Terrorists attack mosque in Sinai, Egypt

Year
2017
Month Day
November 24

On November 24, 2017, a bomb ripped through a mosque in Egypt’s northern Sinai region as terrorists opened fire on those finishing Friday prayer at the al-Rawdah mosque. The attack killed 305 people—including 27 children—and wounded 120, in what was the deadliest terrorist strike in the country’s recent history.

The bloody attack was a cruel turning point for the country. While attacks had been common since 2013, when the current president overthrew President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, targeting mosques is rare in Egypt. Terrorists had previously attacked Coptic Christian churches and security forces, but generally avoided Muslim houses of prayer.

This mosque was made up primarily of Sufi Muslims, a mystic sect of Islam that strives for direct personal connections to God. They are hated by ISIS.

The attack occurred just days before the prophet Muhammad’s birthday, when the mosque was packed with worshippers. Suddenly, 25 to 30 militants pulled up in four off-road vehicles. They fired on worshippers from the mosque’s main door and 12 large windows. Adding to the horror, several bombs and rocket-propelled grenades went off as worshippers tried to flee. The gunmen set fire to cars parked outside the mosque and shot at arriving ambulances to hinder escape.

While no group took responsibility, evidence pointed to ISIS. In an interview published in an Islamic State magazine, a commander in Sinai outlined the group’s hatred for Sufis and identified al-Rawda as a target.

In an address given on television, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi vowed that the government would respond with “brute force.” Security had been a key reason for his supporters to back him, and with a possible re-election on the horizon, retaliation was expected.

Hours after the attack, Egypt’s military launched air strikes on targets in mountainous areas around the city, and three days of national mourning were declared.

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Jack Ruby kills Lee Harvey Oswald

Year
1963
Month Day
November 24

At 12:20 p.m., in the basement of the Dallas police station, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is shot to death by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner.

On November 22, President Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in an open-car motorcade through the streets of downtown Dallas. Less than an hour after the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald killed a policeman who questioned him on the street. Thirty minutes after that, he was arrested in a movie theater by police. Oswald was formally arraigned on November 23 for the murders of President Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit.

On November 24, Oswald was brought to the basement of the Dallas police headquarters on his way to a more secure county jail. A crowd of police and press with live television cameras rolling gathered to witness his departure. As Oswald came into the room, Jack Ruby emerged from the crowd and fatally wounded him with a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver. Ruby, who was immediately detained, claimed that rage at Kennedy’s murder was the motive for his action. Some called him a hero, but he was nonetheless charged with first-degree murder.

READ MORE: Lee Harvey Oswald: Plan, Chaos or Conspiracy?

Jack Ruby, originally known as Jacob Rubenstein, operated strip joints and dance halls in Dallas and had minor connections to organized crime. He also had a relationship with a number of Dallas policemen, which amounted to various favors in exchange for leniency in their monitoring of his establishments. He features prominently in Kennedy-assassination theories, and many believe he killed Oswald to keep him from revealing a larger conspiracy. In his trial, Ruby denied the allegation and pleaded innocent on the grounds that his great grief over Kennedy’s murder had caused him to suffer “psychomotor epilepsy” and shoot Oswald unconsciously. The jury found him guilty of the “murder with malice” of Oswald and sentenced him to die.

In October 1966, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed the decision on the grounds of improper admission of testimony and the fact that Ruby could not have received a fair trial in Dallas at the time. In January 1967, while awaiting a new trial, to be held in Wichita Falls, Ruby died of lung cancer in a Dallas hospital.

The official Warren Commission report of 1964 concluded that neither Oswald nor Ruby were part of a larger conspiracy, either domestic or international, to assassinate President Kennedy. Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event, and in 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee’s findings, as with those of the Warren Commission, continue to be disputed.

READ MORE: Why the Public Stopped Believing the Government about JFK’s Murder

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Hijacker and criminal mastermind D.B. Cooper parachutes out of plane

Year
1971
Month Day
November 24

A hijacker calling himself D.B. Cooper parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 into a raging thunderstorm over Washington State. He had $200,000 in ransom money in his possession.

WATCH: Full episodes of History’s Greatest Mysteries online now.

Cooper commandeered the aircraft shortly after takeoff, showing a flight attendant something that looked like a bomb and informing the crew that he wanted $200,000, four parachutes, and “no funny stuff.” The plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where authorities met Cooper’s demands and evacuated most of the passengers. Cooper then demanded that the plane fly toward Mexico at a low altitude and ordered the remaining crew into the cockpit.

At 8:13 p.m., as the plane flew over the Lewis River in southwest Washington, the plane’s pressure gauge recorded Cooper’s jump from the aircraft. Wearing only wraparound sunglasses, a thin suit, and a raincoat, Cooper parachuted into a thunderstorm with winds in excess of 100 mph and temperatures well below zero at the 10,000-foot altitude where he began his fall. The storm prevented an immediate capture, and most authorities assumed he was killed during his apparently suicidal jump. No trace of Cooper was found during a massive search.

In 1980, an eight-year-old boy uncovered a stack of nearly $5,880 of the ransom money in the sands along the north bank of the Columbia River, five miles from Vancouver, Washington. The fate of Cooper remains a mystery.

WATCH: D.B. Cooper: Case Closed? on HISTORY Vault.

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John Froelich, inventor of the gas-powered tractor, is born

Year
1849
Month Day
November 24

John Froelich, the inventor of the first internal-combustion traction motor, or tractor, is born on November 24, 1849, in Iowa.

At the end of the 19th century, Froelich operated a grain elevator and mobile threshing service: Every year at harvest time, he dragged a crew of hired hands and a heavy steam-powered thresher through Iowa and the Dakotas, threshing farmers’ crops for a fee. His machine was bulky, hard to transport and expensive to use, and it was also dangerous: One spark from the boiler on a windy day could set the whole prairie afire. So, in 1890, Froelich decided to try something new: Instead of that cumbersome, hazardous steam engine, he and his blacksmith mounted a one-cylinder gasoline engine on his steam engine’s running gear and set off for a nearby field to see if it worked.

It did: Froelich’s tractor chugged along safely at three miles per hour. But the real test came when Froelich and his team took their new machine out on their annual threshing tour, and it was a success there, too: Using just 26 gallons of gas, they threshed more than a thousand bushels of grain every day (72,000 bushels in all). What’s more, they did it without starting a single fire.

In 1894, Froelich and eight investors formed the Waterloo Gasoline Traction Engine Company. They built four prototype tractors and sold two (though both were soon returned). To make money, the company branched out into stationary engines (its first one powered a printing press at the Waterloo Courier newspaper). Froelich was more interested in farming equipment than engines more generally, however, and he left the company in 1895.

Waterloo kept working on its tractor designs, but between 1896 and 1914 it sold just 20 tractors in all. In 1914, the company introduced its first Waterloo Boy Model “R” single-speed tractor, which sold very well: 118 in 1914 alone. The next year, its two-speed Model “N” was even more successful. In 1918, the John Deere plow-manufacturing company bought Waterloo for $2,350,000.

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“Origin of Species” is published

Year
1859
Month Day
November 24

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, a groundbreaking scientific work by British naturalist Charles Darwin, is published in England. Darwin’s theory argued that organisms gradually evolve through a process he called “natural selection.” In natural selection, organisms with genetic variations that suit their environment tend to propagate more descendants than organisms of the same species that lack the variation, thus influencing the overall genetic makeup of the species.

Darwin, who was influenced by the work of French naturalist Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck and the English economist Thomas Malthus, acquired most of the evidence for his theory during a five-year surveying expedition aboard the HMS Beagle in the 1830s. Visiting such diverse places as the Galapagos Islands and New Zealand, Darwin acquired an intimate knowledge of the flora, fauna, and geology of many lands. This information, along with his studies in variation and interbreeding after returning to England, proved invaluable in the development of his theory of organic evolution.

The idea of organic evolution was not new. It had been suggested earlier by, among others, Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus Darwin, a distinguished English scientist, and Lamarck, who in the early 19th century drew the first evolutionary diagram—a ladder leading from one-celled organisms to man. However, it was not until Darwin that science presented a practical explanation for the phenomenon of evolution.

READ MORE: Charles Darwin: 5 Facts About the Father of Evolution

Darwin had formulated his theory of natural selection by 1844, but he was wary to reveal his thesis to the public because it so obviously contradicted the biblical account of creation. In 1858, with Darwin still remaining silent about his findings, the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace independently published a paper that essentially summarized his theory. Darwin and Wallace gave a joint lecture on evolution before the Linnean Society of London in July 1858, and Darwin prepared On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection for publication.

Published on November 24, 1859, Origin of Species sold out immediately. Most scientists quickly embraced the theory that solved so many puzzles of biological science, but orthodox Christians condemned the work as heresy. Controversy over Darwin’s ideas deepened with the publication of The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), in which he presented evidence of man’s evolution from apes.

By the time of Darwin’s death in 1882, his theory of evolution was generally accepted. In honor of his scientific work, he was buried in Westminster Abbey beside kings, queens, and other illustrious figures from British history. Subsequent developments in genetics and molecular biology led to modifications in accepted evolutionary theory, but Darwin’s ideas remain central to the field.

READ MORE: 10 Things You May Not Know About Charles Darwin

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Wilt Chamberlain sets NBA rebounds record

Year
1960
Month Day
November 24

On November 24, 1960, Philadelphia Warrior Wilt Chamberlain snags 55 rebounds in a game against the Boston Celtics and sets an NBA record for the most rebounds in a single game.

The seven-foot-one-inch Chamberlain–often called “Wilt the Stilt,” a nickname he detested, or “The Big Dipper,” because he was so tall that he had to dip his head to get through the doorway–was, sportswriters and fans agree, one of the best offensive basketball players of his era. 

He broke more than 70 NBA records. In his 14-year career in the NBA, he scored 31,419 points. He was the highest scorer in the NBA from 1960-1966, and led the league in rebounding for 11 of his 14 seasons. And during the 1966-67 season, when his coach asked him to shoot less and pass more, Chamberlain had more assists than anyone else in the league.

The single-game rebound record that he set on November 24 isn’t even his most impressive. In March 1962, he scored 100 of his team’s 169 points in a game against the New York Knicks–more than any NBA player had ever scored in one game. 

The Big Dipper was so commanding that the league had to change its rules to keep him away from the basket. It widened the lane to 16 feet; prohibited offensive goaltending; and stipulated that a free-throw shooter can’t cross the line until his shot hits the rim of the basket. (Authorities meant this last rule to prevent Chamberlain from taking off at the free-throw line and dunking his foul shots.)

Chamberlain was named to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978, the first year he was eligible, and in 1997 he was elected to the NBA’s 50th Anniversary All-Star Team. He died in 1999.

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Charles Darwin’s “Origin of Species” is published

Year
1859
Month Day
November 24

On this day, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, which immediately sold out its initial print run. By 1872, the book had run through six editions, and it became one of the most influential books of modern times.

Darwin, the privileged and well-connected son of a successful English doctor, had been interested in botany and natural sciences since his boyhood, despite the discouragement of his early teachers. At Cambridge, he found professors and scientists with similar interests and with their help began participating in scientific voyages. He traveled around South America for five years as an unpaid botanist on the HMS Beagle. By the time Darwin returned, he had developed an outstanding reputation as a field researcher and scientific writer, based on his many papers and letters dispatched from South America and the Galapagos Islands, which were read at meetings of prominent scientific societies in London.

Darwin began publishing studies of zoology and geology as soon as he returned from his voyage. Fearing the fate of other scientists, like Copernicus and Galileo, who had published radical scientific theories, Darwin held off publishing his theory of natural selection for years. He secretly developed his theory during two decades of surreptitious research following his trip on the Beagle.

Meanwhile, he married and had seven children. He finally published Origin of Species after another scientist began publishing papers with similar ideas. His book laid the groundwork for modern botany, cellular biology, and genetics. He died in 1882.

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Ferry sinks in Yellow Sea, killing hundreds

Year
1999
Month Day
November 24

A ferry sinks in the Yellow Sea off the coast of China, killing hundreds of people on November 24, 1999. The ship had caught fire while in the midst of a storm and nearly everyone on board perished, including the captain.

The Dashun, a 9,000-ton vessel, was transporting passengers from the port city of Yantai in China’s Shandong province to Dalian, near Korea, on November 24. It was snowing and windy when the ship, carrying approximately 300 passengers and 40 crew members, left Yantai. Just a short way into the journey, a fire broke out on board. Although the exact cause is unknown, many believe that the gas tank on a vehicle the ship was carrying may have ruptured.

The fire forced the passengers to the lifeboats. A distress signal was sent out at 4:30 p.m (apparently officials already knew about the problems on board because a passenger had called for help on a cell phone), but the stormy weather delayed rescue efforts until the next morning. Reportedly, Ma Shuchi, a crew member, swam six miles to safety, though many others died after jumping into the freezing water. Even most of those who made it to the lifeboats ended up freezing to death as they waited for rescue ships. By the time rescuers appeared, most could only try to retrieve the bodies from the sea. Only 36 people survived. The fire on the Dashun was not put out until the evening of November 25; the ship then drifted toward shore before sinking about a mile off the coast.

This was the second disaster of November 1999 for the Yantai Car Ferry Company; another ship, the Shenlu, had sunk off the coast of Dalian just weeks earlier. Four officers of the company, including the general manager, were later brought to trial in China.

The capsizing of the Dashun was the worst maritime accident in China since 133 people had died in a ferry collision on the Yangtze River in 1994.

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The FBI Crime Lab opens its doors for business

Year
1932
Month Day
November 24

The crime lab that is now referred to as the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory officially opens in Washington, D.C., on November 24, 1932.

The lab was initially operated out of a single room and had only one full-time employee, Agent Charles Appel. Agent Appel began with a borrowed microscope and a pseudo-scientific device called a helixometer. The helixometer purportedly assisted investigators with gun barrel examinations, but it was actually more for show than function. In fact, J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, provided the lab with very few resources and used the “cutting-edge lab” primarily as a public relations tool. But by 1938, the FBI lab added polygraph machines and started conducting controversial lie detection tests as part of its investigations. 

In its early days, the FBI Crime Lab worked on about 200 pieces of evidence a year. By the 1990s, that number multiplied to approximately 200,000. Currently, the FBI Crime Lab obtains hundreds of new pieces of criminal evidence everyday.

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“Hollywood Ten″ cited for contempt of Congress

Year
1947
Month Day
November 24

The House of Representatives votes 346 to 17 to approve citations of contempt against 10 Hollywood writers, directors, and producers. These men had refused to cooperate at hearings dealing with communism in the movie industry held by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The “Hollywood Ten,” as the men were known, are sentenced to one year in jail. The Supreme Court later upheld the contempt charges.

READ MORE: 7 Artists Whose Careers Were Almost Derailed by the Hollywood Blacklist

The contempt charges stemmed from the refusal of the 10 men to answer questions posed by HUAC as to whether they were or had ever been members of the Communist Party. In hearings that often exploded with rancor, the men denounced the questions as violations of their First Amendment rights. Albert Maltz, Dalton Trumbo, John Howard Lawson, Samuel Ornitz, Ring Lardner, Jr., Lester Cole, Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Edward Dmytryk, and Robert Adrian Scott were thereupon charged with contempt of Congress. 

The chairman of HUAC, J. Parnell Thomas, dismissed the arguments raised by the men, claiming that Congress had every right to ask people what their political affiliations were. “The Constitution,” he declared, “was never intended to cloak or shield those who would destroy it.” The Hollywood 10 responded with a joint statement in which they argued that HUAC had succeeded in having “the Congress cite the Bill of Rights for contempt.” “The United States,” the statement concluded, “can keep its constitutional liberties or it can keep the Thomas committee. It can’t keep both.”

The impact of the charges against the Hollywood 10 was immediate and long-lasting. Hollywood quickly established the so-called “blacklist,” a collection of names of Hollywood personalities suspected of having communist ties. Those on the list rarely found work in the movies. The contempt charges also created a chilling effect on the Hollywood film industry, and producers, directors and writers shied away from subject matter that might be considered the least bit controversial or open them up to charges of being soft on communism. The blacklist was not completely broken until the 1960s.

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