Some of the significant events which took place on July 24 taken from the leaf of History:
1132- Battle of Nocera between Ranulf II of Alife and Roger II of Sicily.
1148- Louis VII of France lays siege to Damascus during the Second Crusade.
1411- Battle of Harlaw, one of the bloodiest battles in Scotland, takes place.
1487- Citizens of Leeuwarden, Netherlands, rebel against ban on foreign beer.
1959 – Vice-President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev engage in a heated debate about capitalism and communism in the middle of a model kitchen set up for the American National Exhibition in Moscow.
1990 – Reports of mass Iraq troops on the Kuwait border raise concerns that Iraq is planning to invade the country which is one of the richest oil nations in the world. Just over one week later on August 2nd, 1990 Iraq did invade Kuwait and within two days most of the Kuwaiti Armed Forces and Iraq was in control. Following a number of UN Security Council resolutions and Arab League including Resolution 678 gave Iraq a withdrawal deadline from Kuwait of January 15, 1991. The following day when Iraq forces did not leave January 16th a UN coalition force begins (Operation Desert Storm) joining the regional states of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states and by February 28, 1991 Iraq forces had been forced to leave Kuwait.
1911 – U.S.A. Discovery of Manchu Picchu: Hiram Bingham finds Manchu Picchu in the Andes. He was a professor of history at Yale, and was performing the expedition as a member of that faculty. He was able to confirm its location on July 24. He returned to excavate the site in 1912.
1915 – U.S.A. Steamer Overturns: The steamer Eastland overturns in the Chicago River, drowning between 800 and 850 of its passengers who were heading to a picnic.
1939 – The continuing drought conditions in the North Eastern US continue and farmers are now resigned to losing much of the crop and are using the valuable water for kitchen gardens to ensure the family will have food during the long cold winter period. Many wells and streams have now dried up due to the lack of rainfall.
1943 – Germany Hamburg Bombing Raids: Britain and the United States work together on bombing raids on Hamburg continuing nonstop for 7 days and nights with British bombers bombing Hamburg by night, and Americans bombing it by day. The resulting firestorms from the bombing left at least 40,000 dead in the first 3 days.
1969 – Apollo 11 Safely Returns To Earth: Apollo 11, the U.S. spacecraft that had taken the first astronauts to the surface of the moon, safely returns to Earth, this fulfilled the dream of President John F. Kennedy in 1961 when he said “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.”
1974 – Watergate Tapes Must Be Handed Over: The US Supreme Court orders President Nixon to hand over tape recordings of White House conversations about the Watergate affair to the Watergate special prosecutor.
1978 – Caribou Wildlife Range Fails to Gain Protection: The Senate energy committee rejected a bid to designate the potentially oil rich National Wildlife Range as Wilderness. Naturalists want the area protected from drilling to protect the 120,000 Caribou who use the range as a calving area, many believe that this wildlife range could provide the largest onshore oil and gas field in the US in future.
1979 – Ted Bundy Found Guilty: Ted Bundy was found guilty of murdering two sorority sisters. Although his exact number of victims is unknown, Bundy confessed to more than 30 murders. He was executed in the electric chair on January 24, 1989.
1986 – Brazil Inflation Rampant: In a plan to combat poverty and inflation in the third worlds most indebted nation, the president has announced plans to increase taxes on cars, fuel and foreign travel.
1997 – The Bharat Ratna is posthumously conferred on freedom-fighter Aruna Asaf Ali.
1998 – U.S.A. Merger Mania: The rash of mergers around the world continues to grow Bigger is Better Mentality of Corporations) as Enron Corporation acquires British-based Wessex Water, PLC.
1999 – Morocco King Hassan II Dies: King Hassan the Arab world’s longest reigning leader has died of a heart attack and his eldest son and successor, Crown Prince Sidi Mohamed, has been proclaimed commander of the faithful and King of Morocco.
2000- S. Vijaya Lakshami becomes first Indian woman Grandmaster in Chess.
2001 – Tamil Tiger Rebels Attack Airport: Tamil Tigers have attacked the only International airport in Colombo, Sri Lanka destroying 6 passenger aircraft half the Sri Lankan Airways fleet and eight military planes. The rebels firing guns and armed with mortars killed 15 and injured many more in the attack, the Sri Lanka tourist industry had just started to gain some important new visitors but this will end hopes for more tourism in the country.
2005 – Lance Armstrong Wins 7th Tour De France: Lance Armstrong wins a record-setting seventh consecutive Tour de France and retires from the sport.
2006 – Iraq Saddam Hussein Trial: Saddam Hussein’s trial for crimes against humanity resumed in Baghdad on this day despite his absence. Hussein was hospitalized after staging a seventeen-day hunger strike in protest of his lawyers’ murders.
2007 – U.S.A. Democratic Party: The eight presidential candidates for the Democratic Party in the United States presidential election of 2008 held their first debate. The candidates answered questions submitted on YouTube, marking the growing influence that social-networking and video-sharing websites have on politics. The Original eight were Senator Barack Obama, Senator Chris Dodd, Senator Joe Biden, Governor Bill Richardson, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Senator John Edwards, Senator Mike Gravel and Senator Hillary Clinton.
2008 – South Mountain Community College: A gunman wounded three people at the South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, Arizona on this day.
2011 – Mass Arrests in Mexico: Mexican authorities arrest over one thousand people after a police raid in Ciudad Juarez. The raid was meant to crackdown on human trafficking and sexual exploitation in the city, one of the most violent cities in Mexico. Police also announced that they were able to rescue twenty underage women.
2012 – US Actor Sherman Hemsley Dies: Television actor Sherman Hemsley died at the age of seventy-four. Hemsley was best known for his portrayal of George Jefferson on the sitcoms all in the Family and The Jeffersons which ran for eleven seasons.
2013 – Mexico Gangs Clash with Police: Twenty gang members and two officers are killed in clashes between the Knights Templar drug gang and police in the Michoacan state. Violence has increased quite a lot in the Michoacan state in recent months and vigilante groups have formed throughout the region in order to combat the violence.
2013 – The House narrowly rejected, 217-205, a challenge to the National Security Agency’s secret collection of hundreds of millions of Americans’ phone records. A high-speed train crash outside Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain killed 79 people. Pope Francis made an emotional plea in Aparecida, Brazil, for Roman Catholics to shun materialism in the first public Mass of his initial international trip as pontiff. It was announced by Kensington Palace that the newborn son of Prince William and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, would be named George Alexander Louis. Virginia Johnson, half of the renowned Masters and Johnson team of sex researchers, died in St. Louis at age 88.
2017 – In a speech to a national Boy Scout gathering in West Virginia, President Donald Trump railed against his enemies and promoted his political agenda, bringing an angry reaction from some parents and former Scouts from both parties. A Taliban suicide bomber killed 24 people in an early morning assault in a neighborhood of the Afghan capital where prominent politicians live. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner answered questions from Senate investigators for four hours about contacts with Russians during and after Trump’s campaign for the White House; he said he “did not collude with Russia” and that all of his actions “were proper.”
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