April 24 – Some important events on this day
1479 BC 👉🏼 Thutmose III ascends to the throne of Egypt, although power effectively shifts to Hatshepsut (according to the Low Chronology of the 18th Dynasty)
1184 BC 👉🏼 The Greeks enter Troy using the Trojan Horse (traditional date)
1066 👉🏼 Halley’s Comet sparks English monk to predict country will be destroyed
1704 👉🏼 “Boston News-Letter” 1st successful newspaper in US, forms
1800 👉🏼 Library of Congress established.
President John Adams approves legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress,” thus establishing the Library of Congress. The first books, ordered from London, arrived in 1801 and were stored in the U.S. Capitol, the library’s first home. The first library catalog, dated April 1802, listed 964 volumes and nine maps.
1872 👉🏼 Volcano Mt Vesuvius erupts in Italy 🌋
1877 👉🏼 Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78: Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire
1888 👉🏼 Eastman Kodak founded by George Eastman. Founded the Eastman Kodak Company and popularized the use of roll film, which helped bring photography to the mainstream.
He was also a major philanthropist, establishing the Eastman School of Music, and schools of dentistry and medicine in London and at the University of Rochester.
1898 👉🏼 Spanish-American War: Spain declares war after rejecting US ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba
1908 👉🏼 Mr & Mrs Jacob Murdock become 1st to travel across US by car, they leave LA in a Packard & arrive in NYC in 32d-5h-25m
1916 👉🏼 Easter Rising of Irish republicans against British occupation begins in Dublin.
The 1916 Easter Proclamation of an Irish Republic was read out on this day by Patrick Pearce on the steps of the General Post office in Dublin. It was the beginning of a week-long attempt by Irish rebels to end British control in Ireland.
Printed just the day before, the document proclaims openly the rebellion’s objectives, their belief in their right to sovereignty, through arms if necessary, and the names of those leading it.
After British troops regained control, 15 leaders of the rebellion including signatories of the Proclamation were executed by British firing squads. However the Proclamation and the events that surrounded it turned public opinion and lead directly to the establishment of political party Sinn Féin and the 1919 Declaration of Irish Independence.
1929 👉🏼 1st non-stop England to India flight takes-off ✈️
1960 👉🏼 Heavy earthquake strikes South Persia, 500 killed
1961 👉🏼 17th century Swedish warship Vasa, which sunk on her maiden voyage in 1628, is salvaged.
With her pennons streaming out in the gentle Summer breeze, Sweden’s latest showpiece, the Vasa, was towed from her berth on her maiden voyage into the centre of the harbour – where she promptly sank killing perhaps 30 of approximately 150 people.
The ship was unstable due in part to constant changes in her design requested by Swedish King Gustav II Adolf.
1967 👉🏼 Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland says in a news conference that the enemy had “gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily.”