On This Day
Discover the events and people that shaped this day in history.
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1945
81 years agoThe United Nations Charter entered into force on 24 October 1945 after the required ratifications, formally establishing the new organization. Created after two world wars, the UN was intended to support international peace, cooperation and peaceful settlement of disputes.
Treaties agreed at Münster and Osnabrück brought the Thirty Years’ War in the Holy Roman Empire to an end. The complex settlement addressed religious rights, territorial claims and relations among European powers, and became a landmark in diplomatic history.
The telegraph line across the United States was completed, linking the Pacific coast with the existing eastern network. A message from California to President Abraham Lincoln showed how electrical communication could cross the continent far faster than horseback mail.
Panic selling overwhelmed the New York Stock Exchange on 24 October 1929, a day remembered as Black Thursday. Bankers temporarily supported prices, but the turmoil continued the following week and became a landmark in the stock-market collapse preceding the Great Depression.
A camera aboard a V-2 rocket launched from White Sands, New Mexico, photographed Earth from roughly 105 kilometres above the surface. The rocket crashed, but the film survived, producing the earliest widely recognized pictures of our planet taken from space.
On 24 October 1975, an estimated 90 percent of Icelandic women stopped paid work and household duties to demonstrate their importance to society. Large public gatherings, particularly in Reykjavík, turned the Women’s Day Off into a landmark of the struggle for equality.
British Airways Flight BA002 flew from New York to London on 24 October 2003, bringing scheduled Concorde passenger service to an end. The supersonic aircraft had made transatlantic trips unusually fast, but high operating costs and other constraints ended the era.
1632394 years ago
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) was a Dutch tradesman and pioneering microscopist who revealed a largely invisible world of microorganisms. Using powerful, carefully made single-lens microscopes, he observed tiny living forms and reported his discoveries to the Royal Society in London.
1868158 years ago
Alexandra David-Néel (1868–1969) was a French traveler, writer and student of Asian religions whose journeys challenged the boundaries imposed on women and on European access to Tibet. Her visit to Lhasa in 1924 and her influential books helped introduce readers to Himalayan cultures and Buddhist thought.
193690 years ago
Bill Wyman (born 24 October 1936) is an English musician best known as the longtime bass player of the Rolling Stones. He joined the group in the early 1960s, helped build its distinctive rhythm-section sound, and later pursued solo recordings, the Rhythm Kings, photography and archival projects.
194779 years ago
Kevin Kline (born 24 October 1947) is an American actor known for versatility across Shakespearean theater, film comedy and drama. Trained at Juilliard, he has won major awards for performances on stage and screen, including an Academy Award for A Fish Called Wanda.
Jump to an event by selecting a point on the timeline.
Peace of Westphalia is signed
First transcontinental telegraph is completed
Black Thursday shakes Wall Street
United Nations officially comes into existence
First photograph of Earth from space
Iceland’s Women’s Day Off brings the country to a standstill
Concorde makes its final scheduled commercial flight
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
Alexandra David-Néel
Bill Wyman
Kevin Kline
