On This Day for April 24 - Installation of Pope Benedict XVI, Barbra Streisand is featured, and more

Created: 2020-04-24 10:03 Updated: 2020-04-24 10:03 Notebook: On this Day in History

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April 24

FEATURED BIOGRAPHY

Barbra Streisand

FEATURED EVENT

2005

Installation of Pope Benedict XVI

MORE EVENTS ON THIS DAY

2004: American businesswoman Estée Lauder, who cofounded the hugely profitable fragrance and beauty company that bore her name, died in Manhattan.

2003: Officials of North Korea informed U.S. diplomats that it had nuclear weapons and was making bomb-grade plutonium. [ Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about Korea.]

1980: U.S. forces launched a mission to rescue American hostages in Iran, but the attempt failed, and eight U.S. service members were killed.

1949: Communist forces occupied the Chinese capital, Nanking (Nanjing), after crossing the Yangtze River virtually unopposed by adherents to the Nationalist government under President Chiang Kai-shek. [Take our China quiz.]

1905: American novelist, poet, and critic Robert Penn Warren—who was best known for his treatment of moral dilemmas in a South beset by the erosion of its traditional rural values—was born. [Test your knowledge of all things literary.]

1904: Painter Willem de Kooning, one of the leading exponents of Abstract Expressionism, was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands. [ From symbolism to sculpture, test your knowledge of art.]

SEE ALL EVENTS ON THIS DAY

ALSO BORN ON THIS DAY

1973

Sachin Tendulkar
Indian cricketer

1942

Barbra Streisand
American actress, singer, director, producer

1982

Kelly Clarkson
American singer-songwriter

1934

Shirley MacLaine
American actress

1856

Philippe Pétain
French general