On This Day:
Thursday April 24, 2014 This is the 114th day of the year, with 251 days remaining in 2014. Fact of the Day: meteor showers Meteoroids are tiny pieces of dust and rock that originate from comets and asteroids. The smallest meteoroids produce meteors; larger pieces reaching the earth are meteorites. Tiny meteoroids burn up as they travel through the earth's atmosphere, producing streaks of light called meteors at an approximate height of 60 miles; when the earth travels through a concentration of meteoroids, a meteor shower is produced. Meteorites enter the earth's atmosphere at about 45 miles per second. Mrs. Hewlett Hodges of Sylacauge, Alabama, was the first recorded person to be injured from a meteorite when one fell on her home on November 30, 1954, and badly bruised her.
Holidays Feast day of St. Mellitus, St. Egbert, St. Wilfrid, St. Ives, St. Fidelis, St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier, and St. William Firmatus.
Armenia: Armenian Martyrs Day.
Events 1558 - Mary, Queen of Scotland, married the French dauphin, Francis II.
1704 - The first regularly issued American newspaper, "the Boston News Letter," started publication.
1792 - The national anthem of France, "La Marseillaise," was composed by Captain Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle.
1800 - The Library of Congress was established. President John Adams approved the appropriation of $5,000 for the purchase of "such books as may be necessary for the use of congress."
1833 - A patent was granted for first soda fountain to Jacob Ebert of Cadiz, Ohio and George Dulty of Wheeling, West Virginia .
1898 - Spain declared war on the United States, rejecting the U.S. ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.
1915 - The Ottoman Turkish Empire began a mass deportation of Armenians during World War I.
1916 - The Irish Republican Brotherhood or Sinn Fein, Irish nationalists led by Patrick Pearse, launched the so-called Easter Rebellion, an armed uprising against British rule.
1953 - Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
1961 - President John F. Kennedy accepted "sole responsibility" for the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.
1962 - MIT executed the first satellite relay of a TV signal.
1970 - China launched its first satellite.
1980 - An ill-fated military operation to rescue the 52 American hostages held in Tehran ended with eight U.S. servicemen dead and no hostages rescued.
1981 - The IBM Personal Computer was introduced.
1990 - The space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope.
2004 - The United States lifts economic sanctions imposed on Libya for its cooperation in eliminating weapons of mass destruction.
2005 - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.
Births 1766 - Robert Bailey Thomas, American founder and editor of "The Farmer's Almanac."
1904 - Willem de Kooning, Dutch-born American abstract impressionist painter.
1905 - Robert Penn Warren, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, poet laureate of U.S.
1911 - Jack E. Leonard (Leonard Lebitsky), American comedian, actor.
1940 - Sue Grafton, American author.
1942 - Barbra Streisand, American award-winning vocalist, actress, director.
Deaths 1967 - Vladimir Komarov, Soviet cosmonaut, and the first confirmed human to die during a space mission.
1974 - Bud Abbott, American actor and comedian.
1997 - Pat Paulsen, American comic and presidential candidate.
2004 - Estee Lauder, American cosmetics entrepreneur.
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