November 24 in history — What Happened Today in History

Space Shuttle program: Atlantis launches on STS-44.

After a week of mass protests against the Communist regime known as the Velvet Revolution, Miloš Jakeš and the entire Politburo of the Czechoslovak Communist Party resign from office. This brings an effective end to Communist rule in Czechoslovakia.

The Çaldıran–Muradiye earthquake in eastern Turkey kills between 4,000 and 5,000 people.

Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discover the 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, nicknamed "Lucy" (after The Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"), in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar Depression.

A national speed limit is imposed on the Autobahn in Germany because of the 1973 oil crisis. The speed limit lasts only four months.

During a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper (aka D. B. Cooper) parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines plane with $200,000 in ransom money. He has never been found.

Apollo program: The Apollo 12 command module splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second crewed mission to land on the Moon.

Bulgarian TABSO Flight 101 crashes near Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, killing all 82 people on board.

Joseph-Désiré Mobutu seizes power in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and becomes President; he rules the country (which he renames Zaire in 1971) for over 30 years, until being overthrown by rebels in 1997.

Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is killed by Jack Ruby on live television. Robert H. Jackson takes a photograph of the shooting that will win the 1964 Pulitzer Prize in Photography.

Cold War: The West Berlin branch of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany forms a separate party, the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin.

The influential British satirical television programme That Was the Week That Was is first broadcast.

World War II: The 73rd Bombardment Wing launches the first attack on Tokyo from the Northern Mariana Islands.

World War II: At the battle of Makin the USS Liscome Bay is torpedoed near Tarawa and sinks, killing 650 men.

World War II: The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French Forces.

World War II: The First Slovak Republic becomes a signatory to the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers.

The Senegalese Socialist Party holds its second congress.

In Washington, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens.

The Finnish far-right Lapua Movement officially begins when a group of mainly the former White Guard members, led by Vihtori Kosola, interrupted communism occasion at the Workers' House in Lapua, Finland.

Nine Irish Republican Army members are executed by an Irish Free State firing squad. Among them is author Erskine Childers, who had been arrested for illegally carrying a revolver.

In Milwaukee, nine members of the Milwaukee Police Department are killed by a bomb, the most deaths in a single event in U.S. police history until the September 11 attacks in 2001.

A 13–6 victory by the Massillon Tigers over their rivals, the Canton Bulldogs, for the "Ohio League" Championship, leads to accusations that the championship series was fixed and results in the first major scandal in professional American football.

Anna Sewell's animal welfare novel Black Beauty is published.

American Civil War: Battle of Lookout Mountain: Near Chattanooga, Tennessee, Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant capture Lookout Mountain and begin to break the Confederate siege of the city led by General Braxton Bragg.

British naturalist Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species is published.

Danish troops defeat a Schleswig-Holstein force in the town of Lottorf, Schleswig-Holstein.

The Texas Provincial Government authorizes the creation of a horse-mounted police force called the Texas Rangers (which is now the Texas Ranger Division of the Texas Department of Public Safety).

South Carolina passes the Ordinance of Nullification, declaring that the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were null and void in the state, beginning the Nullification Crisis.

Jimmy Graham, American football player

Pedro León, Spanish footballer

Julia Alexandratou, Greek model, actress, and singer

David Booth, American ice hockey player

Maria Höfl-Riesch, German skier

Dean Ashton, English footballer

Lars Eckert, German rugby player

André Laurito, German footballer

Gwilym Lee, Welsh actor

José López, Venezuelan baseball player

Shavlik Randolph, American basketball player

Karine Vanasse, Canadian actress and producer

Ryan Fitzpatrick, American football player

Heinz Oberhummer, Austrian physicist, astronomer, and academic (born 1941)

Douglas W. Shorenstein, American businessman (born 1955)

Jorge Herrera Delgado, Mexican engineer and politician (born 1961)

Murli Deora, Indian politician, Indian Minister of Corporate Affairs (born 1937)

Peter Henderson, New Zealand rugby player (born 1926)

Nenad Manojlović, Serbian water polo player and manager (born 1957)

Viktor Tikhonov, Russian ice hockey player and coach (born 1930)

Matthew Bucksbaum, American businessman and philanthropist, co-founded General Growth Properties (born 1926)

Arnaud Coyot, French cyclist (born 1980)

Lou Hyndman, Canadian lawyer and politician (born 1935)

June Keithley, Filipino actress and journalist (born 1947)

Jean King, American politician, 6th Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii (born 1925)

Robin Leigh-Pemberton, Baron Kingsdown, English banker and politician, Governor of the Bank of England (born 1927)