June 24
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Featured Event
© The Picture Art Collection/Alamy; Photo Illustration Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
On this day in 1374, men, women, and children gathered in the streets of Aachen, Germany, and danced as if in a trance. They continued for hours—even days—moving until they collapsed from exhaustion. This was earliest widely documented (and worst) major outbreak of choreomania, the dancing plague, a form of mass psychogenic illness. Other outbreaks occurred elsewhere in Europe in later decades and centuries, but no other major cases of choreomania have been reported since the mid-1600s. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
UPI/Bettmann Archive
Born this day in 1895 was American heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey, who held the world title from 1919, when he knocked out Jess Willard, until 1926, when he lost a 10-round decision to Gene Tunney.
Famous Birthdays
More on June 24
© Frederico Parra—AFP/Getty Images
2026
A pair of severe earthquakes, separated by only 39 seconds, struck northwestern Venezuela. They were the strongest earthquakes to occur in Venezuela since 1900.
© mark reinstein/Shutterstock.com
2022
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade (1973), ending the constitutional right to an abortion. [Why are there nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court?]
Shutterstock.com
2010
Australian politician Julia Gillard was sworn in as Australia’s first female prime minister. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about Australia.]
David Ramos/Getty Images
1987
Football (soccer) player Lionel Messi, one of the game’s premier players, was born in Argentina. [Take our quiz about all things football.]
Air Force Historical Research Agency
1948
The Berlin blockade intensified when the Soviet Union announced that the Western Allied powers no longer had any rights in Berlin. [Watch an overview of the Soviet Union’s blockade of West Berlin.]
© Chronicle/Alamy
1947
American businessman Kenneth Arnold saw a number of objects “flying like saucers” while piloting a small plane over Mount Rainier in Washington; it was considered the first modern sighting of UFOs and gave rise to the term flying saucer.
© seksan94/stock.adobe.com
1932
The Promoters Revolution, a bloodless coup, overthrew Prajadhipok, the king of Thailand, ending the absolute monarchy in that country and initiating the so-called Constitutional Era. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about Thailand.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1859
The Battle of Solferino, the last engagement of the second War of Italian Independence, was fought in Lombardy. [Match the battle with the war in our quiz.]
North Wind Picture Archives
1821
South American patriots under Simón Bolívar defeated Spanish royalists on the plains near Caracas, Venezuela, in the Battle of Carabobo. [Test your knowledge of Latin American history.]
Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.15
1812
French Emperor Napoleon—who had massed his troops in Poland in the spring to intimidate Russian Tsar Alexander I—and 600,000 troops of his Grand Army launched an ill-fated invasion of Russia. [How much do you know about Napoleon?]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1795
William Smellie, the Scottish compiler of the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, died at age 55.
Archiv für Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin
1519
Theodore Beza, an author, translator, educator, and theologian who assisted and later succeeded John Calvin as a leader of the Protestant Reformation centered at Geneva, was born. [Take our quiz about Christianity.]
© North Wind Picture Archives
1497
John Cabot became the first European to set foot in North America since the Vikings. [Take our quiz about exploration and discovery.]