June 24 in History

Dancing mania was a phenomenon which occurred primarily in mainland Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. It involved groups of people dancing erratically, sometimes thousands at a time. The mania affected adults and children who danced until, allegedly, they collapsed from exhaustion and injuries, and sometimes died. One of the first major outbreaks was in Aachen, in the Holy Roman Empire, in 1374, and it quickly spread throughout Europe; one particularly notable outbreak occurred in Strasbourg in 1518 in Alsace, also in the Holy Roman Empire.

Henry VIII was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 22 April 1509, and King of Ireland from 18 June 1542, until his death in 1547.

Anabaptism is a Christian movement which traces its origins to the Radical Reformation in the 16th century. Anabaptists believe that baptism is valid only when candidates freely confess their faith in Christ and request to be baptized. This stance, commonly referred to as believer's baptism, is opposed to the baptism of infants, who are not able to make a conscious decision to be baptized.

Don Miguel López de Legazpi, also known as El Adelantado and El Viejo, was a Spanish and Basque conquistador who financed and led an expedition to conquer the Philippine islands in the mid-16th century. He was joined by Guido de Lavezares, relative Martin de Goiti, friar Andrés de Urdaneta, and his grandsons Juan and Felipe de Salcedo, in the expedition. Legazpi established the first Spanish settlement in the East Indies after his expedition crossed the Pacific Ocean, arriving in Cebu in 1565.

Samuel de Champlain was a French explorer, navigator, cartographer, soldier, geographer, diplomat, and chronicler who founded Quebec City and established New France as a permanent French colony in North America.

Évora, officially the Very Noble and Ever Loyal City of Évora, is a city and a municipality in Portugal. It has 53,591 inhabitants (2021), in an area of 1,307.08 square kilometers (504.67 mi2). It is considered the historic capital of the Alentejo region and serves as the seat of the Évora District.

The organisation now known as the Premier Grand Lodge of England was founded on 24 June 1717 as the Grand Lodge of London and Westminster. Originally concerned with the practice of Freemasonry in London and Westminster, it soon became known as the Grand Lodge of England. Because it was the first Masonic Grand Lodge to be created, modern convention now calls it the Premier Grand Lodge of England in order to distinguish it from the Most Ancient and Honourable Society of Free and Accepted Masons according to the Old Constitutions, usually referred to as the Ancient Grand Lodge of England, and the Grand Lodge of All England Meeting at York. It existed until 1813, when it united with the Ancient Grand Lodge of England to create the United Grand Lodge of England.

The Battle of Wilhelmsthal was fought on 24 June 1762 during the Seven Years' War between the allied forces of Britain, Prussia, Hanover, Brunswick and Hesse under the command of the Duke of Brunswick against France. Once again, the French threatened Hanover, so the Allies manoeuvered around the French, surrounded the invasion force, and forced them to retreat. It was the last major action fought by Brunswick's force before the Peace of Paris brought an end to the war.

The Constitution of 1793, also known as the Constitution of the Year I or the Montagnard Constitution, was the second constitution ratified for use during the French Revolution under the First Republic. Designed by the Montagnards, principally Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Saint-Just, it was intended to replace the constitutional monarchy of 1791 and the Girondin constitutional project. With sweeping plans for democratization and wealth redistribution, the new document promised a significant departure from the relatively moderate goals of the Revolution in previous years.

The Battle of Beaver Dams took place on 24 June 1813, during the War of 1812. A column of troops from the United States Army marched from Fort George and attempted to surprise a British outpost at Beaver Dams, billeting themselves overnight in the village of Queenston, Ontario. Laura Secord, a resident of Queenston, had earlier learned of the American plans from several Americans billeted at her house and had struck out on a long and difficult trek to warn the British at Decou's stone house near present-day Brock University. When the Americans resumed their march, they were ambushed by Kahnawake and other native warriors and eventually surrendered to a small British detachment led by Lieutenant James FitzGibbon. About 500 U.S. troops, including their wounded commander, were taken prisoner.

Ibrahim Pasha was an Egyptian general and politician; he was the commander of both the Egyptian and Ottoman armies and the eldest son of Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman Wāli and unrecognized Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. He was the second ruler of Egypt from the Muhammad Ali dynasty and ruled from 20 July 1848 to 10 November 1848.

The Battle of Custoza took place on the 24 June 1866 during the Third Italian War of Independence in the Italian unification process.

On 24 June 1894, French President Sadi Carnot was assassinated by Italian anarchist Sante Geronimo Caserio in Lyon, France. A part of the Ère des attentats anarchist terrorist campaign (1892–1894), it led to a historic crackdown on French anarchist activities.

Gladys Louise Smith, baptised as Gladys Marie Smith, known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian American film actress and producer. A pioneer in the American film industry with a Hollywood career spanning five decades, Pickford was one of the most popular actresses of the silent film era. Beginning her film career in 1909, Pickford became Hollywood's first millionaire by 1916, and, at the height of her career, had complete creative control of her films and was one of the most recognizable women in the world. Due to her popularity, unprecedented international fame, and success as an actress and businesswoman, she was known as the "Queen of the Movies". She was a significant figure in the development of film acting and is credited with having defined the ingénue type in cinema, a persona that also earned her the nickname "America's Sweetheart".

The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and the highest professional level of American football in the world. Each NFL season begins annually with a three-week preseason in August, followed by an 18-week regular season, which runs from early September to early January, with each team playing 17 games and having one bye week. Seven teams from each conference, including the four division winners and three wild card teams, then advance to the playoffs, a single-elimination tournament, which culminates in the Super Bowl, played in early February between the winners of the AFC and NFC championship games. The NFL is headquartered in New York City.

A meteorite is a rock that originated in outer space and has fallen to the surface of a planet or moon. When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical interactions with the atmospheric gases cause it to heat up and radiate energy. It then becomes a meteor and forms a fireball, also known as a shooting star; astronomers call the brightest examples "bolides". Once it settles on the larger body's surface, the meteor becomes a meteorite. Meteorites vary greatly in size. For geologists, a bolide is a meteorite large enough to create an impact crater.

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. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. 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.

Victory Day parades are military parades that are held on 9 May in some post-Soviet nations, primarily Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine. They are held to honor the traditional Victory Day holiday, which commemorates the German Instrument of Surrender on 8 May, 1945 and the end of the Second World War in Europe. In 2015, the Ukrainian government renamed the holiday as "Victory Day over Nazism in World War II" as part of decommunization laws and in 2023 moved the holiday to 8 May, renaming it to Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism in World War II 1939 – 1945.

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, embargoes, and sports diplomacy.

Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap, which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation's minority white population. Under this minoritarian system, white citizens held the highest status, followed by Indians, Coloureds and black Africans, in that order. The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day, particularly inequality.

Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957), along with its companion case Alberts v. California, was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which redefined the constitutional test for determining what constitutes obscene material unprotected by the First Amendment. The Court, in an opinion by Justice William J. Brennan Jr. created a test to determine what constituted obscene material: Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the material appeals to a prurient interest in sex, and whether the material was utterly without redeeming social value. Although the Court upheld Roth’s conviction and allowed some obscenity prosecutions, it drastically loosened obscenity laws. The decision dissatisfied both social conservatives who thought that it had gone too far in tolerating sexual imagery, and liberals who felt that it infringed on the rights of consenting adults.

Zanzibar is a Tanzanian archipelago off the coast of East Africa. It is located in the Indian Ocean, and consists of many small islands and two large ones: Unguja and Pemba Island. The capital is Zanzibar City, located on the island of Unguja. Its historic centre, Stone Town, is a World Heritage Site.

Eastern Air Lines Flight 66 was a regularly scheduled flight from New Orleans to New York City that crashed on June 24, 1975, when a Boeing 727-225 went on approach to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing 113 of the 124 people on board. The accident was determined to be caused by wind shear stemming from a microburst, but the failure of the airport and the flight crew to recognize the severe weather hazard was also a contributing factor.

The Humber Bridge is a 2.22-kilometre single-span road suspension bridge near Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. When it opened to traffic on 24 June 1981, it was the longest of its type in the world; the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge surpassed it in 1998, and it became the fourteenth-longest by 2025.

Jiang Zemin was a Chinese politician who served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1989 to 2002, as the chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2004, and as the president of China from 1993 to 2003. Jiang was the third paramount leader of China from 1989 to 2002. He was the core leader of the third generation of Chinese leadership, one of four core leaders alongside Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Xi Jinping.

The 1995 Rugby World Cup was the third Rugby World Cup. It was hosted and won by South Africa, and was the first Rugby World Cup in which every match was held in one country.

Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in such a manner is called a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is condemned and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Etymologically, the term capital refers to execution by beheading, but executions are carried out by many methods.

Julia Eileen Gillard is an Australian former politician who served as the 27th prime minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013. She held office as the leader of the Labor Party (ALP), having previously served as the 13th deputy prime minister from 2007 to 2010. She is the first and only woman to hold either office.

The prime minister of Italy, officially the president of the Council of Ministers, is the head of government of the Italian Republic. The office of president of the Council of Ministers is established by articles 92–96 of the Constitution of Italy; the president of the Council of Ministers is appointed by the president of the Italian Republic and must have the confidence of the parliament to stay in office.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the court held that the United States Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. The court's decision overruled both Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), devolving to state governments the authority to regulate any aspect of abortion that federal law does not preempt.