On This Day October 24

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1901 – On her 63rd birthday, widowed schoolteacher Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to take the plunge over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel and survive. Dubbing herself “Queen of the Mist,” Taylor had hoped the publicity stunt would generate money for her retirement, but 19 years later, she dies in poverty.

1929 – Frenzied trading begins on the New York Stock Exchange and culminates days later with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, which sends the United States into the Great Depression.

1931 – New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt dedicates the George Washington Bridge, a majestic span linking New York to New Jersey over the Hudson River. The bridge was the longest of its kind in the world at that time — 3,500 feet — and was completed ahead of schedule and under budget.

1945 – The United Nations (U.N.) is established to promote cooperation among the nations of the world. A charter officially creating the U.N. had been ratified four months earlier by China, France, the Soviet Union, the U.S., the U.K. and other signatories.

1978 – The U.N. General Assembly urges member states to call attention to the danger of the arms race and promote disarmament, so it declares October 24 – 30 Disarmament Week.

2003 – The iconic Concorde passenger jet makes its last commercial flight, traveling at twice the speed of sound from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to London’s Heathrow Airport. The supersonic aircraft enjoyed three decades of uninterrupted service with British Airways and Air France until a July 2000 crash in Paris killed 113 people.

On This Day October 17

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