September 24 in History

On September 24, 1869, a gold panic broke out in the United States, triggering a financial crisis. The panic, which became known as Black Friday, was the result of a conspiracy between two investors, Jay Gould, later joined by his partner James Fisk, and Abel Corbin, a small time speculator who had married Virginia (Jennie) Grant, the younger sister of President Ulysses S. Grant. They formed the Gold Ring to corner the gold market and force up the price of the metal on the New York Gold Exchange. The scandal took place during the Grant Presidency. The Secretary of the Treasury, George S. Boutwell, had a policy to sell Treasury gold at biweekly intervals for a sinking fund to pay off the national debt. Along with other, non-routine gold sales, this infusion of cash acted to stabilize the dollar. The economy had gone through tremendous upheaval during the Civil War 1861–1865 and was not yet fully restored.

The Battle of Shiroyama took place on 24 September 1877, in Kagoshima, Japan. It was the final battle of the Satsuma Rebellion, where the heavily outnumbered samurai under Saigō Takamori made their last stand against Imperial Japanese Army troops under the command of General Yamagata Aritomo and Admiral Kawamura Sumiyoshi. The battle culminated in the annihilation of Saigō and his army, marking the end of the Satsuma Rebellion. The Imperial Army's victory consolidated their power, and the Satsuma Rebellion was the last instance of internal mutiny seen in the Empire of Japan.

Devils Tower is a laccolithic butte, composed of igneous rock in the Bear Lodge Ranger District of the Black Hills, near Hulett and Sundance in Crook County, northeastern Wyoming, above the Belle Fourche River. It rises 1,267 feet (386 m) above the Belle Fourche River, standing 867 ft (264 m) from summit to base. The summit is 5,112 ft (1,558 m) above sea level.

His Majesty's Airship No. 1 was designed and built by Vickers, Sons and Maxim at their works in Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire, England, as an aerial scout airship for the Royal Navy. It was the first British rigid airship to be built, and was constructed in a direct attempt to compete with the German airship programme. Often referred to as "Mayfly", a nickname given to it by the lower deck, in public records it is designated 'HMA Hermione' because the naval contingent at Barrow were attached to HMS Hermione, a cruiser moored locally preparing to act as its tender.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule, and to later inspire movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā, first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the world.

Cathay Pacific Airways Limited, or simply Cathay Pacific, is the flag carrier of Hong Kong, with its head office and main hub located at Hong Kong International Airport. The airline's operations and its subsidiaries have scheduled passenger and cargo services to more than 190 destinations and more than 60 countries worldwide including codeshares and joint ventures.

Honda Motor Co., Ltd., commonly known as Honda, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate automotive manufacturer headquartered at the Toranomon Alcea Tower in Toranomon, Minato, Tokyo, Japan.

The AEC Routemaster is a front-engined double-decker bus that was designed by London Transport and built by the Associated Equipment Company (AEC) and Park Royal Vehicles. The first prototype was completed in September 1954 and the last one was delivered in 1968. The layout of the vehicle was conventional for the time, with a half-cab, front-mounted engine and open rear platform, although the coach version was fitted with rear platform doors. Forward entrance vehicles with platform doors were also produced as was a unique front-entrance prototype with the engine mounted transversely at the rear.

The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) ("Screaming Eagles") is a light infantry division of the United States Army that specializes in air assault operations. The 101st is designed to plan, coordinate, and execute brigade-sized air assault operations that can be conducted in one period of darkness, at distances up to 500 nautical miles (926 kilometers), to seize key terrain and hold it for up to 14 days. In recent years, the 101st was active in security force assistance and counterinsurgency operations in Iraq, in Afghanistan in 2015–2016, and in Syria, as part of Operation Inherent Resolve in 2018–2021.

USS Enterprise (CVN-65), formerly CVA(N)-65, is a decommissioned United States Navy aircraft carrier. In 1958, she became the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the United States Navy, and the world, as well as the eighth United States naval vessel to bear the name. Like her predecessor of World War II fame, she is nicknamed "Big E". At 1,123 feet (342 m), she is the longest naval vessel ever built and the only ship of her class, which was originally planned to have five other ships. Her 93,284-long-ton (94,781 t) displacement ranks her class as the third-largest carrier class, after the Nimitz class and the Gerald R. Ford class. Enterprise had a crew of some 4,600 service members.

Guinea-Bissau, officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, is a country in West Africa that covers 36,125 square kilometres (13,948 sq mi) with an estimated population of 2,080,000. It borders Senegal to its north and Guinea to its southeast.

The monarchy of Cambodia is the constitutional monarchy of the Kingdom of Cambodia. The king of Cambodia is the head of state and head of the ruling Royal House of Norodom. In the contemporary period, the king's power has been limited to that of a symbolic figurehead. The monarchy had been in existence since at least 50 AD except during its abolition from 1970 to 1993. Since 1993, the king of Cambodia has been an elected monarch, making Cambodia one of the few elective monarchies of the world. The king is elected for life by the Royal Council of the Throne, which consists of several senior political and religious figures. Candidates are chosen from among male descendants of King Ang Duong who are at least 30 years old, from the two royal houses of Cambodia.

Hurricane Rita is the most intense tropical cyclone on record in the Gulf of Mexico, now tied with Hurricane Milton of 2024, as well as being one of the most intense Atlantic hurricanes on record overall. Part of the record-breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, which included three of the ten most intense Atlantic hurricanes in terms of barometric pressure ever recorded, Rita was the seventeenth named storm, tenth hurricane, fifth major hurricane, and third Category 5 hurricane of the 2005 season. It was also the earliest-forming 17th named storm in the Atlantic until Tropical Storm Rene in 2020. Rita formed near The Bahamas from a tropical wave on September 18, 2005, that originally developed off the coast of West Africa. It moved westward, and after passing through the Florida Straits, Rita entered an environment of abnormally warm waters. Moving west-northwest, it rapidly intensified to reach peak winds of 180 mph (285 km/h), achieving Category 5 status on September 21. However, it weakened to a Category 3 hurricane before making landfall in Johnson's Bayou, Louisiana, between Sabine Pass, Texas and Holly Beach, Louisiana, with winds of 115 mph (185 km/h). Rapidly weakening over land, Rita degenerated into a large low-pressure area over the lower Mississippi Valley by September 26.

Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician and economist who served as the president of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008, when he resigned at the request of his party, the African National Congress (ANC). Before that, he was deputy president under Nelson Mandela from 1994 to 1999.

South African Airlink Flight 8911 was a positioning flight from Durban International Airport to Pietermaritzburg Airport, South Africa, operated by a British Aerospace Jetstream 41, crashed into the grounds of Merebank Secondary School, Durban shortly after take-off on 24 September 2009, injuring the three occupants of the aircraft and one on the ground. The captain of the flight subsequently died of his injuries on 7 October 2009.

Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), unofficially known as Mangalyaan, is a space probe orbiting Mars since 24 September 2014. It was launched on 5 November 2013 by ISRO. It was India's first interplanetary mission and it made ISRO the fourth space agency to achieve Mars orbit, after Soviet space program, NASA, and the European Space Agency. It made India the first Asian nation to reach Martian orbit. It also made ISRO the first national space agency in the world to do so with an indigenously developed propulsion system and the second national space agency to succeed on its maiden attempt, after the European Space Agency accomplished this in 2003 using a Roscosmos Soyuz/Fregat rocket.