This day in history
Today is Wednesday, Jan. 24, the 24th day of 2024. There are 342 days left in the year. Birthdays: Cajun musician Doug Kershaw is 88. Singersongwriter Ray Stevens is 85. Singer-songwriter Neil Diamond is 83. Singer Aaron Neville is 83. Actor Michael Ontkean is 78. Bandleader-keyboardist Jools Holland is 66. Actor Nastassja Kinski is 63. R&B singer Theo Peoples is 63. Comedian Phil LaMarr is 57. Olympic gold medal gymnast Mary Lou Retton is 56. Blues/ rock singer Beth Hart is 52. Actor Ed Helms is 50. Actor Tatyana Ali is 45. Actor Carrie Coon is 43. Actor Daveed Diggs is 42. Actor Mischa Barton is 38.
►In 1776, Henry Knox, a bookseller who became an artillery expert, arrived at Cambridge with the cannons and mortars that he and a team had transported over ice and snow from Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York. The fortification of Dorchester Heights with these cannons would prompt the British to evacuate Boston two months later.
►In 1848, James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget at Sutter’s Mill in Northern California, a discovery that led to the gold rush of 1949.
►In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill concluded a wartime conference in Casablanca, Morocco.
►In 1963, a B-52 Stratofortress crashed into Elephant Mountain in Maine, killing seven crew members and severely injuring the other two members, who faced a brutal night of 29 degrees below zero before rescuers found them. The bomber, which took from Westover, Mass., was on a flight test to determine if the high-altitude bomber could fly close to the ground but turbulence ripped off its vertical stabilizer.
►In 1978, a nuclear-powered Soviet satellite, Cosmos 954, plunged through Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrated, scattering radioactive debris over parts of Northern Canada.
►In 1984, Apple Computer began selling its first Macintosh model, which boasted a built-in 9-inch monochrome display, a clock rate of 8 megahertz, and 128k of RAM.
►In 1989, confessed serial killer Theodore Bundy was executed in Florida’s electric chair. ►In 2003, former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge was sworn in as the first secretary of the new Department of Homeland Security.
► In 2013, President Barack Obama’s Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the lifting of a ban on women serving in combat.
► In 2018, former sports doctor Larry Nassar, who had admitted molesting some of the nation’s top gymnasts for years under the guise of medical treatment, was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison.
►In 2023, two Duxbury children were found dead in their home and a third would die days later, victims, police said, of their mother, Lindsay Clancy, who attempted to take her own life.