A Tennessee man was arrested for trying to walk across the Atlantic Ocean in a floating bubble
Reza Baluchi was attempting to run inside a homemade inflatable bubble from Florida to Bermuda when the Coast Guard intercepted him 70 miles off the c...
July 24 in History
Significant events that happened on this day.
Historical Events
2015
1998
A gunman opened fire in the U.S. Capitol building, killing two police officers
Russell Eugene Weston Jr. stormed through a Capitol security checkpoint and fatally shot Officers Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson. Both officers were l...
1990
The Iraqi government threatened to use foreign nationals as 'human shields' during the Gulf Crisis
Saddam Hussein's regime announced it would place Western hostages at strategic military and industrial sites to deter attacks. Thousands of foreign na...
1978
Louise Brown, the world's first 'test tube baby' conceived through IVF, was born in England
MajorHer birth at Oldham General Hospital revolutionized reproductive medicine and sparked intense ethical debates worldwide. Doctors Patrick Steptoe and R...
1969
Apollo 11 astronauts returned safely to Earth after the first moon landing
MajorAfter spending 21 hours on the lunar surface and traveling nearly 240,000 miles back home, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins splashed d...
1959
Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had their famous 'Kitchen Debate' in Moscow
During a tour of an American exhibition, the two leaders engaged in a heated impromptu debate about capitalism versus communism while standing in a mo...
1928
Sliced bread was sold for the first time at a bakery in Missouri
The Chillicothe Baking Company became the first to sell pre-sliced bread using Otto Frederick Rohwedder's invention, which he had been perfecting for...
1911
Hiram Bingham discovered the lost Incan city of Machu Picchu in Peru
MajorWhile searching for the lost city of Vilcabamba, American historian Hiram Bingham was led by local farmers to the ancient ruins high in the Andes Moun...
1897
Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas
MajorShe would grow up to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932. Her mysterious disappearance in 1937 while attempting to ci...
1851
A group of Chilean miners became trapped underground and survived by drinking their own urine
After a tunnel collapse in a copper mine near Copiapó, seven miners were trapped for 13 days without food or water. They survived the ordeal by ration...
1847
Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley
MajorAfter a grueling 1,300-mile journey from Illinois, Young famously declared 'This is the place!' upon viewing the valley. The 148 pioneers had traveled...
1824
A crowd showed up to watch the first public opinion poll in American history be conducted in Pennsylvania
The Harrisburg Pennsylvanian newspaper conducted a straw poll of voters in Wilmington, Delaware during the 1824 presidential election. The informal su...
1783
Simon Bolivar, who would liberate much of South America from Spanish rule, was born in Caracas
Known as 'El Libertador,' Bolivar would go on to lead independence movements in what are now Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Panama....
1701
French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Detroit as a fur trading post
Originally named Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, the settlement was established to strengthen French control of the Great Lakes fur trade. The city's a...