Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/November 24
This is a list of selected November 24 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
November 24: Teachers' Day in Turkey, Feast day of Vietnamese Martyrs (Roman Catholicism)
- 1639 – The first confirmed observation of the transit of Venus was made by Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree, after having been predicted by Horrocks.
- 1642 – A Dutch expedition led by Abel Tasman reached present-day Tasmania, Australia.
- 1859 – On the Origin of Species by British naturalist Charles Darwin (pictured) was first published, and sold out its initial print run on the first day.
- 1922 – Irish Civil War: Author and Irish nationalist Robert Erskine Childers was executed by firing squad by the Irish Free State for illegally carrying an automatic pistol.
- 1971 – After collecting a ransom payout of US$200,000, "D. B. Cooper" leaped out of the rear stairway of the airplane he had hijacked over the Pacific Northwest and disappeared.
- 1974 – A group of paleoanthropologists led by Donald Johanson discovered a 3.2-million-year-old skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis in the Afar Depression in Ethiopia, nicknaming it "Lucy" after The Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".