History of the Day for:
April 24
- 1792: Captain Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed "La Marseillaise," the national anthem of France.
- 1800: Congress established the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
- 1833: Jacob Evert and George Dulty patented the soda fountain.
- 1898: Spain declared war on the United States after receiving an ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.
- 1915: The Ottoman Turkish Empire began deporting Armenians during World War I.
- 1916: Irish nationalists launched the Easter Rising, seizing key points in Dublin, including the post office, and proclaiming an Irish Republic.
- 1945: American forces liberated Dachau concentration camp.
- 1953: Queen Elizabeth II knighted Winston Churchill.
- 1961: Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers struck out 18 batters in one game, becoming the first major league pitcher to do so on two different occasions.
- 1967: Vladimir Komarov, the first Russian to fly in the Soyuz craft, was killed when he crash-landed in Russia after his 17th orbit of Earth.
- 1968: Students at Columbia University began a week-long occupation of several campus buildings.
- 1980: The U.S. launched a failed attempt to free American hostages in Iran.
- 1986: The Duchess of Windsor (Wallis Warfield) died at age 89. As Wallis Simpson, her romance with King Edward VIII led to his abdication in 1936.
- 1990: STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched by the Space Shuttle Discovery. Shuttle mission STS-31 lifts off, carrying Hubble into orbit.1990 – Gruinard Island, Scotland, is officially declared free of the anthrax disease after 48 years of quarantine.
- 1991: Freddie Stowers is posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for which he had been recommended in 1918.
- 1993: The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act comes into force establishing the Panchayati Raj system in India.
- 1993: An IRA bomb devastates the Bishopsgate area of London.
- 1996: In the United States, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 is introduced.
- 2004: The United States lifts economic sanctions imposed on Libya 18 years previously, as a reward for its cooperation in eliminating weapons of mass destruction.
- 2005: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.
- 2006: King Gyanendra of Nepal gives into the demands of protesters and restores the parliament that he dissolved in 2002.
- 2007: Iceland announces that Norway will shoulder the defense of Iceland during peacetime.
- 2007: Gliese 581 d discovered in Chile and believed to be a planet capable of holding extraterresial life.