September 24
Activity of the day
Today is . . .
- National Punctuation Day in the U.S.
- Independence Day in Guinea-Bissau
- Heritage Day in South Africa
- Republic Day in Trinidad and Tobago
- La Mercè in Barcelona, Spain
On this day . . .
- French engineer Henri Giffaud makes the first flight in a dirigible balloon (1852)
- English dramatist Noël Coward’s Private Lives is first staged in London (1930)
- The Robe, the first Cinemascope film, premieres in Hollywood (1953)
- Camp Nou, the largest stadium in Europe, opens in Barcelona (1957)
- The first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, is launched (1960)
- Documentary TV series 60 Minutes premieres on CBS (1968)
Births
- Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, English writer (1717)
- F Scott Fitzgerald, American novelist (1896)
- Severo Ochoa, Spanish Nobel Prize-winning biochemist and molecular biologist (1905)
- Jim Henderson, American co-creator of The Muppets (1936)
- Linda McCartney, American photographer (1941)
- Gerry Marsden, English rock musician (1942)
- Pedro Almodóvar, Spanish filmmaker (1951)
Deaths
- Pope Innocent II (1143)
- Paracelsus, Swiss physician, alchemist, and scientist (1541)
- Isobel Baillie, Scottish oratorio singer (1983)
- Theodor Seuss Geisel, American author, better known as Dr. Seuss (1991)