July 24 is

Cousins Day

Drive-Thru Day

Tell an Old Joke Day

National Tequila Day

Thermal Engineers Day

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MORE! Alexander Dumas, Bella Abzug and Artie Shaw, click

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World Festivals and National Holidays

Ecuador and Venezuela – Simon Bolivar Birthday

Greece – Restoration of Democracy

Peru – Fiesta Patronal San Santiago

United Kingdom – Pylewell Park, Hampshire:
The Curious Arts Festival

United States – Utah: Mormon Pioneer Day

Vanuatu – Children’s Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

1148 – French King Louis VII’s troops lay siege to Damascus during Second Crusade

1487 – Citizens of Leeuwarden, Netherlands, go on strike against a ban on imported beer

1567 – Mary, Queen of Scots, forced to abdicate in favor of her year-old son, James VI

1686 – Benedetto Marcello born, Italian composer, writer and poet

1783 – Simón Bolívar “El Libertador” is born, Venezuelan commander

1802 – Alexander Dumas born, French author and dramatist; The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo

1803 – Adolphe Adam born, French composer, noted for the ballets Giselle (1841) and Le corsair (1856)

1823 – Slavery is abolished in Chile

1847 – Brigham Young and his followers arrive at the Great Salt Lake in Utah

1847 – Richard M. Hoe patents rotary-type printing press

1853 – William Gillette born, American playwright and actor; Sherlock Holmes is his signature role

1866 – Tennessee is the first state readmitted to the Union after the Civil War

1868 – Marie Goegg-Pouchoulin founds the Association Internationale des Femmes, the first women’s organization in Switzerland, advocating for women’s rights, education and peace; leads a successful campaign for women’s admission to University of Geneva in 1872

1880 – Ernest Bloch born in Switzerland, American composer, many of his works inspired by his Jewish heritage

1895 – Robert Graves born, English novelist, poet and classical scholar; I, Claudius

1892 – Icie Hoobler born, biochemist and physiologist; first woman to head a local section of the American Chemical Society and to serve as its national president; Director of the Research Laboratory of the Children’s Fund of Michigan

1897 – Amelia Earhart, future pilot, is born

1904 – James Rhyne Killian born, American academic; president of M.I.T. (1948-59); as Special Assistant for Science and Technology to President Eisenhower, he oversees creation of the President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), which helps create NASA after the USSR launches Sputniks 1 and 2

1908 – Cootie Williams born, American Jazz musician

1911 – Hiram Bingham finds ruins of Machu Picchu in the Peruvian Andes

1916 – John D. MacDonald born, American mystery and science fiction writer; Travis McGee mystery series

1920 – Bella Abzug born, lawyer, outspoken feminist, Congresswoman (D-NY 1973-77) and wearer of hats

1922 – Draft of British Mandate of Palestine confirmed by League of Nations Council

1929 – Kellogg-Briand Act, renouncing war as instrument of foreign policy, goes into effect (first signed in Paris in August, 1928, by most leading world powers)

1937 – The state of Alabama drops charges against four of the nine black teenaged men accused of raping two white women on a train – the infamous ‘Scottsboro Boys’ case; others spend years in prison even after the women recant, admitting their story is false

1938 – Artie Shaw records “Begin the Beguine”

1944 – Jim Armstrong born, Irish guitarist with Them and Sk’Boo, also played some with The Doors, Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa

1950 – Cape Canaveral begins operations, launching a Bumper rocket

1959 – The “kitchen debate” between U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev takes place at the American National Exhibition opening in Moscow, in the exhibition’s model kitchen; they discuss washing machines, capitalism, the free exchange of ideas, summit meetings, rockets and ultimatums

1965 –The Byrds’ cover of Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” is the #1 single in the UK

1969 – NASA’s returning Apollo 11 splashes down safely in the Pacific after its manned moon mission

1974 – U.S. Supreme Court rules 9-0 that President Nixon must turn over subpoenaed White House tapes to Watergate special prosecutor

1979 – Ted Bundy is convicted of first-degree murder by a Miami jury for killing two women college students

1985 – Disney releases animated film, The Black Cauldron

1987 – Hulda Crooks, 91-years-old, becomes oldest person to climb Japan’s Mount Fuji

1990 – Iraq masses huge numbers of troops and tanks on its border with Kuwait

1990 – Pantera’s first major release, “Cowboys from Hell”

1995 – Three-night celebration of Frank Sinatra’s 80^th birthday begins at Carnegie Hall

2002 – U.S. House of Representatives expels Representative James Traficant (D-OH) after he is convicted in federal court of bribery, tax evasion and racketeering

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