What Happened On This Day – March 24
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1999 For the first time in its history, NATO attacks a sovereign country
The military alliance bombed Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War - without a UN mandate.
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1989 Oil tanker Exxon Valdez runs aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska
The mishap resulted in one of the most devastating environmental disasters in history, killing up to 250,000 seabirds and other wildlife.
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1965 Millions watch NASA spacecraft Ranger 9 crash into the Moon
The U.S. space probe broadcast live pictures back to Earth, enabling TV viewers to follow its approach to the Moon and its controlled crash.
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1896 Aleksander Popov achieves the world's first radio transmission
The Russian physicist transmitted the words “Heinrich Hertz” from one building of St. Petersburg University to another.
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1882 Robert Koch discovers the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis
The German scientist, who is regarded as the father of modern bacteriology, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1905.
Births On This Day,
March 24
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1930 Steve McQueen
American actor
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1897 Wilhelm Reich
Austrian/American psychotherapist
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1884 Peter Debye
Dutch/American physicist, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
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1874 Harry Houdini
Hungarian/American magician, actor
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1820 Fanny Crosby
American composer, songwriter
Deaths On This Day,
March 24
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1976 Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
English army officer
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1946 Alexander Alekhine
Russian chess player
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1905 Jules Verne
French author
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1882 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
American poet
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1603 Elizabeth I of England