November 24: Facts & Historical Events On This Day

A four-day ceasefire in Gaza between HAMAS and Israeli forces began.

The first day saw Israel release 39 Palestinians in return for 24 hostages. In addition to the exchange, the ceasefire allowed international aid groups to bring much-needed emergency supplies to Gaza.

Taylor Swift won six awards at the American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Artist of the Decade.

A party boat on Lake Victoria in Uganda capsized and killed 29 people.

The incident was due to the vessel being overloaded with 100 onboard.

An international research team published their discovery of 1,500 new viruses that were in invertebrates in Australia and China.

Psy’s “Gangnam Style” music video became the most viewed video on YouTube, passing 800 million views.

His music video views passed Justin Bieber's "Baby."

Ireland ended its ban on divorce.

STS 44 Atlantis 10 was launched into space.

It was the US's 7th spacecraft launch.

D.B. Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 and extorted a ransom of $200,000 before parachuting out of the plane with the money and was never seen again.

The very first Chick-fil-A restaurant opened in Atlanta’s Greenbriar Mall.

Photographer Alfred Stieglitz opened The Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession in Manhattan, New York.

This was a turning point in history for the recognition of art photography. Stieglitz introduced photography to America as an art form, and this gallery gained respect for photography as a medium of making art like oil painting and printmaking.

George Hancock, who invented softball, played the first match in Chicago.

Charles Darwin published his revolutionary work, On the Origin of Species.

At its time of writing, Darwin's claim that all life as we know it descended from a set of common ancestors was laughed at by many. It wasn't until the 20th century that Darwin's theories were taken as seriously as he would have wanted.

Abel Tasman became the first European to discover Tasmania and named it Van Diemen’s Land.

Astronomers Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree recorded the first known observation of a transit of Venus across the sun.

From this day until February 10, 1435, London’s Thames river completely froze.

In 1806, English author B. Lambert wrote about the event in his book "The History and Survey of London and its Environs" after studying the Thames' patterns of freezing over.

A catastrophic landslide on Mont Granier destroyed five villages.

Located between Savoie and Isère in France, the natural disaster is remembered as one of Europe's biggest and deadliest landslides.