4 Azar 1387 | Monday 24 November 2008

This day in four calendars

847 (1179 years ago) An earthquake hits Syria, causing multiple casualties and damages in Antioch, Damascus and Mosul.
1859 (167 years ago) British naturalist Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species is published.
1863 (163 years ago) 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.
1940 (86 years ago) World War II: The First Slovak Republic becomes a signatory to the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers.
1963 (63 years ago) 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.
1974 (52 years ago) 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.
2013 (13 years ago) Iran signs an interim agreement with the P5+1 countries, limiting its nuclear program in exchange for reduced sanctions.
2016 (10 years ago) The government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People's Army sign a revised peace deal, bringing an end to the country's more than 50-year-long civil war.

1632 (394 years ago) Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher and scholar (died 1677)
1729 (297 years ago) Alexander Suvorov, Russian field marshal (died 1800)
1784 (242 years ago) Zachary Taylor, American general and politician, 12th President of the United States (died 1850)
1826 (200 years ago) Carlo Collodi, Italian journalist and author (died 1890)
1864 (162 years ago) Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French painter and illustrator (died 1901)
1888 (138 years ago) Dale Carnegie, American author and educator (died 1955)
1946 (80 years ago) Ted Bundy, American serial killer (died 1989)
1961 (65 years ago) Arundhati Roy, Indian writer and activist

1572 (454 years ago) John Knox, Scottish pastor and theologian (born 1510)
1870 (156 years ago) Comte de Lautréamont, Uruguayan-French poet and author (born 1846)
1929 (97 years ago) Georges Clemenceau, French physician, publisher, and politician, 72nd Prime Minister of France (born 1841)
1957 (69 years ago) Diego Rivera, Mexican painter and sculptor (born 1886)
1963 (63 years ago) Lee Harvey Oswald, American assassin of John F. Kennedy (born 1939)
1991 (35 years ago) Freddie Mercury, Tanzanian-English singer-songwriter, lead vocalist of Queen, and producer (born 1946)
2002 (24 years ago) John Rawls, American philosopher, author, and academic (born 1921)
2025 (a year ago) Dharmendra, Indian actor (born 1935)