Edited daily
American history, reported as it happened
Made for the 250thOn this day › June 24
What happened on June 24 in American history
June 24 is the 175th day of the year (the 176th in leap years). Patriot Compass has published 14 stories from June 24 spanning 1497 to 2022. Among them: in 1497, Cabot steps ashore on the North American coast; no soul is seen, but someone has been here; and in 1779, Spain seals Gibraltar's land gates; Eliott holds the Rock with 5,382 men.
1497Member story · 1776 Club
Cabot steps ashore on the North American coast; no soul is seen, but someone has been here
Sailing under Henry VII's commission, the Venetian-born captain ventures no farther than a crossbow's range from his ship; his crew finds a fire's remains, nets, and a trail.
1779Member story · 1776 Club
Spain seals Gibraltar's land gates; Eliott holds the Rock with 5,382 men
Britain is already at war across the Atlantic; now its limestone fortress on the Mediterranean has no road in or out.
1813Member story · 1776 Club
Kahnawake and Mohawk warriors ambush Boerstler's column; 512 U.S. troops surrender near Beaver Dams
Ducharme's men hammer the column's flanks in thick woods for hours; the wounded colonel yields to a British reserve of just 46.
1922
The American Professional Football Association votes to call itself the National Football League
Two years after clubs from four states formalized the game in a Canton auto showroom, the league sheds its borrowed name for one that fits its ambitions.
1937
Navy orders North Carolina and Washington; first battleships laid down in a decade carry 16-inch guns
Japan's refusal to sign the London Naval Treaty triggers an escalator clause, swapping the planned fourteen-inch guns for nine sixteen-inch weapons on both hulls.
1938Member story · 1776 Club
A 450-ton rock explodes over Butler County; fragments rain down near Chicora
Residents near West Winfield mistook the crack and flash for the local powder magazine going up. Two pieces are recovered; the main mass is nowhere to be found.
1947Member story · 1776 Club
Boise aviator clocks nine bright objects over the Cascades at 1,200 miles per hour
Kenneth Arnold, searching for a downed C-46 near Mount Rainier, tells a reporter the craft moved like saucers skipping on water.
1948
Stalin seals Berlin; two million people are cut off from the West
Soviet forces close all rail and barge routes into the Western sectors, 110 miles inside Soviet territory, over the Allies' plan to introduce the Deutsche Mark.
1949Member story · 1776 Club
William Boyd saddles up for NBC; Hopalong Cassidy rides onto the small screen tonight
Boyd owns the 66 films himself, having bought them from producer Harry Sherman for $350,000, and the broadcast marks television's first prime-time western.
1957Member story · 1776 Club
Brennan writes for a 6–3 Court: obscenity is not speech, but a Victorian test dies with it
Roth v. United States scraps the 1868 Hicklin standard; a work must now be judged whole, by its effect on the average person, not its worst passage on a child.
1994Member story · 1776 Club
B-52 stalls and explodes at Fairchild; all four crew members are dead
Lt. Col. Holland banked Czar 52 past 60 degrees at 250 feet during a retirement flight, and the aircraft clips power lines before hitting the ground.
2004Member story · 1776 Club
New York's death penalty statute is unconstitutional, state's top court rules
Chief Judge Judith Kaye and the Court of Appeals strike down the 1995 law in People v. LaValle; it had been used exactly once in nine years.
2021Member story · 1776 Club
Half of Champlain Towers South falls in under 12 seconds; dozens are unaccounted for in Surfside
The 12-story, 136-unit beachfront condo gave way at 1:22 a.m.; a $15 million repair program had been approved, but the main structural work had not yet begun.
2022Member story · 1776 Club
Supreme Court overturns Roe; states now set their own abortion laws
Alito writes for five justices: the Constitution confers no right to abortion, erasing both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in a single ruling.
Read the full June 24 edition →
← June 23 · Every date · June 25 →