12 History Lessons + 7 Births & 7 Deaths for October 24, 2025
Today’s History:
- 1648 – Peace of Westphalia is signed, ending the Thirty Years’ War and reshaping Europe.
- 1861 – First transcontinental telegraph is completed, linking the U.S. coasts and rendering the Pony Express obsolete.
- 1901 – Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
- 1929 – “Black Thursday” panic hits Wall Street, sparking the 1929 stock market crash.
- 1940 – U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act’s 40-hour workweek provision takes effect nationwide.
- 1945 – United Nations Charter comes into force; Oct 24 is celebrated as UN Day.
- 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: U.S. naval “quarantine” begins; Soviet ships alter course.
- 1964 – Northern Rhodesia gains independence as the Republic of Zambia.
- 1970 – Chile’s Congress confirms Salvador Allende as president.
- 1992 – Toronto Blue Jays win their first World Series, the first MLB title for a team based outside the U.S.
- 2003 – Concorde makes its final commercial flights, ending the supersonic passenger era.
- 2007 – China launches Chang’e 1, its first lunar orbiter.
- 2005 – Hurricane Wilma makes landfall in Florida after devastating parts of the Caribbean and Mexico.
Today’s Birthdays:
- 1936 – Bill Wyman, bassist and founding member of The Rolling Stones (89)
- 1947 – Kevin Kline, Academy Award–winning actor (78)
- 1966 – Roman Abramovich, entrepreneur and football club owner (59)
- 1980 – Monica, Grammy-winning R&B singer (45)
- 1985 – Wayne Rooney, England and Premier League football great (40)
- 1986 – Drake, chart-topping rapper/singer and producer (39)
- 1989 – PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg), YouTuber and creator (36)
Today’s Deaths:
- 1601 – Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer (54)
- 1944 – Louis Renault, French industrialist and automaker (67)
- 1945 – Vidkun Quisling, Norwegian collaborator leader, executed (58)
- 1991 – Gene Roddenberry, creator of “Star Trek” (70)
- 2005 – Rosa Parks, civil rights icon (92)
- 2011 – John McCarthy, computer scientist who coined “artificial intelligence” (84)
- 2017 – Fats Domino, pioneering rock and roll pianist/singer (89)
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