This Day in History

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June 24

1340 – Hundred Years' War: Battle of Sluys: The French fleet is almost completely destroyed by the English fleet commanded in person by King Edward III.

1374 – A sudden outbreak of St. John's Dance causes people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion.

1497 – John Cabot lands in North America at Newfoundland leading the first European exploration of the region since the Vikings.

1717 – The Premier Grand Lodge of England, the first Masonic Grand Lodge in the world (now the United Grand Lodge of England), is founded in London.

1880 – First performance of O Canada, the song that would become the national anthem of Canada.

1916 – Mary Pickford becomes the first female film star to sign a million-dollar contract.

1938 – Pieces of a meteor, estimated to have weighed 450 metric tons when it hit the Earth's atmosphere and exploded, land near Chicora, Pennsylvania.

1947 – Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported UFO sighting, near Mount Rainier, Washington.

1949 – The first television western, Hopalong Cassidy, is aired on NBC starring William Boyd.

1957 – In Roth v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment.

1967 – The worst caving disaster in British history takes six lives at Mossdale Caverns.

1999 - Eric Clapton put 100 of his guitars up for auction at Christie's in New York City to raise money for his drug rehab clinic, the Crossroads Centre in Antigua. His 1956 Fender Stratocaster, named Brownie, which was used to record the electric version of ‘Layla’, sold for a record $497,500. The auction helped raise nearly $5 million for the clinic.

2002 – The Igandu train disaster in Tanzania kills 281 people, the worst train accident in African history.

2004, A Fender Stratocaster that Eric Clapton nicknamed 'Blackie' sold at a Christie's auction for $959,500 (£564,412) in New York, making it the most expensive guitar in the world. The proceeds of the sale went towards Clapton's Crossroads addiction clinic, which he founded in 1998.

2010 – John Isner of the United States defeats Nicolas Mahut of France at Wimbledon, in the longest match in professional tennis history.

2012 – Lonesome George, the last known individual of Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii, a subspecies of the Galápagos tortoise, dies.

2013, Former Devo drummer Alan Myers died aged 58 in Los Angeles, California, following a long bout with cancer. Myers drummed for Devo between 1976 and 1986.

Births

1788 – Thomas Blanchard (pioneered the assembly line, and interchangeable parts); 1813 – Henry Ward Beecher; 1842 – Ambrose Bierce; 1893 – Roy O. Disney (walt's brother); 1895 – Jack Dempsey; 1901 – Chuck Taylor (namesake of Chuck Taylor athletic shoes); 1904 – Phil Harris (no, not the captain of the Cornelia Marie); 1911 – Juan Manuel Fangio; 1915 – Fred Hoyle (coined the term "big bang"); 1919 – Al Molinaro ('Big Al' on "Happy Days"); 1922 – Jack Carter; 1929 – Carolyn S. Shoemaker; 1930 – William Bernard Ziff, Jr. (Ziff Davis); 1931 – Billy Casper; 1941 – Charles Whitman; 1944 – Jeff Beck; 1944 – Chris Wood; 1945 – George Pataki; 1946 – Robert Reich; 1947 – Mick Fleetwood, Peter Weller; 1950 – Nancy Allen ("RoboCop"); 1960 – Juli Inkster; 1967 – Sherry Stringfield ("ER"); 1979 – Mindy Kaling; 1986 – Solange Knowles

Deaths

1519 – Lucrezia Borgia; 1908 – Grover Cleveland; 1987 – Jackie Gleason; 1997 – Brian Keith; 2005 – Paul Winchell; 2007 – Chris Benoit; 2013 – Jackie Fargo; 2014 – Eli Wallach