#TodayInHistory – February 24

February 24 – Some important events on this day

303 👉🏼 1st official Roman edict for persecution of Christians issued by Emperor Diocletian
1208 👉🏼 St Francis of Assisi, 26, received his vocation in Portiuncula Italy
1525 👉🏼 Battle of Pavia: Holy Roman Emperor Charles V’s troops beat the French. French King Francois I captured, 15,000 killed or wounded
1582 👉🏼 Pope Gregory XIII announces New Style (Gregorian) calendar
1739 👉🏼 Battle of Karnal: Army of Iranian ruler Nadir Shah defeats the forces of the Mughal emperor of India, Muhammad Shah
1797 👉🏼 Colonel William Tate and his force of 1,000-1,500 soldiers surrender after the Last Invasion of Britain (according to legend, to Welsh women in tall black hats, mistaken for elite guards regiment)
1821 👉🏼 Agustín de Iturbide and Vicente Guerrero agree to the Plan of Iguala, stating that Mexico will become a constitutional monarchy, Roman Catholicism the official religion and that Peninsulares and Creoles will enjoy equal political and social rights

1825 👉🏼 Thomas Bowdler, a doctor and philanthropist, popular to be the man who took all the naughty bits out of Shakespeare, died.
| READ THE ARTICLE!

1868 👉🏼 US House of Representatives vote 126 to 47 to impeach President Andrew Johnson
1918 👉🏼 Estonia declares independence from Russia

1942 👉🏼 The “Battle of Los Angeles” takes place, a series of anti-aircraft engagements over the city in response to a rumored but false Japanese attack. It would last until the morning of the following day.
On the night of February 24, 1942, only two months after the attack at Pearl Harbor, the skies of Los Angeles burst open with anti-aircraft fire and spotlights flooded the night sky looking for rumored Japanese planes. A total blackout was ordered in the city and air raid sirens were sounded off, warning people of danger.
After the ‘raid’ ended, the Navy Secretary told press that the incident was a false alarm triggered by “war nerves” and anxiety. In 1949 the Coast Artillery Association explained that the incident was caused by a stray weather balloon.
Despite the false alarm five people did die during the supposed battle, three in car accidents from the panic and two from heart attacks related to the stress of the incident.

1946 👉🏼 General Juan Perón first elected President of Argentina
2008 👉🏼 Fidel Castro retires as the President of Cuba due to ill health after nearly fifty years
2014 👉🏼 A 4.4 billion-year-old Crystal is discovered to be the oldest known fragment from the earth’s crust
2020 👉🏼 Scientists identify the first animal that doesn’t need oxygen to breathe – a tiny parasite living in salmon tissue, reported in journal PNAS