January 24 in History

The 40s ran from January 1, AD 40, to December 31, AD 49. Following the assassination of Caligula, Claudius became Roman emperor in AD 41. In AD 43 he sent Aulus Plautius with four legions across the Channel, initiating the decades-long Roman conquest of Britain. The Trưng sisters' rebellion broke out in the far south of Han China in AD 40, when Vietnamese leader Trưng Trắc and her sister Trưng Nhị rose against Han authority in Jiaozhi, in what is now northern Vietnam. Han China dispatched General Ma Yuan to suppress the rebellion in AD 42. The Han army had suppressed the uprising by AD 43. Christianity reached Egypt with the founding of the Church of Alexandria, whose first patriarch was Mark the Evangelist. James the Great, one of the Twelve Apostles and according to the New Testament, the first of them to be martyred, was killed in AD 44. Claudius expelled Jews from Rome at some point between AD 41 and 53. Scholars explain the measure to his concern with public order in Rome rather than a policy directed against Judaism. A famine struck Judea between AD 44 and 48. Josephus records that Helena of Adiabene provided grain and dried figs to the people of Jerusalem, while her son Izates sent money to the city's leaders. Literary works of this decade include the Histories of Alexander the Great, written by Quintus Curtius Rufus, and essays by Seneca (including De Ira; Ad Marciam, De Consolatione; De Brevitate Vitae; De Consolatione ad Polybium; and Ad Helviam Matrem, De Consolatione).

The Council of Florence was the seventeenth ecumenical council recognized by the Catholic Church, held between 1431 and 1445. It was convened in territories under the Holy Roman Empire. Italy became a venue of a Catholic ecumenical council after a gap of about two centuries. It was convoked in Basel as the Council of Basel by Pope Martin V shortly before his death in February 1431 and took place in the context of the Hussite Wars in Bohemia and the rise of the Ottoman Empire. At stake was the greater conflict between the conciliar movement and the principle of papal supremacy.

Matthias Corvinus (Hungarian: Hunyadi Mátyás; Romanian: Matia/Matei Corvin; Croatian: Matija/Matijaš Korvin; Slovene: Matija Korvin/Kralj Matjaž; Slovak: Matej Korvín; Czech: Matyáš Korvín; 23 February 1443 – 6 April 1490) was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1458 to 1490, as Matthias I. He is often given the epithet "the Just". After conducting several military campaigns, he was elected King of Bohemia in 1469 and adopted the title Duke of Austria in 1487. He was the son of John Hunyadi, Regent of Hungary, who died in 1456. In 1457, Matthias was imprisoned along with his older brother, Ladislaus Hunyadi, on the orders of King Ladislaus the Posthumous. Ladislaus Hunyadi was executed, causing a rebellion that forced King Ladislaus to flee Hungary. After the King died unexpectedly, Matthias's uncle Michael Szilágyi persuaded the Estates to unanimously proclaim the 14-year-old Matthias as king on 24 January 1458. He began his rule under his uncle's guardianship, but he took effective control of government within two weeks. As king, Matthias waged wars against the Czech mercenaries who dominated Upper Hungary (today parts of Slovakia and Northern Hungary) and against Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, who claimed Hungary for himself. In this period, the Ottoman Empire conquered Serbia and Bosnia, terminating the zone of buffer states along the southern frontiers of the Kingdom of Hungary. Matthias signed a peace treaty with Frederick III in 1463, acknowledging the Emperor's right to style himself King of Hungary. The Emperor returned the Holy Crown of Hungary with which Matthias was crowned on 29 March 1464. In this year, Matthias invaded the territories that had recently been occupied by the Ottomans and seized fortresses in Bosnia. He soon realized he could expect no substantial aid from the Christian powers and gave up his anti-Ottoman policy. Matthias introduced new taxes and regularly set taxation at extraordinary levels. These measures caused a rebellion in Transylvania in 1467, but he subdued the rebels. The next year, Matthias declared war on George of Poděbrady, the Hussite King of Bohemia, and conquered Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia, but he could not occupy Bohemia proper. The Catholic Estates proclaimed him King of Bohemia on 3 May 1469, but the Hussite lords refused to yield to him even after the death of their leader George of Poděbrady in 1471. Instead, they elected Vladislaus Jagiellon, the eldest son of Casimir IV of Poland. A group of Hungarian prelates and lords offered the throne to Vladislaus's younger brother Casimir, but Matthias overcame their rebellion. Having routed the united troops of Casimir IV and Vladislaus at Breslau in Silesia (now Wrocław in Poland) in late 1474, Matthias turned against the Ottomans, who had devastated the eastern parts of Hungary. He sent reinforcements to Stephen the Great, Prince of Moldavia, enabling Stephen to repel a series of Ottoman invasions in the late 1470s. In 1476, Matthias besieged and seized Šabac, an important Ottoman border fort. He concluded a peace treaty with Vladislaus Jagiellon in 1478, confirming the division of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown between them. Matthias waged a war against Emperor Frederick and occupied Lower Austria between 1482 and 1487. Matthias established one of the earliest professional standing armies of medieval Europe (the Black Army of Hungary), reformed the administration of justice, reduced the power of the barons, and promoted the careers of talented individuals chosen for their abilities rather than their social statuses. Matthias patronized art and science; his royal library, the Bibliotheca Corviniana, was one of the largest collections of books in Europe. With his patronage, Hungary became the first country to embrace the Renaissance from Italy. As Matthias the Just, the monarch who wandered among his subjects in disguise, he remains a popular hero of Hungarian and Slovak folk tales.

Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England and Ireland from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry was born in Greenwich as the second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. His elder brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales, was heir apparent and married Catherine of Aragon, a Spanish princess. Arthur died in 1502, and Henry was created Prince of Wales in 1504. He acceded to the throne upon his father's death in 1509, marrying Catherine with a papal dispensation. He was described as an attractive, educated, and accomplished king during the early years of his reign. Henry grew dissatisfied with the marriage to Catherine, appealing to Pope Clement VII for an annulment. Clement refused, and Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer declared the marriage void in the eyes of the Church of England in 1533. Clement objected to Cranmer's verdict and excommunicated Henry from the Catholic Church. Henry then passed the Acts of Supremacy, establishing himself as Supreme Head of the Church of England and thereby relieving his realms from obedience to the pope. He dissolved Catholic monasteries and seized their wealth, contributing to the English Reformation. Considered one of the greatest monarchs in English history, Henry grew more tyrannical, egotistical, lustful, and paranoid by the end of his life. He is known for his six marriages, and especially his long effort to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so that he could remarry in pursuit of a male heir. He ordered the beheadings of two of his wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. In his later years, Henry was morbidly obese and immobile, with a gangrenous leg wound contracted from a jousting accident in 1536. He was also said to have suffered from diabetes, oedema, and organ failure. He was buried at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle and was succeeded by his only surviving son, Edward VI.

The Arauco War was a long-running conflict between colonial Spaniards and the Mapuche people, mostly fought in the Araucanía region of Chile. The conflict began at first as a reaction by the Mapuche to the Spanish conquerors attempting to establish cities and force the natives into servitude. It subsequently evolved over time into phases comprising drawn-out sieges, slave-hunting expeditions, pillaging raids, punitive expeditions, and renewed Spanish attempts to secure lost territories. Abduction of women and war rape was common on both sides. The Spaniards penetrated into Mapuche territory during the conquest of Chile in the 16th century. They were stopped at the Battle of Curalaba in 1598 and the destruction of the Seven Cities. Afterward the two forces established a clear frontier between the Spanish domains and the land of the independent Mapuche. From the 17th to the late 18th century the Mapuche lonkos and Spanish royal governors held a series of parliaments. The war devolved to sporadic pillaging carried out by both sides. In the words of Philip II, this conflict cost the largest number of Spanish lives in the New World. It became known as the Flandes indiano ("Indian Flanders"), in reference to the Eighty Years' War in Europe.

Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685) was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651 and King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685. Charles II was the oldest surviving child of Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta Maria of France. After Charles I's execution at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War, the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II king on 5 February 1649. However, England entered the period known as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth with a republican government eventually led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, and Charles fled to mainland Europe. Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland. Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands. A political crisis after Cromwell's death in 1658 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, and Charles was invited to return to Britain. On 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday, he was received in London to public acclaim. Charles's English Parliament enacted the Clarendon Code, to shore up the position of the re-established Church of England. Charles acquiesced to these new laws even though he favoured a policy of religious tolerance. The major foreign policy issue of his early reign was the Second Anglo-Dutch War. In 1670, he entered into the Treaty of Dover, an alliance with his cousin, King Louis XIV of France. Louis agreed to aid him in the Third Anglo-Dutch War and pay him a pension, and Charles secretly promised to convert to Catholicism at an unspecified future date. Charles attempted to introduce religious freedom for Catholics and Protestant dissenters with his 1672 Royal Declaration of Indulgence, but the English Parliament forced him to withdraw it. In 1679, Titus Oates's fabrication of a supposed Popish Plot sparked the Exclusion Crisis when it was revealed that Charles's brother and heir presumptive, James, Duke of York, had become a Catholic. The crisis saw the birth of the pro-exclusion Whig and anti-exclusion Tory parties. Charles sided with the Tories and, after the discovery of the Rye House Plot to murder Charles and James in 1683, some Whig leaders were executed or forced into exile. Charles dissolved the English Parliament in 1681 and ruled alone until his death in 1685. A patron of the arts and sciences, Charles became known for his affability and friendliness, and for allowing his subjects easy access to his person. But he also showed an almost impenetrable reserve, especially concerning his political agendas. His court gained a reputation for moral laxity. Charles's marriage to Catherine of Braganza produced no surviving children, but the king acknowledged at least 12 illegitimate children by various mistresses. He was succeeded by his brother James.

Charles VII (6 August 1697 – 20 January 1745) was elector of Bavaria from 26 February 1726 and Holy Roman Emperor from 24 January 1742 to his death on 20 January 1745. He was also King of Bohemia (as Charles Albert) from 1741 to 1743. Charles was a member of the House of Wittelsbach, and his reign as Holy Roman Emperor thus marked the end of three centuries of uninterrupted Habsburg imperial rule, although he was related to the Habsburgs by both blood and marriage. Charles was the eldest son of Elector Maximilian II Emanuel of Bavaria and the Polish princess Theresa Kunegunda Sobieska. He became elector following the death of his father in 1726. In 1722, Charles married Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria, daughter of Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor and niece of Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor. The couple had seven children together. After Charles VI died in 1740, Elector Charles claimed the Archduchy of Austria and briefly gained hold of the Bohemian throne. In 1742, he was elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He ruled until his death three years later.

The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a global war fought by numerous great powers, primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and the Indian subcontinent. The primary warring states were Great Britain and Prussia fighting against France and Austria, with other countries joining these coalitions: Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Russia, plus Saxony and many other minor states of the Holy Roman Empire. Related conflicts include the Third Silesian War, French and Indian War, Third Carnatic War, Anglo-Spanish War (1762–1763), and Spanish–Portuguese War.

The Crossing of the Andes (Spanish: Cruce de los Andes) was one of the most important feats in the Argentine and Chilean wars of independence. A combined army of Argentine soldiers and Chilean exiles crossed the Andes mountains (which separate Argentina from Chile) to invade Chile, leading to its liberation from Spanish rule. Led by General José de San Martín and departing from Mendoza—then part of the Province of Cuyo, Argentina—in January 1817, the successful crossing took 21 days. The army navigated heights averaging 3,000 meters. The feat has been compared to Hannibal's and Napoleon's crossings of the Alps and is considered one of the greatest achievements of its kind in military history.

Salvador (Brazilian Portuguese: [sawvaˈdoʁ], local pronunciation: [-ˈdo(h)], formerly known as Cidade do São Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos, literally "City of the Holy Savior of the Bay of All the Saints") is a Brazilian municipality and capital city of the state of Bahia. Situated in the Zona da Mata in the Northeast Region of Brazil, Salvador is recognized throughout the country and internationally for its cuisine, music, and architecture. The African influence in many cultural aspects of the city makes it a center of Afro-Brazilian culture. As the first capital of Colonial Brazil, the city is one of the oldest in the Americas. Its foundation in 1549 by Tomé de Sousa took place on account of the implementation of the General Government of Brazil by the Portuguese Empire. Centralization as a capital, along with Portuguese colonization, were important factors in shaping the profile of the municipality, as were certain geographic characteristics. The construction of the city followed the uneven topography, initially with the formation of two levels—Upper Town (Cidade Alta) and Lower Town (Cidade Baixa)—on a steep escarpment, and later with the conception of valley avenues. With 692.818 square kilometers (267.499 mi2) in area, its emerged territory is peninsular, and the coast is bordered by the Bay of All Saints to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. The Historic Center of Salvador, iconized on the outskirts of Pelourinho, is known for its colonial architecture, with historical monuments dating from the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th century, and was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985. The stage of one of the biggest Carnivals in the world (the biggest street party in the world, according to the Guinness World Records), the integration of the municipality to the UNESCO's Creative Cities Network as the "City of Music", a unique title in the country, added to the international recognition of Salvador's music. With more than 2.4 million inhabitants as of 2020, it is the most populous municipality in the Northeast, the fifth most populous in Brazil, and the ninth largest Latin American city. It is the core of the metropolitan area known as "Great Salvador", which had an estimated 3,957,123 inhabitants in 2020 according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). This makes it the second most populous metropolitan area in the Northeast, the seventh in Brazil, and one of the largest in South America. Also due to these urban-population dimensions, it is classified by the IBGE study on the Brazilian urban network as a regional metropolis. In its reports for the years 2014 and 2020, the Research Network of Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) classified Salvador as a global city in the "Sufficiency" category (the smallest). Global city surveys by consultancy Kearney also included Salvador in the 2018 and 2020 annual reports, while excluding it in the 2019. The economic center of the state, Salvador is also a port city, administrative and tourist center. Its metropolitan region has the highest GDP among urban concentrations in the Northeast. In 2018, it had the second-highest gross domestic product (GDP) among Northeastern municipalities. Furthermore, it is the headquarters of important regional, national and international companies, such as Novonor, Braskem, Neoenergy Coelba, and Suzano Papel e Celulose. In addition to companies, the city hosts or has hosted many cultural, political, educational, sports events and organizations, such as the Bahia State University, the Federal University of Bahia, the Brazilian Army Complementary Training School, the Brazilian Surfing Confederation, the 12th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (in 2010), the third Ibero-American Summit (in 1993), the 2003 Pan-American Judo Championship, the second Conference of Intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora (in 2006), the 1989 Copa América, the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and Group E of the women's football tournament in the 2016 Summer Olympics.

The California gold rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush in California, which began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people from the rest of the United States and abroad to California, which had recently been conquered from Mexico. The sudden influx of gold into the money supply reinvigorated the American economy; the sudden population increase allowed California to grow rapidly into statehood in the Compromise of 1850. The gold rush had severe effects on Native Californians and accelerated the Native American population's decline from factors including disease, starvation, and according to certain sources, acts of unprovoked aggression. The effects of the gold rush were substantial. The arrival of large numbers of "forty-niners" (referring to 1849, the peak year for gold rush immigration) led to significant conflict between the newcomers and indigenous people, eventually resulting in whole tribes being displaced in some cases. Outside of California, the first to arrive were from Oregon, Hawaii, and Latin America in late 1848. Of the approximately 300,000 people who came to California during the gold rush, about half arrived by sea and half came overland on the California Trail and the California Road; forty-niners often faced substantial hardships on the trip. While most of the newly arrived were Americans, the gold rush attracted thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, and China. Agriculture and ranching expanded throughout the state to meet the needs of the settlers. San Francisco grew from a small settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by 1852. Roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California. In 1849, a state constitution was written. The new constitution was adopted by referendum vote; the future state's interim first governor and legislature were chosen. In September 1850, California achieved statehood. At the beginning of the gold rush, there was no law regarding property rights in the goldfields and a system of "staking claims" was developed. Prospectors retrieved the gold from streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, such as panning. Although mining caused environmental harm, more sophisticated methods of gold recovery were developed and later adopted around the world. New methods of transportation developed as steamships came into regular service. By 1869, railroads were built from California to the eastern United States. At its peak, technological advances reached a point where significant financing was required, increasing the proportion of gold companies to individual miners. Gold worth tens of billions of today's US dollars was recovered, which led to great wealth for a few, though many who participated in the California gold rush earned little more than they had started with.

The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (CU), is a public state research university located in Kolkata, also known as Calcutta, in West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate colleges and 16 institutes in Kolkata and nearby areas. It was established on 24 January 1857 and is the oldest multidisciplinary university of the Indian Subcontinent and the Southeast Asian Region. Today, the university's jurisdiction is limited to a few districts of West Bengal, but at the time of its establishment, it had a catchment area ranging from Kabul to Myanmar. It is accredited as an "A" grade university by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). The university has a total of fourteen campuses spread over the city of Kolkata and its suburbs. Since 2020, 151 colleges and 21 institutes, and centres have been affiliated with CU. The university was fourth in the Indian University Ranking 2021 list, released by the National Institutional Ranking Framework of the Ministry of Education. Its alumni and faculty include several heads of state and government, social reformers, prominent artists, the only Indian Dirac Medal winner, many Fellows of the Royal Society, and six Nobel laureates as of 2025. The Nobel laureates associated with this university are Ronald Ross, Rabindranath Tagore, C. V. Raman, Amartya Sen, and Abhijit Banerjee. The university has the highest number of students who have cleared the National Eligibility Test. The University of Calcutta is a member of the United Nations Academic Impact.

The United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (Romanian: Principatele Unite ale Moldovei și Țării Românești), commonly called United Principalities or Wallachia and Moldavia, was the personal union of the Principality of Moldavia and the Principality of Wallachia. The union was formed on 5 February [O.S. 24 January] 1859 when Alexandru Ioan Cuza was elected as the Domnitor (Ruling Prince) of both principalities. Their separate autonomous vassalage in the Ottoman Empire continued with the unification of both principalities. On 3 February [O.S. 22 January] 1862, Moldavia and Wallachia formally united to create the Romanian United Principalities or Romania the core of the Romanian nation state. In February 1866, Prince Cuza was forced to abdicate and go into exile by a political coalition led by the Liberals; the German prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was offered the throne and, on 22 May [O.S. 10 May] 1866 he entered Bucharest for the first time. In July the same year, a new constitution came into effect, giving the country the name of Romania; internationally, this name was used only after 1877–78, since at the time it was still nominally a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. However, by this time the suzerainty of the Sublime Porte had become a legal fiction. Romania had its own flag and anthem; after 1867, it had its own currency as well. On 21 May [O.S. 9 May] 1877, Romania proclaimed itself fully independent; the proclamation was sanctioned by the Domnitor the following day. The Ottoman Empire finally recognized Romanian independence in the Treaty of San Stefano. Three years later, on 22 May [O.S. 10 May] 1881, the 1866 Constitution was modified and Romania became a kingdom, and Domnitor Carol I was crowned as the first king of Romania. After the First World War, Transylvania and other territories were also included. For its triple symbolic meaning, the date of May 10 was celebrated as Romania's National Day until 1947, when the Communist regime installed the republic.

The Second Boer War was a conflict fought between 1899 and 1902 between the British Empire and the Boer republics, triggered by the discovery of gold in the Transvaal, specifically the Witwatersrand gold fields, and the ensuing political dispute over the voting rights of British expatriates (Uitlanders).

Scouting or the Scout Movement is a youth movement which became popularly established in the first decade of the 20th century.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, World War I resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million deaths, including those in war crimes and genocides. The war also helped spread the Spanish flu pandemic. The conflict saw important developments in weaponry, including the first large-scale use of machine guns, artillery, aircraft, chemical weapons, and tanks.

The Twentieth Amendment (Amendment XX) to the United States Constitution moved the beginning and ending of the terms of the president and vice president from March 4 to January 20, and of members of Congress from March 4 to January 3. It also has provisions that determine what is to be done when there is no president-elect. The Twentieth Amendment was adopted on January 23, 1933. The amendment reduced the presidential transition and the "lame duck" period, by which members of Congress and the president serve the remainder of their terms after an election. The amendment established congressional terms to begin before presidential terms and that the incoming Congress, rather than the outgoing one, would hold a contingent election if the Electoral College deadlocked regarding either the presidential or vice presidential elections.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving US president and the only one to have served more than two terms. His first two terms centered on combating the Great Depression, while his third and fourth focused on US involvement in World War II. A member of the Democratic Party, Roosevelt served in the New York State Senate from 1911 to 1913 and as the 44th governor of New York from 1929 to 1932.

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its 81st session, its powers, composition, functions, and procedures are set out in Chapter IV of the United Nations Charter. The United Nations General Assembly is responsible for the United Nations budget, appointing the non-permanent members to the Security Council, appointing the secretary-general of the United Nations, receiving reports from other parts of the United Nations System, and making recommendations through resolutions. It also establishes numerous subsidiary organs to advance or assist in its broad mandate. The United Nations General Assembly is the only United Nations organ where all member states have equal representation. The General Assembly meets under its president or the United Nations secretary-general in annual sessions at the General Assembly Building, within the United Nations headquarters in New York City. The primary phase of these meetings generally runs from September through part of January until all issues are addressed, which is often before the next session starts. It can also reconvene for special and emergency special sessions. The first session was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London and included representatives of the 51 founding nations. Most questions are decided in the General Assembly by a simple majority. Each member country has one vote. Voting on certain important questions—namely recommendations on peace and security; budgetary concerns; and the election, admission, suspension, or expulsion of members—is by a two-thirds majority of those present and voting. Apart from the approval of budgetary matters, including the adoption of a scale of assessment, Assembly resolutions are not binding on the members. The Assembly may make recommendations on any matters within the scope of the United Nations, except matters of peace and security under the Security Council's consideration. During the 1980s, the Assembly became a forum for "North–South dialogue" between industrialized nations and developing countries on a range of international issues. These issues came to the fore because of the phenomenal growth and changing makeup of the United Nations membership. In 1945, the United Nations had 51 members, which by the 21st century nearly quadrupled to 193, of which more than two-thirds are developing countries. Because of their numbers, developing countries are often able to determine the agenda of the Assembly (using coordinating groups like the G77), the character of its debates, and the nature of its decisions. For many developing countries, the UN is the source of much of their diplomatic influence and the principal outlet for their foreign relations initiatives. Although the resolutions passed by the General Assembly do not have binding forces over the member nations (apart from budgetary measures), pursuant to its Uniting for Peace resolution of November 1950 (resolution 377 (V)), the Assembly may also take action if the Security Council fails to act, owing to the negative vote of a permanent member, in a case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression. The Assembly can consider the matter immediately with a view to making recommendations to Members for collective measures to maintain or restore international peace and security.

The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution, the Franco-Algerian War, or the Algerian War of Independence, was an armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria winning its independence from France. An important decolonization war, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare and war crimes. The conflict also became a civil war between the different communities and within the communities. The war took place mainly on the territory of French Algeria, with repercussions in metropolitan France.

The 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash was an aviation accident that occurred near Goldsboro, North Carolina, United States, on 24 January 1961. A Boeing B-52 Stratofortress carrying two 3.8-megaton Mark 39 nuclear bombs broke up in mid-air, dropping its nuclear payload in the process. Five crewmen successfully ejected or bailed out of the aircraft and landed safely; another ejected, but did not survive the landing, and two of them were killed in the crash. The accident is one of the most famous "Broken Arrow" nuclear accidents of the Cold War. Both of the weapons began their firing sequences upon separation from the aircraft, despite safeguards meant to prevent that from occurring. One of its nuclear bombs was judged by nuclear weapons engineers at the time to have been only one safety switch away from detonation, and that it was "credible" to imagine conditions under which it could have detonated. The other bomb did not get as far into its firing sequence, but became deeply embedded in a muddy field, and one of its major weapons components (the thermonuclear "secondary" stage) was regarded as irrecoverably lost after an extensive, failed effort to recover it.

Air India Flight 101 was a scheduled Air India passenger flight from Bombay (present-day Mumbai) to London, via Delhi, Beirut, and Geneva. On the morning of 24 January 1966 at 8:02 CET, on approach to Geneva, the Boeing 707 operating the flight accidentally crashed into Mont Blanc in France, killing all 117 people on board. Among the victims was Homi Jehangir Bhabha, the founder and chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India. The accident occurred just 200 m (660 ft) from where an Air India Lockheed 749 Constellation operating as Air India Flight 245 while on a charter flight had crashed in 1950.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

Shōichi Yokoi (横井 庄一, Yokoi Shōichi; 31 March 1915 – 22 September 1997) was a Japanese soldier who served as a sergeant in the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during the Second World War and was one of the last four Japanese holdouts to be found after the end of hostilities in 1945. He was discovered in the jungles of Guam on 24 January 1972, almost 28 years after U.S. forces had regained control of the island in 1944.

The 1977 Atocha massacre was an attack by right-wing extremists in the center of Madrid on 24 January 1977, which saw the assassination of five labor activists from the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) and the workers' federation Comisiones Obreras (CC.OO). The act occurred within the wider context of far-right reaction to Spain's transition to constitutional democracy following the death of dictator Francisco Franco. Intended to provoke a violent left-wing response that would provide legitimacy for a subsequent right-wing counter coup d'état, the massacre had an immediate opposite effect, generating mass popular revulsion of the far-right and accelerating the legalization of the long-banned Communist Party.

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from its formation in 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, the largest by area, and bordered twelve other countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, with the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR). The world's flagship communist state, it was governed by the Communist Party under Marxism–Leninism, through soviet councils. The Soviet economy was also centrally planned. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

Voyager 2 is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, as a part of the Voyager program. It was launched on a trajectory towards the gas giants and enabled further encounters with the ice giants. The only spacecraft to have visited either of the ice giant planets, it was the third of five spacecraft to achieve Solar escape velocity, which allowed it to leave the Solar System. Launched 16 days before its twin Voyager 1, the primary mission of the spacecraft was to study the outer planets and its extended mission is to study interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere.

PJSC Aeroflot – Russian Airlines, commonly known as Aeroflot, is the flag carrier and the largest airline of Russia. Aeroflot is headquartered in the Central Administrative Okrug, Moscow, with its hub being Sheremetyevo International Airport. The Federal Agency for State Property Management, an agency of the Government of Russia, owns 73.77% of the company, with the rest of the shares being public float.

The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, comparable to interior ministries abroad. Its missions involve anti-terrorism, civil defense, immigration and customs, border control, cybersecurity, transportation security, maritime security and sea rescue, and the mitigation of weapons of mass destruction.

Cyclone Klaus was a European windstorm or cyclone that made landfall over large parts of central and southern France, Spain and parts of Italy in January 2009. The storm was the most damaging since Lothar and Martin in December 1999. The storm caused widespread damage across France and Spain, especially in northern Spain.

The Domodedovo International Airport bombing was a suicide bombing in the international arrival hall of Moscow Domodedovo Airport, in Domodedovsky District, Moscow Oblast, on 24 January 2011.

Lawrence Gerard Nassar is an American convicted serial sex offender and former family medicine osteopathic physician. He served as a team doctor for the United States women's national gymnastics team from 1996 to 2014, where he used his position to exploit and sexually assault hundreds of young athletes as part of the largest sexual abuse scandal in sports history. Nassar was a team physician at Michigan State University under William Strampel from 1997 to 2016, and multiple student athletes reported his inappropriate behavior.

On 24 January 2024, at around 11:15 MSK, a Russian Air Force Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane crashed near the Ukrainian border in Russia's Korochansky district in Belgorod Oblast, killing everyone on board. Russia stated that the plane was shot down by Ukraine while it was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) captured during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as six crew members and three guards, and that the prisoners of war were to be exchanged in a swap. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not directly take responsibility for shooting down the airplane, but stated that it was a legitimate military target and that it was carrying S-300 anti-aircraft missiles for bombing Kharkiv Oblast.

On the early morning of January 24, 2026, heavy rains caused major landslides in West Bandung Regency, West Java, Indonesia. The landslide buried at least 53 homes, and killed up to 80 people, and 20 others missing.