HISTORY AT A GLANCE
TODAY is Tuesday, January 24, the 24th day of 2017. There are 341 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1946 – The United Nations General Assembly passes its first resolution to establish the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission.
1947 – Greek banker Dimitrios Maximos becomes Prime Minister of Greece.
1960 – Algerian War: Some units of European volunteers in Algiers stage an insurrection known as the “barricades week”, during which they seize government buildings and clash with local police.
1961 – Goldsboro B-52 crash: A bomber carrying two H-bombs breaks up in mid-air over North Carolina. The uranium core of one weapon remains lost.
1968 – Vietnam War: The 1st Australian Task Force launches Operation Coburg against the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong during wider fighting around Long Bình and Biên Hòa
1972 – Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II.
1977 – Massacre of Atocha in Madrid, during the Spanish transition to democracy.
1978 – Soviet satellite Kosmos 954, with a nuclear reactor on board, burns up in Earth’s atmosphere, scattering radioactive debris over Canada’s Northwest Territories. Only 1% is recovered.
1984 – The first Apple Macintosh goes on sale. 1986 – Voyager 2 passes within 81,500 kilometres (50,600 mi) of Uranus.
1990 – Japan launches Hiten, the country’s first lunar probe, the first robotic lunar probe since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 in 1976, and the first lunar probe launched by a country other than Soviet Union or the United States.
1996 – Polish Prime Minister Józef Oleksy resigns amid charges that he spied for Moscow.
2003 – The United States Department of Homeland Security officially begins operation.
2011 – At least 35 die and 180 are injured in a bombing at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport.
2014 – Three bombs explode in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, killing about seven people and injuring over 100 others.
2014 – The Philippines and the Bangsamoro agree to a peace deal that would help end the 45-year conflict.