October 24th

October 24 is the 298th day of the year.  There are 68 days remaining until the end of the year.

1818 Felix Mendelssohn, 9, performs his 1st public concert in Berlin

1861 The First Transcontinental Telegraph line across the United States is completed, spelling the end for the 18-month-old Pony Express. Pity.

1901 Birthday girl, Mrs. Annie Edson Taylor, aged 63, is 1st person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and live to tell the tale. Mr. Taylor is later taken in for questioning over the incident.

1908 Billy Murray hits the charts with "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"...We don't care if we ever come back!

1911 Orville Wright stays aloft 9 minutes and 45 seconds in a Wright Glider at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Viagra could've kept him up longer...

1917 The day of the October Revolution. Workers of the world, etc., etc.

1929 Stock market begins precipitous slide on "Black Thursday" when Dow Jones goes down 12.8%.

1939 Nylon stockings go on sale for 1st time in Wilmington, Delaware

1948 Bernard M. Baruch introduces term "Cold War"

2002 Police arrest man-boy lovers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, who kept shooting and shooting all over the Washington, DC area

2008 "Bloody Friday" saw many of the world's stock exchanges experience the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices.

1947 Kevin Kline, STLMO actor 

1952 Maarten Spanjer, maybe gay Dutch actor 

1960 [Bradley Darryl] B. D. Wong, gay US actor/Law & Order: Special Victims Unit 

1964 Josh Carmichael, maybe gay US actor/director/writer 

1968 Tommy O'Haver, gay US director/writer/Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss 

1970 Renato Rossini, Peruvian actor 

1970 Raul Esparza, bisexual US stage actor 

1970 Chad Knight, gay US pornographic actor 

1977 Pastor Oviedo, gay Venezuelan actor 

1978 Christopher Haddad, Belgian actor 

1980 Jan Hartmann, German actor 

1980 Zac Posen, gay US fashion designer 

1981 Alfred Vargas, Filipino actor/model/politician 

1981 Tila Tequila [Tila Nguyen], bisexual US model/addict/brain surgeon 

1983 Daniel Kennedy, maybe gay US actor 

1984 Ben Giroux, maybe gay short US actor 

1985 Wayne Rooney, English soccer player 

1987 Lincoln Lewis, Australian actor 

1601 Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer, sees stars.

1972 Jackie Robinson, 1st US black major league baseball player (Brooklyn Dodgers), pops out

1991 Gene Roddenberry, US creator (Star Trek), boldly goes

2005 Rosa Parks, US civil rights activist, rides in the front of a chariot