THIS DATE IN HISTORY
Today is Wednesday, April 24, the 115th day of 2024. There are 251 days left in the year. On this date in:
1183 BC: This is the traditional date that marked the Fall of Troy at the end of the Trojan War.
1704: John Campbell, a bookseller and postmaster, published the first issue of the Boston News-Letter, making it the first continuously published newspaper in the U.S. The British government initially had a heavy hand in the distribution and approval of the publication.
1800: The U.S. Library of Congress was established by President John Adams. Congress appropriated the library with $5,000 to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of congress.” The first books were ordered from London. It is Congress’ research arm and the oldest federal cultural institution in the U.S.
1914: The Franck-Hertz quantum experiment was presented to the world in Germany. It was the first measurable experiment that proved the discrete, quantized energy states of electrons, supporting early quantum mechanics theorems.
1926: Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Treaty of Berlin, with each pledging neutrality between the nations in events of conflict for five years.
1945: President Harry Truman was fully briefed on the comprehensive details of the secretive Manhattan Project. U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Army Gen. Leslie Groves, who oversaw the project, presented Truman with a file on the project and shared confidential information on who else possessed atomic weapon capabilities.
1953: Queen Elizabeth II knighted Winston Churchill.
1955: The Bandung Conference ended with 29 nations from Asia and Africa condemning colonialism, racism and the Cold War while upholding human rights and sovereignty for all nations involved.
1990: The Hubble Space Telescope was launched from the Shuttle Discovery. One of the biggest space telescopes, it had a 7-foot-10-inch mirror and five main instruments constructed to observe the ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
1996: President Bill Clinton signed into law the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. It was bipartisan legislation designed to “to deter terrorism, provide justice for victims, provide for an effective death penalty, and for other purposes.” The act was a response to the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings.
2005: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Catholic Church. He took up the name Pope Benedict XVI.
2011: WikiLeaks, The Guardian, The New York Times and NPR published 779 leaked secret documents from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. The leaks contained comprehensive notes, interviews, assessments and memos about the prisoners. Many of the detainees were revealed to have been ordinary civilians who were held for years unlawfully.