb, composer
• 1842 - Ambrose Bierce, author (d. 1914, speculative)
• 1850 - Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, original Order of Merit member (d. 1916)
• 1882 - Carl Diem, sports scientist (d. 1962)
• 1883 - Victor Franz Hess, American physicist
• 1888 - Gerrit Rietveld, Dutch architect (d. 1964)
• 1895 - Jack Dempsey, boxer (d. 1983)

1900-1999

• 1901 - Harry Partch, microtonal composer (d. 1974)
• 1906 - Pierre Fournier, French cellist (d. 1986)
• 1909 - David Rose, composer, musician (d. 1990)
• 1911 - Juan Manuel Fangio, Argentinian race car driver (d. 1995)
• 1915 - Fred Hoyle, cosmologist, science fiction author (d. 2001)
• 1922 - Tata Giacobetti, Italian singer and lyricist (Quartetto Cetra)
• 1928 - Wolfgang Altenburg, German general
• 1930 - Claude Chabrol, film director
• 1931 - Billy Casper, professional golfer
• 1942 - Mick Fleetwood, blues/pop/rock musician (Fleetwood Mac)
• 1942 - Michele Lee, actress
• 1944 - Jeff Beck, rock guitarist ("Yardbirds")
• 1944 - Chris Wood, rock musician
• 1945 - Colin Blunstone, rock musician ("The Zombies")
• 1945 - George Pataki, Governor of New York
• 1946 - Ellison Onizuka, astronaut (d. 1986)
• 1953 - Garry Shider, musician (P Funk)
• 1960 - Trisha Meili, author of I Am the Central Park Jogger
• 1967 - Richard Kruspe-Bernstein, lead guitarist for Rammstein
• 1969 - Sissel Kyrkjebø, Norwegian singer
• 1970 - Glenn Medeiros, Hawaiian singer-songwriter
• 1985 - Matthew Dezendorf, Programmer, actor, and composer
• 1986 - Solange Knowles, actress, singer
• 1987 - Jeroen de Jong, student, actor

Deaths

0-1499

• 1439 - Frederick IV of Austria - Regent of Tyrol and Further Austria

1500-1899

• 1519 - Lucrezia Borgia, duchess of Ferrara (b. 1480)
• 1604 - Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain of England

1900-1999

• 1908 - Grover Cleveland, former president of the USA (heart failure)
• 1922 - Walther Rathenau, minister of Foreign Affairs for the Weimar Republic (b. 1867, assassinated)
• 1947 - Emil Seidel, politician, mayor of Milwaukee, Socialist vice-presidential candidate
• 1953 - George Herbert Walker, grandfather to President George H. W. Bush
• 1987 - Jackie Gleason, actor, musician
• 1993 - Archie Williams, American athlete

2000-2099

• 2000 - Vera Atkins, Special Operations Executive intelligence officer
• 2002 - Pierre Werner, former Prime Minister of Luxembourg, "father of the euro"
• 2003 - Maynard Jackson, former mayor of Atlanta, Georgia
• 2003 - Leon Uris, author
• 2004 - Ifigeneia Giannopoulou, Greek songwriter (b. 1957)

Holidays and observances

• Roman Catholic Church - Feast of Saint John the Baptist, patron of farriers
• Original Midsummer's Eve in Finland and Sweden, although the official holiday is now moved to the nearest Friday
• One of the four Irish Quarter days in the Irish Calendar.
• Discovery Day in Newfoundland and Labrador (celebrating the 1497 discovery by John Cabot)
• Fête nationale du Québec, also called St-Jean-Baptiste Day
• Day of Indian in Peru
• Bannockburn Day in Scotland (see 1314 above)
• Bahá'í Faith - Feast of Rahmat (Mercy) - First day of the sixth month of the Bahá'í Calendar
• Quarter days in England

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