On This Day

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Important events of history that took place in India and elsewhere on today’s date.

24 October

🇮🇳 In India

1851 First telegraph line started between Calcutta and Diamond Harbor.

1890 Sisir Kumar Mitra, physicist known for his seminal work on ionosphere, was born.

1914 Lakshmi Sahgal, revolutionary of the Indian independence movement and officer of the Indian National Army, was born. Lakshmi is commonly referred to in India as Captain Lakshmi, a reference to her rank when taken prisoner in Burma during the Second World War.

1921 R K Laxman, cartoonist, illustrator, and humorist, was born. He is best known for his creation The Common Man and for his daily cartoon strip, You Said It in The Times of India. He is the brother of author R K Narayan.

1984 First underground metro train started between Esplanade and Bhawanipur in Kolkata.

1991 Ismat Chughtai, Urdu novelist, short story writer, and filmmaker, died.

1995 A total solar eclipse, when the moon's apparent diameter is larger than the sun's, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness, occurred and was seen over Rajasthan, UP, Bihar and West Bengal.

1997 Kerala bans ragging in educational institutions by an ordinance.

2000 Sitaram Kesri (81), former Congress President, died at the AIIMS in New Delhi.

2013 Renowned playback singer Manna Dey of Hindi and Bengali films passed away. In 2005, he was honoured him with the Padma Bhushan.

🌎 Elsewhere

1632 Dutch microscopist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who became the first to observe bacteria and protozoans, was born.

1788 Sarah Josepha Hale, American writer, activist, and influential editor, was born. She was the author of the nursery rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb.

1861 The first transcontinental telegram was sent via the telegraph in the United States, effectively bringing to an end the Pony Express.

1911 Orville Wright remained in the air 9 minutes and 45 seconds in a glider at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina setting a new world record that stood for 10 years.

1945 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.

1946

A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket, launched from Whites Sands US, takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.

1982 Steffi Graf plays her first pro tennis match.

1987 The first comic strip appears in the Sunday color supplement of the New York Journal called the Yellow Kid.

2005 Rosa Parks, African-American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott, died. On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks rejected bus the driver's order to vacate a row of four seats in the "coloured" section in favour of a white passenger, as the "white" section was filled.

2017 Albert Einstein's "Theory of Happiness", written as a note for a bellboy instead of a tip in Tokyo in 1922 sells for $1.56 million. Einstein had written in German: "A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness."

⭐ Significance

United Nations Day is an annual commemorative day, reflecting the official creation of the United Nations on 24 October 1945.

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