Events that happened today in history, October 24th!

Here are some of the great historical events that happened today in history, on October 24th!

439	Carthage, the leading Roman city in North Africa, falls to Genseric and the Vandals.
1531	Bavaria, despite being a Catholic region, joins the League of Schmalkalden, a Protestant group which opposes Charles V.
1648	The Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years’ War and, effectively, the Holy Roman Empire.
1755	A British expedition against the French held Fort Niagara in Canada ends in failure.
1836	The match is patented.
1861	Western Union completes the first transcontinental telegraph line, putting the Pony Express out of business.
1863	General Ulysses S. Grant arrives in Chattanooga, Tennessee to find the Union Army there starving.
1897	The first comic strip appears in the Sunday color supplement of the New York Journal called the ‘Yellow Kid.’
1901	Anna Edson Taylor, 43, is the first woman to go safely over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She made the attempt for the cash award offered, which she put toward the loan on her Texas ranch.
1916	Henry Ford awards equal pay to women.
1917	The Austro-German army routs the Italian army at Caporetto, Italy.
1929	Black Thursday–the first day of the stock market crash which began the Great Depression.
1930	John Wayne debuts in his first starring role in The Big Trail .
1931	The George Washington Bridge connecting New York and New Jersey was dedicated.
1931	Al (Alphonse) Capone, the prohibition-era Chicago gangster, is sent to prison for tax evasion.
1934	Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, called Mahatma or “Great Soul,” resigns from Congress in India.
1938	The Fair Labor Standards Act becomes law, establishing the 40-hour work week.
1945	The United Nations charter took effect.
1945	Vidkun Quisling, Norway’s wartime minister president, is executed by firing squad for collaboration with the Nazis.
1952	Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower declared, “I shall go to Korea” as he promised to end the conflict.
1970	Leftist Salvador Allende elected president of Chile.
1992	The Toronto Blue Jays became the first team outside the United States to win a World Series as they defeated the Atlanta Braves 4-3 in Game 6.
2002	Authorities arrested Army veteran John Allen Muhammad and teenager Lee Boyd Malvo in connection with the Washington-area sniper attacks. (Muhammad was later sentenced to death, Malvo to life in prison.)
2003	The supersonic Concorde jet made its last commercial passenger flight from New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to London’s Heathrow Airport, traveling at twice the speed of sound.
2005	Civil rights activist Rosa Parks died at age 92. (Read my two-part piece on Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott!)
2007	Facebook Inc. sold a 1.6 percent stake to Microsoft Corp. for $240 million, spurning a competing offer from Google Inc.

Today’s historical facts are from various sites including, but not limited too: the History Channel, The New York Times, WHG Historynet.com, HistoryOrb.com, and On This Day blogs from my blogroll.