What Happened Today in History on June 24

Hugh d'Avranches, 1st Earl of Chester, a prominent Norman magnate in England, dies, impacting the power dynamics of the time.

The Order of the Knights Templar is founded in Jerusalem after the First Crusade. They were a military religious order of the Catholic Church, officially known as the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon. They initially aimed to protect Christian pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. Over time, they became a powerful and wealthy organization, deeply involved in European politics and finance, and played a significant role in the Crusades. More

Italian explorer John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) lands in North America, possibly in Newfoundland. Labrador, or Cape Breton Island. Commissioned by England's King Henry VII to find a westward route to Asia, his voyage was the first European one to North America since the Vikings and help  establish an early English claim to the continent. Cabot had set sail from Bristol, England, on one ship, the Matthew, and made landfall on June 24, 1497. Expand +

Henry VIII was crowned at Westminster Abbey when he was 18 years old. It was a grand affair that included a procession from the Tower of London.

The colonial territory of New Jersey was established on June 24, 1664, when King Charles II granted the land to his brother, the Duke of York, who gave it to his friends, Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. who became the Lords Proprietors of the new colony.

Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Army invades Russia with an estimated 500,000 to 600,000 troops. The invasion was a major turning point in Napoleon's career. The devastating losses suffered by his army in the face of Russian resistance and the harsh Russian winter led to Napoleon's downfall. 

The Promoters Revolution, also known as the Siamese revolution of 1932, was a bloodless coup by a group of Thai intellectuals, military officers, and European-educated individuals, known as the People's Party, who orchestrated the coup that transformed Thailand from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. It marked a turning point in Thai history, ushering in a period of political change and introducing democratic ideals, although the country would continue to experience political instability and military coups in the coming years.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt Signs the Servicemen's Readjustment Act also known as the G.I. Bill.Within the following seven years, approximately eight million veterans received educational benefits. Under the act, approximately 2,300,000 attended colleges and universities, 3,500,000 received school training, and 3,400,000 received on-the-job training. The number of degrees awarded by U.S. colleges and universities more than doubled between 1940 and 1950, and the percentage of Americans with bachelor degrees, or advanced degrees, rose from 4.6 percent in 1945 to 25 percent a half-century later. More

American aviator, businessman, and politician. Kenneth Arnold saw "nine saucer-like aircraft flying in formation" at an altitude between 9,500 and 10,000 feet between Mount Rainer and Mount Adams in Washington moving at "the amazing speed of about 1,200 miles an hour." it was considered the first modern sighting of UFOs and gave rise to the term flying saucer. The report captured the attention of the nation. More 

Joseph Stalin, the Soviet leader, imposes the Berlin Blockade cutting off all land and river transit between West Berlin and West Germany and announcing that the Western Allied powers no longer had any rights in Berlin.