1554
Jul 24, Queen Mary of England married Philip II, king of Spain and the Catholic son of Emp. Charles V.

1567
Jul 24, Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned and forced to abdicate her throne to her 1-year-old son James VI.

1897
Jul 24, Amelia Earhart was born in Kansas. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and disappeared in the South Pacific while trying to fly around the world. Her sister Muriel (d.1998 at 98) wrote a biography of Amelia titled: "Courage Is the Price."

1920
Jul 24, Bella Abzug, the first Jewish woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, was born.

2001
Jul 24, In Indonesia Megawati Sukarnoputri began her presidency while Wahid refused to leave the presidential palace.

2002
Jul 24, In Houston, Texas, Clara Harris ran over her cheating husband with her Mercedes after catching him with his mistress. Harris (45) was convicted of murder Feb 13, 2003.

2006
Jul 24, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Lebanon to launch diplomatic efforts aimed at ending 13 days of warfare.




2006
Jul 24, A Malaysian princess was stabbed to death by her son as she tried to stop him from attacking her husband (74). The son (21) later died of an apparent drug overdose. Tengku Puteri Kamariah, whose brother is Sultan Ahmad Shah, ruler of the eastern state of Pahang, died at her home in Pekan town, Pahang.

2007
Jul 24, Riley Ann Sawyers (2) died after being whipped with belts and flung across a room like a rag doll. On October 29 her body, dubbed Baby Grace, was found inside a plastic box in Galveston Bay. In 2009 a jury convicted Riley's mother, Kimberly Dawn Trenor (20), of capital murder. The conviction brought an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole. Her husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler II (25), was convicted of capital murder on Nov 6, 2009, and was also expected to receive a life sentence.

2010
Jul 24, Australia’s PM Julia Gillard pledged 400 million dollars (360 million US) to take old cars off the road and vowed to impose tougher fuel standards as part of her election policy on climate change.

2012
Jul 24, In China Rosalia Amarilla (31), a clothes vendor from Paraguay, stepped into the international terminal of Beijing's cavernous main airport, wearing more than 7 pounds (3 kg) of cocaine stuffed into her underwear and bra. She was caught and later sentenced to death on drug trafficking charges.

2013
Jul 24, Afghanistan's first woman governor and a Myanmar civil society organizer were among five winners of Asia's equivalent of the Nobel Prize this year. The Philippines-based Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation singled out Afghanistan's Habiba Sarabi, a 57-year-old doctor, for her "bold exercise of leadership to build up a functioning provincial government against great odds." The Foundation also recognized Lahpai Seng Raw from Myanmar, for her "quietly inspiring and inclusive leadership in the midst of deep ethnic divides and prolonged armed conflicts."


2014
Jul 24, In Kenya a female tourist from Germany was killed in the port city of Mombasa in the same area where a Russian visitor was murdered earlier in July by a criminal gang.