1260 – Qutuz, Mamluk Sultans of Egypt (1259-60), is assassinated by Baibars, a fellow Mamluk leader, who seizes power for himself
1648 – Treaty of Westphalia ends The Thirty Years’ War in the Holy Roman Empire; Switzerland’s independence recognized
1929 – “Black Thursday”, start of stock market crash, Dow Jones down 12.8%
1945 – The charter for the United Nations—the world’s premier international organization, established at the end of World War II to maintain world peace and friendly relations among nations—entered into force this day in 1945.
1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet ships approach but stop short of the US blockade of Cuba
1970 – Salvador Allende’s election as the first Marxist president of Chile was confirmed.
2008 – “Bloody Friday” saw many of the world’s stock exchanges experienced the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices.
2017 – Albert Einstein’s “Theory of Happiness”, written as a note for a bellboy instead of a tip in Tokyo in 1922 sells for $1.56 million
2018 – Pipe bombs sent to prominent US Democrats including the Obamas, Clintons, John Brennan and CNN, but safely defused
2019 – Bangladesh sentences 16 men to death for the murder of Nusrat Jahan Rafi, who was set on fire after accusing a teacher of inappropriate behavior
2020 – Deadliest shipwreck of the year claims 140 lives on a ship that sank with 200 migrants on board off the coast of Senegal
2020 – Columbia records more than 1 million cases of COVID-19, the 8th globally and 3rd in Latin America
Births & Deaths:
2005 – African American civil rights activist Rosa Parks—whose refusal to relinquish her seat on a public bus to a white man in 1955 helped ignite the American civil rights movement—died at age 92.
2017 – American musician Fats Domino, who was one of the first rock-and-roll stars and who helped define the New Orleans sound, died at age 89.
Film & TV:
1962 – “The Manchurian Candidate”, directed by John Frankenheimer, starring Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey, is released
Music:
1979 – Guinness Book of Records presents Paul McCartney with a rhodium disc as all-time best selling singer-songwriter
October 24 in Sport
1857 – World’s first soccer club, Sheffield F C, founded in Yorkshire, England
Via Britannica / On This Day
