October 24
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1901
The first person to survive Niagara Falls in a barrel
On this day in 1901, Annie Edson Taylor, a 63-year-old former dance tutor, hoping to find fame and fortune, became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Protected in a vessel of her own design, Taylor survived the plunge bruised and disoriented, emerging to the cheers of an excited crowd. Although the stunt brought her fame, fortune did follow—Taylor died in poverty in 1921.
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United Nations established
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.
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Courtesy of RCA Records
Italian musician Luciano Berio, born this day in 1925, combined lyric and expressive qualities with advanced techniques of electronic and aleatoric music and ranked among the leaders of the musical avant-garde.
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Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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. [Take our quiz about rock and roll.]
Underwood Archives/UIG/REX/Shutterstock.com
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. [Read about 10 milestones in U.S. civil rights history.]
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2003
Supersonic passenger service ended as British Airways flew its last Concorde flight; Air France had ceased similar operations in May. [How much do you know about the history of flight?]
© Marilyn Gould/Dreamstime.com
1992
The Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Atlanta Braves to become the first team not based in the United States to win the World Series. [Test your knowledge of baseball.]
Michos Tzovaras/UN Photo
1970
Salvador Allende’s election as the first Marxist president of Chile was confirmed. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about Chile.]
© 1962 United Artists Corporation
1962
The American Cold War thriller The Manchurian Candidate was released in American theatres, and it was a major hit, especially noted for the performance by Angela Lansbury. [Take our film buff quiz.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1940
The 40-hour workweek went into effect under the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. [How much do you know about U.S. history?]
Keystone—Hulton Archive/Getty Images
1929
A record 12,894,650 shares of stock were traded, causing the first day of real panic in the Crash of 1929, known as “Black Thursday.” [Take our quiz about economic news.]
H. Roger-Viollet
1922
Benito Mussolini helped plan the March on Rome, which began on October 28 and resulted in him becoming dictator of Italy. [Test your knowledge of 20th-century dictators.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1917
More than 600,000 Italians surrendered or retreated at the Battle of Caporetto during World War I. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about World War I.]
Architect of the Capitol
1861
The first transcontinental telegram was sent via the telegraph in the United States, effectively bringing to an end the Pony Express.
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1648
The Peace of Westphalia ended the Eighty Years’ War between Spain and the Dutch and the German phase of the Thirty Years’ War. [Take our history of war quiz.]
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-957)
1632
Dutch microscopist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who became the first to observe bacteria and protozoans, was born. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about bacteria, mold, and lichen.]