March 24

March 24 is the 83rd day of the year (84th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 282 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1401 – Turko-Mongol Emperor Timur sacks Damascus.
• 1603 – King James VI of Scotland becomes James VI and I as the crowns of the Kingdom of Scotland, the Kingdom of England, and the Kingdom of Ireland are joined following the death of Elizabeth I.
• 1603 – Tokugawa Ieyasu is granted the title of shogun.
• 1663 – The Province of Carolina is granted by charter to eight Lords Proprietor in reward for their assistance in restoring Charles II of England, Ireland and Scotland to the throne.
• 1720 – Count Frederick of Hesse-Kassel (Frederick I of Sweden) is elected King of Sweden.
• 1765 – American Revolutionary War: The United Kingdom of Great Britain passes the Quartering Act that requires the 13 colonies on the east coast of North America to house British troops.
• 1829 – Roman Catholics are allowed to serve in the British Parliament.
• 1837 – African Canadian men are given the right to vote.
• 1878 – The British frigate HMS Eurydice sinks, killing over 300 people.
• 1882 – Robert Koch announces the discovery of mycobacterium tuberculosis, responsible for causing tuberculosis.
• 1896 – Alexander Stepanovich Popov makes the first radio signal transmission in history.
• 1900 – Mayor of New York City Robert Anderson Van Wyck breaks new ground for new underground "Rapid Transit Railroad" that would link Manhattan and Brooklyn.

• 1902 – The Flag of New Zealand is adopted.
• 1922 – Irish War of Independence: In Belfast, Northern Irish policemen break into the home of a Catholic family, shooting all eight males inside.
• 1923 – Greece becomes a Republic.
• 1923 – A magnitude 7.3 earthquake in China kills 5,000 people.
• 1927 – Nanjing Incident: Foreign warships bombard Nanjing, China, in defense of foreign citizens within the city.
• 1934 – The United States Congress allows the Philippines to become a self-governing Commonwealth.
• 1944 – World War II: German troops kill 335 Italian citizens in Rome.
• 1958 – Elvis Presley is drafted into the US Army.
• 1962 – Pak Chong Hui is chosen by the military as President of South Korea.
• 1965 – Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Civil Rights march from Selma to Montgomery, in Alabama, ends.
• 1972 – Northern Ireland is placed under direct rule from London.
• 1973 – Kenyan athlete Kip Keino defeats Jim Ryun at the first-ever professional track meet in Los Angeles, California.
• 1976 – Jorge Rafael Videla takes power in Argentina, starting a 7-year military dictatorship in which many people disappear and are tortured and killed.
• 1980 – El Salvadorean archbishop Oscar Romero is killed.
• 1989 – Exxon Valdez oil spill: The Exxon Valdez oil tanker runs aground on Prince William Sound in Alaska, causing a massive oil spill. Until the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, it was the worst oil spill in US history.
• 1993 – The comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 is discovered.
• 1998 – A cyclone in Bangladesh kills over 250 people.
• 1998 – A tornado in Dantan, India, kills 250 people and injures 300.
• 1998 – Jonesboro massacre: Mitchell Johnson (aged 11) and Andrew Golden (aged 13), fire on teachers and students at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, killing 5 people and injuring 10.
• 1999 – NATO bomb-attacks on cities in Serbia.
• 1999 – A fire that started in a lorry spreads in the Mont Blanc tunnel, killing 39 people.

• 2002 - Academy Awards: The Best Actor and Best Actress awards are given to Denzel Washington and Halle Berry, making it the first time that both these awards were won by African American actors at the same time.
• 2004 – Cyclone Catarina forms off Brazil in the South Atlantic.
• 2005 – Anti-government protests in Kyrgyzstan lead to the resignation of the President, Askar Akayev.
• 2007 - The Montenegro national football team plays its first match, a 2–1 win over the Hungary national football team.
• 2008 – Bhutan's first-ever general election takes place.
• 2010 – South Talpatty Island, disputed between India and Bangladesh, disappears due to rising sea levels.
• 2011 – 2011 Burma earthquake: 68 people are killed as a magnitude 7 earthquake strikes Burma.
• 2014 – Leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States agree to suspend Russia from the G8, and announce that the planned G8 summit to be held in Sochi is no longer taking place. This is after events in Crimea.
• 2015 – Germanwings Flight 9525, travelling from Barcelona, Spain to Düsseldorf, Germany, crashes in the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board. The co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, is later found to have crashed the plane deliberately.
• 2016 – Results show that voters in New Zealand, by a majority, have voted to keep the country's existing flag in a referendum.
• 2016 – Former Bosnian-Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is found guilty of war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague; he is sentenced to 40 years in jail.

• 1494 – Georg Agricola, German scientist (d. 1555)
• 1657 – Arai Hakuseki, Japanese writer and politician (d. 1725)
• 1693 – John Harrison, English inventor and clockmaker (d. 1776)
• 1725 – Samuel Ashe, 9th Governor of North Carolina (d. 1813)
• 1725 – Thomas Cushing, American member of the Continental Congress (d. 1788)
• 1755 – Rufus King, American politician (d. 1827)
• 1756 – Francesca Lebrun, German soprano and composer (d. 1791)
• 1760 – Jesse Franklin, 20th Governor of North Carolina (d. 1823)
• 1762 – Marcos Portugal, Portuguese composer (d. 1830)
• 1775 – Muthuswami Dikshitar, South Indian poet and composer (d. 1835)
• 1782 – Orest Kiprensky, Russian painter (d. 1836)
• 1782 – William Owsley, 16th Governor of Kentucky (d. 1862)

• 1808 – Maria Malibran, Spanish-French singer (d. 1836)
• 1809 – Mariano José de Larra, Spanish journalist and writer (d. 1837)
• 1809 – Joseph Liouville, French mathematician (d. 1882)
• 1820 – A. E. Becquerel, French physicist (d. 1891)
• 1828 – Horace Gray, American jurist (d. 1902)
• 1829 – Ignacio Zaragoza, Mexican general (d. 1862)
• 1834 – William Morris, English writer and designer (d. 1896)
• 1843 – Princess Maria Annunciata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (d. 1871)
• 1848 – Honoré Beaugrand, Canadian politician, 18th Mayor of Montreal (d. 1906)
• 1851 – Jim Hogg, 21st Governor of Texas (d. 1906)
• 1855 – Andrew W. Mellon, 49th United States Secretary of the Treasury (d. 1937)
• 1863 – William Sherman Jennings, 18th Governor of Florida (d. 1920)
• 1869 – Emile Fabre, French playwright (d. 1955)
• 1874 – Harry Houdini, Hungarian-born magician (d. 1926)
• 1874 – Luigi Einaudi, 2nd President of Italy (d. 1961)
• 1878 – Alexey Novikov-Priboy, Russian writer (d. 1944)
• 1879 – Neyzen Tevfik, Turkish poet, satirist and performer (d. 1953)
• 1884 – Peter Debye, Dutch chemist (d. 1966)
• 1884 – Eugene Tisserant, French cardinal (d. 1972)
• 1886 – Edward Weston, American photographer (d. 1958)
• 1887 – Fatty Arbuckle, American actor (d. 1933)
• 1889 – Albert Hill, British athlete (d. 1969)
• 1890 – Agnes Macphail, Canadian politician (d. 1954)
• 1891 – Sergey Ivanovich Vavilov, Soviet physicist (d. 1951)
• 1892 – Marston Morse, American mathematician (d. 1977)
• 1893 – Walter Baade, German astronomer (d. 1960)
• 1896 – Franz Blücher, German politician (d. 1959)
• 1896 – George Sisler, American baseball player (d. 1973)
• 1897 – Wilhelm Reich, Austrian-born psychotherapist (d. 1957)

• 1901 – Ub Iwerks, American animator (d. 1971)
• 1902 – Thomas E. Dewey, American politician, 1948 Presidential candidate (d. 1971)
• 1903 – Adolf Butenandt, German chemist (d. 1995)
• 1903 – Malcolm Muggeridge, British author and scholar (d. 1990)
• 1906 – Klavdiya Shulzhenko, Soviet singer (d. 1984)
• 1907 – Paul Sauvé, Canadian politician, 17th Premier of Quebec (d. 1960)
• 1909 – Clyde Barrow, American outlaw (Bonnie and Clyde) (d. 1934)
• 1910 – Richard Conte, American actor (d. 1975)
• 1911 – Joseph Barbera, American cartoonist (d. 2006)
• 1912 – Dorothy Height, American activist (d. 2010)
• 1917 – John Kendrew, British molecular biologist (d. 1997)
• 1919 – Lawrence Ferlinghetti, American author and publisher
• 1921 – Vasily Smyslov, Russian chess player (d. 2010)
• 1923 – Murray Hamilton, American actor (d. 1986)
• 1924 – Norman Fell, American actor (d. 1998)
• 1926 – Dario Fo, Italian writer and playwright, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (d. 2016)
• 1926 – Desmond Connell, former cardinal-Archbishop of Dublin (d. 2017)
• 1927 – John Woodland Hastings, American photo biologist (d. 2014)
• 1927 – Martin Walser, German writer
• 1930 – David Dacko, President of the Central African Republic (d. 2003)
• 1930 – Steve McQueen, American actor (d. 1980)
• 1931 – Hanno Drechsler, German politician (d. 2003)
• 1933 – Shigeo Yaegashi, Japanese footballer (d. 2011)
• 1935 – Peret, Spanish singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2014)
• 1935 – Mary Berry, British cookery writer and television presenter
• 1937 – Lynn Borden, American actress (d. 2015)
• 1938 – Jean-Pierre Coffe, French radio and television presenter, food critic and author (d. 2016)
• 1938 – David Irving, British historian
• 1942 - Stephen Yardley, British actor
• 1944 – Vojislav Kostunica, former Prime Minister of Serbia
• 1945 – Robert Bakker, American paleontologist
• 1945 – Curtis Hanson, American movie director (d. 2016)
• 1946 – Klaus Dinger, German musician (d. 2008)
• 1947 – Archie Gemmill, Scottish footballer
• 1947 – Christine Gregoire, American politician, Governor of Washington
• 1947 – Alan Sugar, British businessman
• 1948 – Jerzy Kukuczka, Polish mountaineer (d. 1989)
• 1949 – Ruud Krol, Dutch footballer
• 1949 – Ranil Wickremesinghe, 13th Prime Minister of Sri Lanka
• 1949 – Ali Akbar Salehi, Iranian academic and politician

• 1951 – Tommy Hilfiger, American fashion designer
• 1951 – Pat Bradley, American golfer
• 1951 – Dougie Thomson, British bassist
• 1953 – Anita L. Allen, American lawyer, philosopher and academic
• 1953 – Louie Anderson, American comedian, actor and game show host
• 1954 – Robert Carradine, American actor
• 1955 – Doug Jarvis, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1955 – Pat Price, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1956 – Steve Ballmer, American entrepreneur, President of Microsoft
• 1957 – Mike Weir, Scottish politician
• 1958 – Roland Koch, German politician
• 1960 – Nena, German singer
• 1960 – Kelly LeBrock, American model and actress
• 1960 – Yasser Seirawan, Syrian-American chess player
• 1960 – Grayson Perry, English artist
• 1961 – Yanis Varoufakis, Greek economist and politician
• 1963 – Vadym Tyshchenko, Ukrainian footballer (d. 2015)
• 1968 – Minarti Timur, Indonesian badminton player
• 1969 – Luis Oliveira, Brazilian-Belgian footballer
• 1970 – Lara Flynn Boyle, American actress
• 1970 – Sharon Corr, Irish musician
• 1970 – Judith Draxler, Austrian swimmer
• 1972 – Christophe Dugarry, French footballer
• 1973 – Philippe Boucher, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1973 – Steve Corica, Australian footballer
• 1973 – Jacek Bak, Polish footballer
• 1973 – Jim Parsons, American actor
• 1974 – Alyson Hannigan, American actress
• 1975 – Krisdayanti, Indonesian singer and actress
• 1975 – Thomas Johansson, Swedish tennis player

• 1976 – Angellica Bell, English television presenter
• 1976 – Peyton Manning, American football player
• 1977 – Jessica Chastain, American actress
• 1978 – Tomas Ujfalusi, Czech footballer
• 1979 – Graeme Swann, English cricketer
• 1982 – Corey Hart, American baseball player
• 1983 – Alexei Eremenko, Russian-Finnish footballer
• 1983 – T. J. Ford, American basketball player
• 1984 – Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Cameroonian-French footballer
• 1984 – Adrian D'Souza, Indian field hockey player
• 1985 – Haruka Ayase, Japanese actress
• 1985 – Sayako Hirano, Japanese table tennis player
• 1986 – Nathalia Dill, Brazilian actress
• 1987 – Ramires, Brazilian footballer
• 1987 – Shakib Al Hasan, Bangladeshi cricketer
• 1989 – Pascal Berger, Swiss ice hockey player
• 1990 – Keisha Castle-Hughes, Australian-New Zealand actress
• 1990 – Libby Clegg, Scottish runner
• 1998 – Isabel Suckling, English singer

• 1284 – King Hugh III of Cyprus (b. 1235)
• 1381 – Catherine of Vadstena, Swedish saint (b. 1332)
• 1455 – Pope Nicholas V (b. 1394)
• 1563 – Hosokawa Harumoto, Japanese military leader (b. 1514)
• 1603 – Queen Elizabeth I of England (b. 1533)
• 1653 – Samuel Scheidt, German composer (b. 1587)
• 1773 – Philip Dormer Stanhope, English statesman (b. 1694)
• 1776 – John Harrison, English inventor and clockmaker (b. 1693)
• 1844 – Bertel Thorvaldsen, Danish sculptor (b. 1770)
• 1860 – Ii Naosuke, Japanese politician (b. 1815)
• 1881 – Achille Ernest Oscar Joseph Delesse, French geologist and mineralogist (b. 1817)
• 1882 – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American writer (b. 1807)
• 1887 – Ivan Kramskoi, Russian painter and art critic (b. 1837)
• 1888 – Vsevolod Garshin, Russian writer (b. 1855)

• 1905 – Jules Verne, French writer (b. 1828)
• 1909 – John Millington Synge, Irish playwright (b. 1871)
• 1915 – Margaret Lindsay Huggins, Irish astronomer (b. 1848)
• 1915 – Karol Olszewski, Polish scientist (b. 1846)
• 1916 – Enrique Granados, Spanish composer (b. 1867)
• 1926 – Phan Chu Trinh, Vietnamese nationalist (b. 1872)
• 1939 – Gwyn Nicholls, Welsh rugby player (b. 1874)
• 1940 – Edouard Branly, French inventor and physicist (b. 1844)
• 1946 – Alexander Alekhine, Russian chess player (b. 1892)
• 1948 – Sigrid Hjertén, Swedish painter (b. 1885)
• 1950 – James Rudolph Garfield, American politician (b. 1865)
• 1953 – Mary of Teck, Queen Consort of George V of the United Kingdom (b. 1867)
• 1962 – Auguste Piccard, Swiss physicist and explorer (b. 1884)
• 1971 – Arne Jacobsen, Danish architect and designer (b. 1902)
• 1976 – Bernard Montgomery, British field marshal (b. 1887)
• 1980 – Oscar Romero, El Salvadorean archbishop (b. 1917)
• 1984 – Sam Jaffe, American actor (b. 1891)
• 1991 – Sir John Kerr, 18th Governor General of Australia (b. 1914)
• 1993 – Albert Allen, Australian pianist, composer, actor and director (b. 1905)
• 1995 – Joseph Needham, British academic (b. 1900)
• 1999 – Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, German women's activist (b. 1902)

• 2002 – César Milstein, Argentine scientist (b. 1927)
• 2008 – Richard Widmark, American actor (b. 1914)
• 2009 – George Kell, American baseball player and sportscaster (b. 1922)
• 2010 – Robert Culp, American actor (b. 1930)
• 2012 – Jocky Wilson, Scottish darts player (b. 1950)
• 2014 – Paulo Schroeber, Brazilian guitarist (b. 1973)
• 2014 – Robert F. Coleman, American mathematician (b. 1954)
• 2014 – Rodney Wilkes, Trinidadian weightlifter (b. 1925)
• 2015 – Yehuda Avner, Israeli diplomat (b. 1928)
• 2015 – Deaths in the Germanwings Flight 9525 crash:
  • Oleg Bryjak, Kazakh-German opera singer (b. 1960)
  • Maria Radner, German opera singer (b. 1981)
  • Andreas Lubitz, German co-pilot (b. 1987)
• 2015 – Moncef Ben Salem, Tunisian politician (b. 1953)
• 2015 – Richard Butson, Canadian explorer and physician (b. 1922)
• 2016 – Johan Cruyff, Dutch footballer (b. 1947)
• 2016 – Garry Shandling, American actor and comedian (b. 1949)
• 2016 – Roger Cicero, German jazz singer and musician (b. 1970)
• 2016 – Maggie Blye, American actress (b. 1942)
• 2016 – Marie-Claire Kirkland, Canadian politician and judge (b. 1924)
• 2016 – Esther Herlitz, Israeli diplomat and politician (b. 1921)
• 2016 – Earl Hamner, Jr., American television writer and producer (b. 1923)
• 2016 – Tibor R. Machan, Hungarian-American philosopher and journalist (b. 1939)
• 2016 – Leonard L. Northrup Jr., American engineer (b. 1918)
• 2017 – Hubert Hammerer, Austrian sports shooter (b. 1924)
• 2017 – Leo Peelen, Dutch track cyclist (b. 1968)
• 2017 – Jean Rouverol, American actress (b. 1916)
• 2017 – Peter Shotton, English musician and businessman (b. 1941)
• 2017 – Avo Uvezian, Lebanese-American jazz pianist, songwriter and cigar manufacturer (b. 1926)
• 2020 – William Dufris, American voice actor and audiobook narrator (b. 1958)

• World Tuberculosis Day
• Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice (Argentina)