June 24
1340 Hundred Years' War:
Battle of Sluys: The French fleet is almost completely destroyed by the English fleet commanded in person by
King Edward III.
1374 A sudden outbreak of
St. John's Dance causes people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion.
1497
John Cabot lands in North America at Newfoundland leading the first European exploration of the region since the Vikings.
1717 The
Premier Grand Lodge of England, the first Masonic Grand Lodge in the world (now the
United Grand Lodge of England), is founded in London.
1880 First performance of
O Canada, the song that would become the national anthem of Canada.
1916
Mary Pickford becomes the first female film star to sign a million-dollar contract.
1938 Pieces of a meteor, estimated to have weighed 450 metric tons when it hit the Earth's atmosphere and exploded, land near Chicora, Pennsylvania.
1947
Kenneth Arnold makes the
first widely reported UFO sighting, near Mount Rainier, Washington.
1949 The first television western,
Hopalong Cassidy, is aired on NBC starring
William Boyd.
1957 In
Roth v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that obscenity is not protected by the
First Amendment.
1967 The worst caving disaster in British history takes six lives at
Mossdale Caverns.
1999 -
Eric Clapton put 100 of his guitars up for auction at Christie's in New York City to raise money for his drug rehab clinic, the
Crossroads Centre in Antigua. His
1956 Fender Stratocaster, named Brownie, which was used to record the electric version of
Layla, sold for a record $497,500. The auction helped raise nearly $5 million for the clinic.
2002 The
Igandu train disaster in Tanzania kills 281 people, the worst train accident in African history.
2004, A
Fender Stratocaster that Eric Clapton nicknamed 'Blackie' sold at a Christie's auction for $959,500 (£564,412) in New York, making it the most expensive guitar in the world. The proceeds of the sale went towards Clapton's Crossroads addiction clinic, which he founded in 1998.
2010
John Isner of the United States defeats
Nicolas Mahut of France at Wimbledon, in the
longest match in professional tennis history.
2012
Lonesome George, the last known individual of
Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii, a subspecies of the Galαpagos tortoise, dies.
2013, Former
Devo drummer
Alan Myers died aged 58 in Los Angeles, California, following a long bout with cancer. Myers drummed for Devo between 1976 and 1986.
Births
1788 Thomas Blanchard (pioneered the assembly line, and interchangeable parts); 1813 Henry Ward Beecher; 1842 Ambrose Bierce; 1893 Roy O. Disney (walt's brother); 1895 Jack Dempsey; 1901 Chuck Taylor (namesake of
Chuck Taylor athletic shoes); 1904 Phil Harris (no, not the captain of the Cornelia Marie); 1911 Juan Manuel Fangio; 1915 Fred Hoyle (coined the term
"big bang"); 1919 Al Molinaro ('Big Al' on "Happy Days"); 1922
Jack Carter; 1929 Carolyn S. Shoemaker; 1930 William Bernard Ziff, Jr. (Ziff Davis); 1931 Billy Casper; 1941 Charles Whitman; 1944 Jeff Beck; 1944 Chris Wood; 1945 George Pataki; 1946 Robert Reich; 1947 Mick Fleetwood, Peter Weller; 1950 Nancy Allen ("RoboCop"); 1960 Juli Inkster; 1967 Sherry Stringfield ("ER"); 1979 Mindy Kaling; 1986 Solange Knowles
Deaths
1519 Lucrezia Borgia; 1908 Grover Cleveland; 1987 Jackie Gleason; 1997 Brian Keith; 2005 Paul Winchell; 2007 Chris Benoit; 2013 Jackie Fargo; 2014 Eli Wallach