TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: OCTOBER 24
1531 Bavaria, despite being a Catholic region, joins the League of Schmalkalden, a Protestant group which opposes Charles V
1648 The signing of the Treaty of Westphalia ends the German Thirty Years’ War.
1755 A British expedition against the French held Fort Niagara in Canada ends in failure.
1795 The country of Poland was divided up between Austria, Prussia, and Russia.
1851 William Lassell discovers Ariel & Umbriel, satellites of Uranus
1857 World’s 1st soccer club, Sheffield F.C., founded in England
1861 Western Union completes the first transcontinental telegraph line, putting the Pony Express out of business.
1871 Mob in LA hangs 18 Chinese
1916 Henry Ford awards equal pay to women.
1938 The Fair Labor Standards Act becomes law, establishing the 40-hour work week.
1945 Vidkun Quisling, Norway’s wartime minister president, is executed by firing squad for collaboration with the Nazis.
1945 The United Nations (UN) was formally established less than a month after the end of World War II. The Charter was ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and by a majority of other signatories.
1948 The term “cold war” was used for the first time. It was in a speech by Bernard Baruch before the Senate War Investigating Committee.
1960 All remaining American-owned property in Cuba was nationalized. The process of nationalizing all U.S. and foreign-owned property in Cuban had begun on August 6, 1960.
1962 During the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. military forces went on the highest alert in the postwar era in preparation for a possible full-scale war with the Soviet Union. The U.S. blockade of Cuba officially began on this day.
1973 John Lennon sues US govt to admit the FBI is tapping his phone
1973 Yom Kippur War ends, Israel 65 miles from Cairo, 26 from Damascus
1986 Britain broke off relations with Syria after a Jordanian was convicted in an attempted bombing. The evidence in the trial led to the belief that Syria was involved in the attack on the Israeli jetliner.
1989 Rev Jim Bakker is sentenced to 50 years for fraud
1992 The Toronto Blue Jays became the first non-U.S. team to win the World Series.
2001 The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation that gave police the power to secretly search homes, tap all of a person’s telephone conversation and track people’s use of the Internet.
2003 The supersonic Concorde jet made its last commercial passenger flight from New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to London’s Heathrow Airport, traveling at twice the speed of sound.
2008 Many stock exchanges worldwide suffer the steepest declines in their histories; the day becomes known as “Bloody Friday.”
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
