In 1800, Congress approved a bill establishing the Library of Congress. In this 2013 file photo, the Library of Congress is seen in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
In 1915, what’s considered the start of the Armenian genocide began as the Ottoman Empire rounded up Armenian political and cultural leaders in Constantinople. This 1915 file photo shows Armenian victims of the massacres in Turkey. (AP Photo, File)
In 1980, the United States launched an unsuccessful attempt to free the American hostages in Iran, a mission that resulted in the deaths of eight U.S. servicemen. The burned out wreckage of a U.S. aircraft lies in the desert some 300 miles south of Tehran after the abortive commando-style raid into Iran. (AP Photo)
In 1990, the space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope. (AP Photo/Paul Kizzle)
Today is Wednesday, April 24, the 114th day of 2019. There are 251 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On April 24, 1980, the United States launched an unsuccessful attempt to free the American hostages in Iran, a mission that resulted in the deaths of eight U.S. servicemen.
On this date:
In 1800, Congress approved a bill establishing the Library of Congress.
In 1877, federal troops were ordered out of New Orleans, ending the North’s post-Civil War rule in the South.
In 1915, in what’s considered the start of the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Empire began rounding up Armenian political and cultural leaders in Constantinople.
In 1916, some 1,600 Irish nationalists launched the Easter Rising by seizing several key sites in Dublin. (The rising was put down by British forces five days later.)
In 1932, in the Free State of Prussia, the Nazi Party gained a plurality of seats in parliamentary elections.
In 1967, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when his Soyuz 1 spacecraft smashed into the Earth after his parachutes failed to deploy properly during re-entry; he was the first human spaceflight fatality.
In 1970, the People’s Republic of China launched its first satellite, which kept transmitting a song, “The East Is Red.”
In 1990, the space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope.
In 1995, the final bomb linked to the Unabomber exploded inside the Sacramento, California, offices of a lobbying group for the wood products industry, killing chief lobbyist Gilbert B. Murray. (Theodore Kaczynski was later sentenced to four lifetimes in prison for a series of bombings that killed three men and injured 29 others.)
In 2003, U.S. forces in Iraq took custody of Tariq Aziz (TAH’-rihk ah-ZEEZ’), the former Iraqi deputy prime minister. China shut down a Beijing hospital as the global death toll from SARS surpassed 260.
In 2005, Pope Benedict XVI formally began his stewardship of the Roman Catholic Church; the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said in his installation homily that as pontiff he would listen to the will of God in governing the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics.
In 2013, in Bangladesh, a shoddily constructed eight-story commercial building housing garment factories collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people.
Ten years ago: Mexico shut down schools, museums, libraries and state-run theaters across its overcrowded capital in hopes of containing a deadly swine flu outbreak. Back-to-back suicide bombers struck near a Shiite shrine in Baghdad, killing 71.
Five years ago: An Afghan government security guard opened fire on foreign doctors at a Kabul hospital, killing three Americans in the latest of a deadly string of attacks on Western civilians in the capital. The tiny Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands took on the United States and the world’s eight other nuclear-armed nations with an unprecedented lawsuit demanding they meet their obligations toward disarmament and accusing them of “flagrant violations” of international law.
One year ago: Former police officer Joseph DeAngelo was arrested at his home near Sacramento, California, after DNA linked him to crimes attributed to the so-called Golden State Killer; authorities believed he committed 13 murders and more than 50 rapes in the 1970s and 1980s. (DeAngelo is awaiting trial.)
Copyright © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
