THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― OCTOBER 24

October 24 is the 297th day of the year (298th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 68 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Monday, Wednesday or Saturday (58 in 400 years each) than on Thursday or Friday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Tuesday or Sunday (56). 

NATIONAL BOLOGNA DAY  

1260 – The spectacular Cathedral of Chartres is dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX of France; the cathedral is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The cathedral was mostly complete by 1320.

1360 – The Treaty of Brétigny was a treaty signed on 25 May 1360, between King Edward III of England and King John II (the Good) ofFrance. In retrospect it is seen as having marked the end of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453)—as well as the height of English hegemony on the Continent.

1812 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Maloyaroslavets takes place near Moscow between the Russians, under Marshal Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov, and part of the corps of Eugène de Beauharnais, Napoleon's stepson, under General Alexis Joseph Delzons which numbered about 20,000 strong.

1861 – Western Union Telegraph Company link the eastern and western telegraph networks of the nation at Salt Lake City, Utah, completing a transcontinental line that for the first time allows instantaneous communication between Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. Stephen J. Field, chief justice of California, sent the first transcontinental telegram to President Abraham Lincoln, predicting that the new communication link would help ensure the loyalty of the western states to the Union during the Civil War.

1904 – First New York City subway opens. A demonstration for an underground transit system in New York City was first built by Alfred Ely Beach in 1869. His Beach Pneumatic Transitonly extended 312 feet (95 m) under Broadway in Lower Manhattan and exhibited his idea for a subway propelled by pneumatic tubetechnology. The tunnel was never extended for political and financial reasons, although extensions had been planned to take the tunnel southward to The Battery and northwards towards the Harlem River. The Beach subway was demolished when the BMT Broadway Linewas built in the 1910s; thus, it was not integrated into the New York City Subway system.

1929 – Wall Street's "Black Thursday", the start of the stock market crash, occurs with the Dow Jones down 12.8%. Together, the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression formed the largest financial crisis of the 20th century. The panic of October 1929 has come to serve as a symbol of the economic contraction that gripped the world during the next decade. The falls in share prices on October 24 and 29, 1929 were practically instantaneous in all financial markets, except Japan.

1945 – The United Nations Charter, which was adopted and signed on June 26, 1945, is now effective and ready to be enforced.

1958 – USSR lends Egypt 400 million rubles to build the Aswan Dam. Before the dams were built, the Nile River flooded every year during late summer, when water flowed down the valley from its East African drainage basin. These floods brought high water and natural nutrients and minerals that annually enriched the fertile soil along the floodplain and delta; this had made the Nile valley ideal for farming since ancient times. Because floods vary, in high-water years the whole crop might be wiped out, while in low-water years widespread drought and famine occasionally occurred. As Egypt's population grew and conditions changed, both a desire and ability developed to control the floods, and thus both protect and support farmland and the economically important cotton crop. With the reservoir storage provided by the Aswan dams, the floods could be lessened and the water stored for later release.

1960 – The Soviet newspapers published a short communique from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet of Ministers of the USSR informing that Marshall of Artillery Mitrofan Nedelin has died in the airplane crash. No details about the accident or names of other victims have been released.

1962 – On this day President John F. Kennedy announced the start of a naval blockade during the Cuban missile crisis. The action was intended to prevent the Soviet Union from delivering missiles to first strike nuclear missiles to Cuba.

1980 – Polish government legalizes independent labor union Solidarity. Labor leader, Lech Walesa, and a government minister today concluded a historic pact to legalize the independent Solidarity trade union after a seven-year ban and to hold Poland's first free elections since World War II

1994 – In Sri Lanka, the opposition candidate for President and top leaders of his party died in a bomb blast Sunday night that killed about 50 people at an election rally. The explosion that killed the candidate, Gamini Dissanayake, came the day before peace talks were to resume with guerrillas of the minority Tamil ethnic group to try to end an 11-year war.

2003 – The supersonic Concorde jet makes its last commercial passenger flight, traveling at twice the speed of sound from New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport to London's Heathrow Airport on this day in 2003. The British Airways jet carried 100 passengers, including actress Joan Collins, model Christie Brinkley, and an Ohio couple who reportedly paid $60,000 on eBay for two tickets (a roundtrip trans-Atlantic fare typically cost about $9,000). A large crowd of spectators greeted the plane's arrival in London, which coincided with two other final Concorde flights from Edinburgh and the Bay of Biscay.

2008 – Wall Street's "Bloody Friday" saw many of the world's stock exchanges experienced the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices. Many of the world's stock exchanges experienced the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices. In the US, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 3.6%, not falling as much as other markets. Instead, both the US Dollar and Japanese Yen soared against other major currencies, particularly the British Pound and Canadian Dollar, as world investors sought safe havens. Later that day, the deputy governor of the Bank of England, Charles Bean, suggested that "This is a once in a lifetime crisis, and possibly the largest financial crisis of its kind in human history."


TODAY'S BIRTHS

1903 – Melvin Purvis, American FBI agent (d. 1960)

1915 – Bob Kane, American author and illustrator (d. 1998)

1930 – The Big Bopper, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1959)
1936 – Bill Wyman, English singer-songwriter, bass player, and producer (The Rolling Stones and Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings)

1938 – Stephen Resnick, American economist and academic, Marxism (d. 2013)

1950 – Miroslav Sládek, Czech politician, founder of Coalition for Republic
From Wikipedia and Google, except as noted.