GMT

Today in History: April 24

1519 Envoys of Montezuma II attend the first Easter mass in Central America.

1800 The Library of Congress is established in Washington, D.C. with a $5,000 allocation.

1805 U.S. Marines attack and capture the town of Derna in Tripoli from the Barbary pirates.

1877 Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire.

1884 Otto von Bismarck cables Cape Town, South Africa that it is now a German colony.

1915 Turks of the Ottoman Empire begin massacring the Armenian minority in their country.

1948 The Berlin airlift begins to relieve the surrounded city.

1953 Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

1961 President John Kennedy accepts "sole responsibility" for the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.

1980 A rescue attempt of the U.S. hostages held in Iran fails when a plane collides with a helicopter in the Iranian desert.

1981 The IBM Personal Computer is introduced.

2021 At least 82 COVID-19 patients die in a fire at Ibn Khatib hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, with 100 more injured

2021 Joe Biden becomes the first US President to officially recognize killing of Armenians in the Ottoman empire during WWII as 'genocide'

Born on April 24

1620 John Graunt, statistician, founder of demography.

1743 Edmund Cartwright, English parson who invented the power loom.

1766 Robert Bailey Thomas, founder of the Farmer's Almanac.

1942 Barbra Streisand, American pop singer ("People"; "The Way We Were"; "Evergreen"), stage and screen actress (Funny Girl; What's Up, Doc?), film director (Yentl) and EGOT (Emmy; Grammy; Oscar; and Tony awards winner), born in Brooklyn, New York

Joke of the Day

Why was the castle prostitute tired all the time?



She worked knights.