June 24

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

Events

• 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 – End of the 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 in Newfoundland; 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.
• 1821 – Battle of Carabobo : Venezuela gains total independence from Spain.
• 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.
• 1901 – First exhibition of Pablo Picasso's work opens.
• 1902 – King Edward VII of the United Kingdom develops appendicitis, delaying his coronation.
• 1910 – Japan invades Korea.
• 1913 – Greece and Serbia annul their alliance with Bulgaria.
• 1913 – Joseph Cook becomes the 6th Prime Minister of Australia.
• 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 – Government of briefly independent Lithuania conducts it's first meeting under prime minister Juozas Ambrazevičius
• 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

• 1542 – St. John of the Cross, Spanish Carmelite friar and poet (d. 1591)
• 1777 – John Ross, naval officer and explorer (d. 1856)
• 1795 – Ernst Heinrich Weber, anatomist and physiologist (d. 1878)
• 1803 – George James Webb, composer
• 1804 – Willard Richards, American religious leader (d. 1854)
• 1813 – Henry Ward Beecher, American clergyman and reformer (d. 1887)
• 1842 – Ambrose Bierce, author
• 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)
• 1901 – Harry Partch, composer (d. 1974)
• 1906 – Pierre Fournier, French cellist (d. 1986)
• 1908 – Hugo Distler, German composer (d. 1942)
• 1909 – David Rose, composer, musician (d. 1990)
• 1911 – Juan Manuel Fangio, Argentine race car driver (d. 1995)
• 1914 – Robert Aickman, author (d. 1981)
• 1915 – Fred Hoyle, cosmologist and 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, golfer
• 1942 – Mick Fleetwood, musician (Fleetwood Mac)
• 1942  – Michele Lee, actress
• 1944 – Jeff Beck, guitarist (Yardbirds)
• 1944  – Chris Wood, musician (d. 1983)
• 1945 – Colin Blunstone, musician (The Zombies)
• 1945  – George Pataki, Governor of New York
• 1946 – Ellison Onizuka, astronaut (d. 1986)
• 1949 – Betty Jackson, Fashion Designer Born in Lancashire
• 1953 – Garry Shider, musician (P Funk)
• 1956 – Joe Penny, actor
• 1960 – Trisha Meili, author
• 1967 – Richard Kruspe-Bernstein, guitarist (Rammstein)
• 1969 – Sissel Kyrkjebø, Norwegian singer
• 1970 – Glenn Medeiros, Hawaiian singer and songwriter
• 1978 – Erno "Emppu" Vuorinen, guitarist (Nightwish)
• 1981 – Siddharth Nair, cartoonist and writer
• 1985 – Matthew Dezendorf, programmer, actor, and composer
• 1986 – Solange Knowles, actress and singer

Deaths

• 1398 – Hongwu Emperor of China, founder of the Ming Dynasty (b. 1328)
• 1439 – Frederick IV of Austria – Regent of Tyrol and Further Austria
• 1519 – Lucrezia Borgia, duchess of Ferrara (b. 1480)
• 1604 – Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain of England
• 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
• 1981 – Terry Fox, ran the 'Marathon of Hope'
• 1987 – Jackie Gleason, actor, musician
• 1993 – Archie Williams, American athlete
• 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

External links

• BBC: On This Day
• ThisDayThatYear.com on June 24

June 23 – June 25 – May 24 – July 24 — listing of all days