This Day in History

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Today is April 24.

Today is Fashion Revolution Day, as well as International Sculpture Day.

Today is also a World Day for Laboratory Animals, so maybe take 5 minutes and 15 seconds out of your day, and have a thought for the lowly lab rat.


Events

1184 BC – Traditional date of the fall of Troy. I guess Troy shoulda watched where he was going.

1916 – Ernest Shackleton and five men of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition launch a 22.5 foot open lifeboat, the James Caird, from uninhabited Elephant Island, in the Southern Ocean, to South Georgia Island, a distance of 800 miles, to organize a rescue for the crew of the sunken Endurance.

1980 – Eight U.S. servicemen die in Operation Eagle Claw as they attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis.

1990 – STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope



is launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery.



1905 – Robert Penn Warren, 1906 – William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw), 1914 – Justin Wilson ("I gar-on-tee!"), 1930 – Richard Donner, 1934 – Shirley MacLaine, 1936 – Jill Ireland, 1942 – Richard M. Daley, 1942 – Barbra Streisand♪ ♫, 1943 – Richard Sterban♪ ♫("oom-pa-pa-oom-pa-pa-oom-pa-pa-mow-mow"), 1945 – Doug Clifford(CCR), 1954 – Jack Blades♪ ♫(Night Ranger, Damn Yankees), 1964 – Cedric the Entertainer, 1964 – Djimon Hounsou, 1982 – Kelly Clarkson



1731 – Daniel Defoe, 1947 – Willa Cather, 1974 – Bud Abbott (Abbot & Costello), 1975 – Pete Ham♪ ♫(Badfinger), 1997 – Pat Paulsen, 1997 – Eugene Stoner (designed the AR-15 rifle, and others), 2004 – Estée Lauder