On this day in History - Jun 24

1128 - Battle of São Mamede, near Guimarães. Portuguese forces led by Afonso I (D. Afonso Henriiques) defeat 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 "official independence" in 1143.
1158 - Portugueses tomam Alcácer do Sal dos mouros
1314 - End of the Battle of Bannockburn. Scottish forces led by Robert the Bruce defeat Edward II of England. Scotland regains its independence.
1360 - Nascimento do beato Nuno Alvares de Pereira
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.
1398 - Hongwu Emperor of China, dies (b. 1328). Founder of the Ming Dynasty.
1439 - Frederick IV of Austria - dies. Regent of Tyrol and Further Austria
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.
1519 - Lucrezia Borgia, dies (b. 1480). Duchess of Ferrara.
1534 - Jacques Cartier makes the European discovery of Prince Edward Island.
1535 - The Anabaptist state of Münster is conquered and disbanded.
1542 - St. John of the Cross, was born (d. 1591). Spanish Carmelite friar and poet.
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.
1604 - Edward de Vere, dies. 17th Earl of Oxford, hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain of England
1662 - Dutch attempt but fail to capture Macao.
1664 - The colony of New Jersey is founded.
1675 - King Philip's War begins. In colonial New England, King Philip's War begins when a band of Wampanoag warriors raid the border settlement of Swansee, Massachusetts, and massacre the English colonists there.
1692 - Kingston, Jamaica founded.
1757 - Morte de D. José da Câmara (4º conde da Ribeira Grande - Portugal)
1777 - John Ross, was born (d. 1856). Naval officer and explorer.
1783 - Johann Heinrich von Thünen was born (d. 22 Sep 1850). German agriculturalist best known for his work on the relationship of the costs of commodity transportation to the location of production
1788 - Thomas Blanchard was born (d.16 Apr 1864). American inventor who made major contributions to the development of machine tools. He invented a number of machines before he created the famous lathe that bears his name.
1793 - First republican constitution in France adopted.
1795 - Ernst Heinrich Weber, was born (d. 26 Jan 1878). German anatomist and physiologist.
1803 - George James Webb, was born (d. 1887). Composer.
1804 - Willard Richards, was born (d. 1854). American religious leader.
1804 - Stephan Endlicher was born (d. 28 Mar 1849). Austrian botanist who formulated a major system of plant classification.
1812 - Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon's invasion of Russia begins.
1813 - Henry Ward Beecher, was born (d. 1887). American clergyman and reformer.
1819 - Nasce em Londres a futura rainha Vitória.
1821 - Battle of Carabobo : Venezuela gains total independence from Spain.
1826 - George Goyder, was born. (d. 1898). Surveyor-general of South Australia.
1833 - Desembarque das tropas constitucionais, comandadas pelo duque da Terceira no Algarve, na praia da Alagoa. Atravessando o Alentejo, chegarão a Lisboa em 24 de Julho.
1835 - Johannes Wislicenus was born (d. 5 Dec 1902). German chemist whose pioneering work led to the recognition of the importance of the spatial arrangement of atoms within a molecule
1836 - Karl Heinrich Ferdinand Rosenbusch was born (d. 20 Jan 1914). German geologist who laid the foundations of the science of microscopic petrography (the study of rocks in thin section, based on the optical properties of constituent mineral grains).
1839 - Gustavus Swift was born (d. 29 Mar 1903). American manufacturer and inventor of the first refrigerated railroad cars. These improved his handling of the supply of beef from western states to the Chicago meat company of which he was a partner.
1842 - Ambrose Bierce, was born (d. 1914). Author.
1850 - Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, was born (d. 1916). Original Order of Merit member.
1852 - Friedrich August Johannes Löffler was born (d. 9 Abr 1915). German bacteriologist who discovered the organism that causes diphtheria, Corynebacterium diphtheriae, (1884) which had first been observed by the German physiologist Theodor Klebs in the throats of diphtheria patients (the organism became known as the Klebs-Löffler bacillus).
1856 - Henry Chapman Mercer was (d. 9 Mar 1930). American archaeologist, collector, and tilemaker.
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.
1875 - Morte do arquitecto francês Henri Labrouste
1880 - First performance of O Canada, the song that would become the national anthem of Canada, at the Congrès national des Canadiens-Français.
1880 - Oswald Veblen was born (d. 10 Aug 1960). American mathematician who made important contributions to differential geometry and early topology.
1882 - Carl Diem, was born (d. 1962). Sports scientist.
1883 - Victor Franz Hess,was born (d. 17 Dec 1964). Austrian-born physicist who was a joint recipient (with Carl D. Anderson of the United States) of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1936 for his discovery of cosmic rays, high-energy radiation originating in outer space.
1888 - Gerrit Rietveld, was born (d. 1964). Dutch architect.
1894 - The IOC decides to hold the Olympic Games every four years.
1895 - Jack Dempsey, was born im Manassa, CO (d. 1983). American boxer who won the heavyweight championship six times.
1901 - Harry Partch, was born (d. 1974). Composer.
1901 - First exhibition of Pablo Picasso's work opens. The first major exhibition of Pablo Picasso's artwork opens at a gallery on Paris' rue Lafitte, a street known for its prestigious art galleries.
1902 - King Edward VII of the United Kingdom develops appendicitis, delaying his coronation.
1906 - Pierre Fournier, was born (d. 1986). French cellist.
1908 - Hugo Distler, was born (d. 1942). German composer.
1908 - Guru Gopinath was born (d. 1987). Indian classical dancer.
1908 - Grover Cleveland, dies. President of the United States.
1909 - Sarah Orne Jewett, dies (b. 1849). American writer.
1909 - David Rose, was born (d. 1990). Composer, musician.
1909 - William Penney (Baron Penney of East Hendred) was born. British nuclear physicist who led Britain's development of the atomic bomb.
1910 - Japan invades Korea.
1911 - Juan Manuel Fangio, was born (d. 1995). Argentine race car driver.
1913 - Greece and Serbia annul their alliance with Bulgaria.
1913 - Joseph Cook becomes the 6th Prime Minister of Australia.
1914 - Robert Aickman, was born (d. 1981). Author.
1915 - Fred Hoyle, was born (d. 20 Aug 2001). English mathematician and astronomer, best known as the foremost proponent and defender of the steady-state theory of the universe. "A Different Approach to Cosmology"
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
1922 - Walther Rathenau, dies assassinated (b. 1867). German Minister of Foreign Affairs.
1922 - Tata Giacobetti, was born. Italian singer and lyricist (Quartetto Cetra)
1926 - Os jornais portugueses passaram a estar sujeitos à apreciação da Comissão de Censura
1927 - Martin Lewis Perl was born. American physicist who received the 1995 Nobel Prize for Physics for discovering a subatomic particle that he named the tau, a massive lepton with a negative charge.
1928 - Wolfgang Altenburg, was born. German general
1930 - Claude Chabrol, was born. Film director.
1931 - Billy Casper, was born. Golfer.
1932 - A military coup ends the absolute power of the king of Siam (Thailand).
1935 - Morre, na cidade de Medellin - Colombia, no auge da carreira e da fama, Carlos Gardel (Charles Romuald Gardés), grande músico e cantor do tango.
1935 - Pete Hamill was born. Journalist.
1940 - France and Italy sign an armistice.
1941- Government of briefly independent Lithuania conducts it's first meeting under prime minister Juozas Ambrazevičius.
1942 - Mick Fleetwood, was born. Musician (Fleetwood Mac)
1942 - Michele Lee, was born. Actress
1944 - Jeff Beck, was born. Guitarist (Yardbirds)
1944 - Chris Wood, was born (d. 1983). Musician.
1945 - Colin Blunstone, was born. Musician (The Zombies)
1945 - George Pataki, was born. Governor of New York
1945 - The U.S.S.R. capture the Free Republic of Schwarzenberg.
1946 - Georges Bidault becomes Prime Minister of France
1946 - Ellison Onizuka, was born (d. 1986). Astronaut.
1947 - First known sighting of UFOs: Kenneth Arnold, flying over Washington, notices nine luminous disks in the form of saucers.
1947 - Emil Seidel, dies. American politician and Mayor of Milwaukee
1948 - Start of the Berlin Blockade. The Soviet Union makes overland travel between the West with West Berlin impossible.
1949 - Betty Jackson, was born. British fashion designer.
1950 - Início do Camopeonato do Mundo de Futebol no Brasil.
1953 - Garry Shider, was born. Musician (P Funk)
1953 - George Herbert Walker, dies. Grandfather of President George H. W. Bush.
1955 - Nascimento, no Rio de Janeiro, de Betty Lago, actriz brasileira.
1956 - Joe Penny, was born. Actor
1957 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules that obsecnity is not protected by the First Amendment.
1960 - Trisha Meili, was born. Author
1963 - Zanzibar is granted internal self-government by the UK.
1967- Richard Kruspe-Bernstein, was born. Guitarist (Rammstein)
1969 - Sissel Kyrkjebø, was born. Norwegian singer.
1970 - Glenn Medeiros, was born. Hawaiian singer and songwriter.
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.
1978 - Erno "Emppu" Vuorinen, was born. Guitarist (Nightwish).
1981 - For what would be the world's longest single-span suspension bridge for 17 years, the Humber Bridge, connecting Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, opens.
1981 - Terry Fox, dies. Marathon runner.
1983 - Sally Ride, first female American astronaut, returns to earth.
1983 - Yasir Arafat banned from Damascus.
1986 - Solange Knowles, was born. Actress and singer.
1987 - Jackie Gleason, dies. Actor, musician.
1993 - Archie Williams, dies. American athlete.
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 200 metres with a time of 19.66 seconds 1998 - Morreu a actriz americana Maureen O'Sullivan
1999 - The guitar with which Eric Clapton recorded Layla is sold at auction for the astounding price of $497,500.
2000 - Vera Atkins, dies. Special Operations Executive intelligence officer
2002 - Pierre Werner, dies. Prime Minister of Luxembourg
2003 - Maynard Jackson, dies. Mayor of Atlanta
2003 - Leon Uris, dies. Author
2003 - Richard Pough dies (b. 19 Apr 1904). American ecologist who was founding president of the Nature Conservancy (1950), one of the nation's largest environmental organizations.
2004 - Ifigeneia Giannopoulou, dies (b. 1957). Greek songwriter.
2005 - Segunda volta das eleições presidenciais no Irão.
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