24 January in history

6 events that happened on 24 January, from 41 to 1984.

  1. ✦ Anniversary of the day

    41 CE 1,985 years ago

    Emperor Caligula assassinated by his guards

    Praetorian officers led by Cassius Chaerea stabbed Caligula in a palace corridor during the Palatine games. The Guard then made his uncle Claudius emperor.

  2. 1848 CE 178 years ago

    Gold found at Sutter's Mill sparks the California Gold Rush

    James Marshall spotted flakes of gold in the tailrace of a sawmill at Coloma. Within a few years some 300,000 people had flooded into California, which became a state in 1850.

  3. 1908 CE 118 years ago

    Baden-Powell publishes 'Scouting for Boys'

    The first instalment of Robert Baden-Powell's handbook on outdoor skills and citizenship appeared in London. Boys began forming patrols of their own, and the Scout movement spread worldwide.

    London

  4. 1915 CE 111 years ago

    British battlecruisers defeat a German squadron at Dogger Bank

    Forewarned by codebreakers, Admiral Beatty's battlecruisers intercepted a German raiding force in the North Sea and sank the armoured cruiser Blücher. Signalling errors let the rest escape.

    North Sea

  5. 1965 CE 61 years ago

    Sir Winston Churchill dies aged 90

    Britain's wartime Prime Minister died in London, seventy years to the day after his father. He received a state funeral, the first for a politician since Gladstone.

    London

  6. 1984 CE 42 years ago

    Apple Macintosh goes on sale

    Apple's Macintosh brought the mouse and graphical interface to an affordable personal computer. Launched with a famous television advert, it shaped the design of computers for decades.

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