2024

Events in 2024 180

• 1924 – 2024 Roger Guillemin (1924-2024) Died 21 February 2024, aged 100 French-born American physiologist who shared the 1977 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for work on brain hormones.
• 1924 – 2024 Jimmy Carter 39th President — longest-lived US president Jimmy Carter (Oct 1, 1924 – Dec 29, 2024) was the 39th President 1977-1981. He brokered the Camp David Accords, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, and became the longest-lived US president at age 100.
• 1926 – 2024 Bernard Kops (1926-2024) Died 25 February 2024, aged 97 English playwright, novelist and poet of the postwar London Jewish East End.
• 1926 – 2024 Norman Jewison (1926-2024) Died 20 January 2024, aged 97 Canadian director whose films included In the Heat of the Night, Fiddler on the Roof and Moonstruck.
• 1926 – 2024 Roger Corman (1926-2024) Died 9 May 2024, aged 98 American director and producer of low-budget films who launched the careers of Coppola, Scorsese and Nicholson.
• 1926 – 2024 Tsung-Dao Lee (1926-2024) Died 4 August 2024, aged 97 Chinese-born American physicist who shared the 1957 Nobel Prize for Physics for showing that parity is not conserved.
• 1927 – 2024 Lucine Amara (1927-2024) Died 6 September 2024, aged 97 American soprano and prima donna of the Metropolitan Opera for four decades.
• 1927 – 2024 William Labov (1927-2024) Died 17 December 2024, aged 97 American linguist whose work on regional variation founded the field of sociolinguistics.
• 1928 – 2024 Ethel Kennedy (1928-2024) Died 10 October 2024, aged 96 American advocate for social justice and human rights, widow of Robert F. Kennedy.
• 1928 – 2024 Ruth Westheimer (1928-2024) Died 12 July 2024, aged 96 German-American sex therapist and broadcaster known to millions as Dr Ruth.
• 1928 – 2024 Gustavo Gutierrez (1928-2024) Died 22 October 2024, aged 96 Peruvian theologian and Dominican priest regarded as the father of liberation theology.
• 1928 – 2024 Herbert Kroemer (1928-2024) Died 8 March 2024, aged 95 German-born physicist who shared the 2000 Nobel Prize for Physics for semiconductor heterostructures.
• 1928 – 2024 James Lawson (1928-2024) Died 9 June 2024, aged 95 American civil rights activist who devised the movement's strategy of nonviolent direct action.
• 1928 – 2024 Bruce Ames (1928-2024) Died 5 October 2024, aged 95 American biochemist who developed the Ames test for chemical mutagens.
• 1929 – 2024 Bob Newhart (1929-2024) Died 18 July 2024, aged 94 American comedian whose deadpan, mild-mannered delivery made him a star in stand-up and two long-running sitcoms.
• 1929 – 2024 Peter Higgs (1929-2024) Died 8 April 2024, aged 94 British physicist awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize for Physics for predicting the particle that bears his name.
• 1929 – 2024 Nikolai Ryzhkov (1929-2024) Died 28 February 2024, aged 94 Soviet politician who was premier of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991.
• 1930 – 2024 Edna O'Brien (1930-2024) Died 27 July 2024, aged 93 Irish novelist whose The Country Girls was banned at home for its sexual candour and who became one of Ireland's great writers.
• 1930 – 2024 Faith Ringgold (1930-2024) Died 13 April 2024, aged 93 American artist and author whose narrative story quilts carried her political convictions.
• 1930 – 2024 Fred Harris (1930-2024) Died 23 November 2024, aged 93 American politician and educator who served as a US senator for Oklahoma.
• 1930 – 2024 Gena Rowlands (1930-2024) Died 14 August 2024, aged 94 American actress whose ten films with her husband John Cassavetes, among them A Woman Under the Influence, remade screen acting.
• 1930 – 2024 John Barth (1930-2024) Died 2 April 2024, aged 93 American writer whose novels combined philosophical complexity with bawdy satire.
• 1930 – 2024 Leon N. Cooper (1930-2024) Died 23 October 2024, aged 94 American physicist who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize for Physics for the BCS theory of superconductivity.
• 1930 – 2024 Thomas Stafford (1930-2024) Died 18 March 2024, aged 93 American astronaut who commanded Apollo 10 and later the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
• 1931 – 2024 Alice Munro (1931-2024) Died 13 May 2024, aged 92 Canadian writer awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013 and called the master of the contemporary short story.
• 1931 – 2024 Audrey Flack (1931-2024) Died 28 June 2024, aged 93 American painter and sculptor who brought a sociopolitical dimension to Photo-realism.
• 1931 – 2024 Galina Zybina (1931-2024) Died 10 August 2024, aged 93 Soviet shot-putter who set eight consecutive world records and won three Olympic medals.
• 1931 – 2024 James Earl Jones (1931-2024) Died 9 September 2024, aged 93 American actor whose deep voice gave us Darth Vader and Mufasa, and whose stage work won two Tony Awards.
• 1931 – 2024 Paolo Taviani (1931-2024) Died 29 February 2024, aged 92 Italian filmmaker who with his brother Vittorio combined Neorealism with modernist storytelling.
• 1931 – 2024 Robert MacNeil (1931-2024) Died 12 April 2024, aged 93 Canadian-born journalist who co-anchored the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour on PBS.
• 1931 – 2024 Whitey Herzog (1931-2024) Died 15 April 2024, aged 92 American baseball manager who led the St Louis Cardinals to the 1982 World Series.
• 1931 – 2024 Willie Mays (1931-2024) Died 18 June 2024, aged 93 American baseball player considered by many the greatest all-round player in the history of the game.
• 1931 – 2024 Mitzi Gaynor (1931-2024) American actress, singer and dancer, star of South Pacific.
• 1931 – 2024 Margaret Bryan Davis (1931-2024) Died 22 May 2024, aged 92 American palaeoecologist whose pioneering work in palynology showed how biological communities shift with climate.
• 1932 – 2024 Anouk Aimee (1932-2024) Died 18 June 2024, aged 92 French actress of aloof, alluring presence, known above all for A Man and a Woman.
• 1932 – 2024 Dabney Coleman (1932-2024) Died 16 May 2024, aged 92 American actor who made a speciality of smug egotists in 9 to 5 and Tootsie.
• 1932 – 2024 Robert Coover (1932-2024) Died 5 October 2024, aged 92 American writer of avant-garde fiction whose experimental forms mixed reality and illusion.
• 1932 – 2024 Robert H. Dennard (1932-2024) Died 23 April 2024, aged 91 American engineer who invented the one-transistor DRAM cell, the basis of modern computer memory.
• 1932 – 2024 Manmohan Singh (1932-2024) Died 26 December 2024, aged 92 Indian economist and prime minister from 2004 to 2014 whose 1991 reforms as finance minister opened the Indian economy.
• 1933 – 2024 Chita Rivera (1933-2024) Died 30 January 2024, aged 91 American dancer, singer and actress whose Broadway career ran from West Side Story to Chicago.
• 1933 – 2024 Frederick Crews (1933-2024) Died 21 June 2024, aged 91 American literary critic and one of the most forceful critics of Freud and psychoanalysis.
• 1933 – 2024 John Mayall (1933-2024) Died 22 July 2024, aged 90 British musician whose Bluesbreakers were the school through which Clapton, Green and Taylor all passed.
• 1933 – 2024 Quincy Jones (1933-2024) Died 3 November 2024, aged 91 American producer, arranger and composer whose work spanned jazz, film and pop, and who produced Michael Jackson's Thriller, the best-selling album ever made.
• 1933 – 2024 Arno Penzias (1933-2024) Died 22 January 2024, aged 90 German-American astrophysicist who shared the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics for detecting the cosmic microwave background.
• 1933 – 2024 William A. Anders (1933-2024) Died 7 June 2024, aged 90 American astronaut on Apollo 8, the first crewed flight around the Moon, who took the Earthrise photograph.
• 1934 – 2024 Dame Maggie Smith (1934–2024) Dame Margaret Natalie Smith (28 December 1934, Ilford, Essex – 27 September 2024, London) was a British actress whose career on stage and screen spanned more than seven decades. She won two Academy Awards -- Best Actress for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and Best Supporting Actress for California Suite (1978) -- four Emmy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, three Golden Globes and a Tony Award, making her one of a handful of performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting. She worked with Laurence Olivier at the National Theatre, played Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, and the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1990. King Charles III described her as "a national treasure." She died on 27 September 2024 at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, aged 89.
• 1934 – 2024 Fleur Adcock (1934-2024) Died 10 October 2024, aged 90 New Zealand-born British poet of tranquil domestic lyrics cut with irony and the macabre.
• 1934 – 2024 Maryse Conde (1934-2024) Died 2 April 2024, aged 90 Guadeloupean author of epic historical fiction, much of it set in Africa.
• 1934 – 2024 N. Scott Momaday (1934-2024) Died 24 January 2024, aged 89 The first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize, for House Made of Dawn.
• 1934 – 2024 Shyam Benegal (1934-2024) Died 23 December 2024, aged 90 Indian director and a founder of parallel cinema, the realist counterweight to mainstream Hindi film.
• 1934 – 2024 Niklaus Wirth (1934-2024) Died 1 January 2024, aged 89 Swiss computer scientist who designed Pascal and won the 1984 Turing Award.
• 1934 – 2024 Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024) Died 27 March 2024, aged 90 Israeli-American psychologist who shared the 2002 Nobel Prize for Economics and, with Amos Tversky, founded behavioural economics.
• 1934 – 2024 Jim Inhofe (1934-2024) Died 9 July 2024, aged 89 American Republican senator for Oklahoma from 1994 to 2023, and Congress's most prominent climate sceptic.
• 1935 – 2024 Abdul Duke Fakir (1935-2024) Died 22 July 2024, aged 88 American singer and the last surviving original member of the Four Tops, one of Motown's greatest acts.
• 1935 – 2024 Alain Delon (1935-2024) Died 18 August 2024, aged 88 French actor of extraordinary beauty and coldness who was the defining male star of French cinema in the 1960s and 1970s.
• 1935 – 2024 Carl Andre (1935-2024) Died 24 January 2024, aged 88 American sculptor associated with Minimalism, known for floor pieces of plain industrial units.
• 1935 – 2024 Donald Sutherland (1935–2024) Donald McNichol Sutherland (17 July 1935, Saint John, New Brunswick – 20 June 2024, Miami, Florida) was a Canadian actor whose career spanned six decades and encompassed more than 200 films and television productions. From the countercultural cool of M*A*S*H and Klute in the early 1970s to the menacing President Snow in The Hunger Games four decades later, he was one of cinema's most protean and compelling performers -- tall, angular, unsettling, capable of shifting from warmth to menace within a single scene. He won an Emmy and two Golden Globes but was never nominated for a competitive Academy Award, a slight rectified in 2017 when the Academy presented him with an Honorary Oscar "for a lifetime of indelible characters, rendered with unwavering truthfulness." He died on 20 June 2024, aged 88.
• 1935 – 2024 M. Emmet Walsh (1935-2024) Died 19 March 2024, aged 88 American character actor whose credits ran from Blade Runner and Blood Simple to Knives Out.
• 1935 – 2024 Phil Donahue (1935-2024) Died 18 August 2024, aged 88 American broadcaster who invented the issue-driven daytime talk show.
• 1935 – 2024 Seiji Ozawa (1935-2024) Died 6 February 2024, aged 88 Japanese conductor of exceptional energy who led the Boston Symphony for nearly three decades.
• 1936 – 2024 Eleanor Coppola (1936-2024) Died 12 April 2024, aged 87 American artist and documentarian whose Hearts of Darkness chronicled the making of Apocalypse Now.
• 1936 – 2024 Frank Stella (1936-2024) Died 4 May 2024, aged 87 American painter who moved from severe Minimalism to vast irregular multimedia reliefs.
• 1936 – 2024 Ismail Kadare (1936-2024) Died 1 July 2024, aged 88 Albanian novelist and poet whose work explored his country's history under dictatorship and reached a world readership.
• 1936 – 2024 Kris Kristofferson (1936-2024) Died 28 September 2024, aged 88 American singer-songwriter and actor who wrote Me and Bobby McGee and Help Me Make It Through the Night, and starred in A Star Is Born.
• 1936 – 2024 Louis Gossett Jr. (1936-2024) Died 28 March 2024, aged 87 The first African American to win the Academy Award for best supporting actor, for An Officer and a Gentleman.
• 1937 – 2024 Bobby Allison (1937-2024) Died 9 November 2024, aged 86 American stock-car racer, one of the winningest drivers in NASCAR history.
• 1937 – 2024 Ivan Boesky (1937-2024) Died 20 May 2024, aged 87 American arbitrageur whose 1986 guilty plea for securities manipulation came to define Wall Street excess.
• 1937 – 2024 Orlando Cepeda (1937-2024) Died 28 June 2024, aged 86 Puerto Rican baseball player, among the first stars of major league baseball on the US West Coast.
• 1937 – 2024 Ratan Tata (1937-2024) Died 9 October 2024, aged 86 Indian businessman who led the Tata Group for two decades, admired as much for his ethics and philanthropy as for the acquisitions that made Tata global.
• 1937 – 2024 Yoshio Taniguchi (1937-2024) Died 16 December 2024, aged 87 Japanese architect best known for the expansion of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
• 1937 – 2024 Robin Warren (1937-2024) Died 23 July 2024, aged 87 Australian pathologist who shared the 2005 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for showing that bacteria cause stomach ulcers.
• 1938 – 2024 Duane Eddy (1938-2024) Died 30 April 2024, aged 86 American guitarist responsible for twang, one of rock music's elemental sounds.
• 1938 – 2024 Jerry West (1938-2024) Died 12 June 2024, aged 86 American basketball player, coach and executive whose silhouette became the NBA logo.
• 1938 – 2024 Richard Serra (1938-2024) Died 26 March 2024, aged 85 American sculptor whose vast curving steel works redefined the relationship between sculpture and the body.
• 1938 – 2024 Lilly Ledbetter (1938-2024) Died 12 October 2024, aged 86 American activist whose equal-pay lawsuit led to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.
• 1938 – 2024 John Prescott (1938-2024) Died 20 November 2024, aged 86 British politician who was deputy prime minister under Tony Blair and deputy leader of the Labour Party for thirteen years.
• 1938 – 2024 Alberto Fujimori (1938-2024) Died 11 September 2024, aged 86 Peruvian politician who was president from 1990 to 2000 and was later convicted of ordering death squad killings.
• 1939 – 2024 Breyten Breytenbach (1939-2024) Died 24 November 2024, aged 85 South African writer, leading Afrikaner poet and critic of apartheid who spent seven years in prison.
• 1939 – 2024 Brian Mulroney (1939-2024) Died 29 February 2024, aged 84 Canadian politician who was prime minister from 1984 to 1993 and negotiated the free trade agreement with the United States.
• 1940 – 2024 Luis Tiant (1940-2024) Died 8 October 2024, aged 83 Cuban-born pitcher who won more major league games than any other Cuban player.
• 1940 – 2024 Phil Lesh (1940-2024) Died 25 October 2024, aged 84 American bassist and founding member of the Grateful Dead.
• 1940 – 2024 Roberto Cavalli (1940-2024) Died 12 April 2024, aged 83 Italian fashion designer known for glamorous, animal-print clothing.
• 1940 – 2024 Yamini Krishnamurthy (1940-2024) Died 3 August 2024, aged 83 Indian dancer of bharata natyam and other classical styles who shaped the country's dance world for decades.
• 1941 – 2024 Mike Pinder (1941-2024) Died 24 April 2024, aged 82 British musician and founding member of the Moody Blues.
• 1941 – 2024 Pete Rose (1941-2024) Died 30 September 2024, aged 83 American baseball player who broke Ty Cobb's career hits record and was later banned from the game over gambling.
• 1941 – 2024 Fethullah Gulen (1941-2024) Died 20 October 2024, aged 83 Turkish Islamic scholar and leader of the Hizmet movement, accused by Ankara of orchestrating the 2016 coup attempt.
• 1941 – 2024 Hage Geingob (1941-2024) Died 4 February 2024, aged 82 Namibian politician who was president from 2014 until his death and had earlier served twice as prime minister.
• 1942 – 2024 Maurizio Pollini (1942-2024) Died 23 March 2024, aged 82 Italian pianist whose combination of intellectual rigour and technical brilliance gave him a unique standing.
• 1942 – 2024 Richard Perry (1942-2024) Died 24 December 2024, aged 82 American music producer who worked with Barbra Streisand, Carly Simon and the Pointer Sisters.
• 1942 – 2024 Joseph Lieberman (1942-2024) Died 27 March 2024, aged 82 American senator who in 2000 was the first Jewish candidate on a major party presidential ticket.
• 1942 – 2024 Daniel C. Dennett (1942-2024) Died 19 April 2024, aged 82 American philosopher of mind and prominent figure in the new atheism, author of Consciousness Explained.
• 1943 – 2024 David Soul (1943-2024) Died 4 January 2024, aged 80 American actor and musician best known for Starsky & Hutch, who also topped the charts with Don't Give Up on Us.
• 1943 – 2024 Dickey Betts (1943-2024) Died 18 April 2024, aged 80 American guitarist of the Allman Brothers Band, who wrote Ramblin' Man.
• 1943 – 2024 Judith Jamison (1943-2024) Died 9 November 2024, aged 81 American dancer of striking presence who led the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater from 1989 to 2011.
• 1943 – 2024 Nikki Giovanni (1943-2024) Died 9 December 2024, aged 81 American poet whose work ranged from calls for Black power to poems for children.
• 1944 – 2024 Francoise Hardy (1944-2024) Died 11 June 2024, aged 80 French singer and actress whose moody ballads epitomised youthful ennui in 1960s France.
• 1944 – 2024 Jose Agustin (1944-2024) Died 16 January 2024, aged 79 Mexican novelist whose prolific work captured urban youth culture, violence and decay.
• 1944 – 2024 Teri Garr (1944-2024) Died 29 October 2024, aged 79 American comic actress of Young Frankenstein, Mr Mom and Tootsie, for which she was Oscar-nominated.
• 1947 – 2024 O.J. Simpson (1947-2024) Died 10 April 2024, aged 76 American footballer whose 1995 murder trial became the most watched criminal case in American history. He was acquitted of the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
• 1947 – 2024 Paul Auster (1947-2024) Died 30 April 2024, aged 77 American novelist whose New York Trilogy and later work turned detective form into a search for identity.
• 1947 – 2024 Richard Lewis (1947-2024) Died 27 February 2024, aged 76 American comedian and actor whose anxious stand-up persona carried over into Curb Your Enthusiasm.
• 1947 – 2024 John Bruton (1947-2024) Died 6 February 2024, aged 76 Irish politician who served as taoiseach from 1994 to 1997.
• 1947 – 2024 Terry Anderson (1947-2024) Died 21 April 2024, aged 76 American journalist kidnapped in Beirut and held hostage for more than six years.
• 1948 – 2024 Carl Weathers (1948-2024) Died 1 February 2024, aged 76 American footballer turned actor, best known as Apollo Creed in the Rocky films.
• 1948 – 2024 Mary Weiss (1948-2024) Died 19 January 2024, aged 75 American singer of the Shangri-Las, the girl group behind Leader of the Pack.
• 1948 – 2024 Richard Parsons (1948-2024) Died 26 December 2024, aged 76 American businessman who led AOL Time Warner through its post-merger crisis and later chaired Citigroup.
• 1948 – 2024 Richard Simmons (1948-2024) Died 13 July 2024, aged 76 American fitness instructor whose exuberant personality made exercise television a mass phenomenon.
• 1948 – 2024 Wayne Kramer (1948-2024) Died 2 February 2024, aged 75 American musician who co-founded the MC5, one of the most influential proto-punk bands.
• 1949 – 2024 Sebastian Pinera (1949-2024) Died 6 February 2024, aged 74 Chilean businessman and politician who served two terms as president of Chile.
• 1951 – 2024 Muhammed Faris (1951-2024) Died 19 April 2024, aged 72 Syrian pilot and air force officer, the first Syrian citizen to travel into space.
• 1952 – 2024 Bill Walton (1952-2024) Died 27 May 2024, aged 71 American basketball player considered one of the great all-round centres, and later a beloved broadcaster.
• 1952 – 2024 Peter Westbrook (1952-2024) Died 29 November 2024, aged 72 American fencer, the first African American to win an Olympic medal in the sport.
• 1953 – 2024 Tito Jackson (1953-2024) Died 15 September 2024, aged 70 American musician and member of the Jackson 5.
• 1954 – 2024 Alex Salmond (1954-2024) Died 12 October 2024, aged 69 Scottish politician who was first minister of Scotland and led the 2014 independence campaign.
• 1958 – 2024 Rickey Henderson (1958-2024) Died 20 December 2024, aged 65 American baseball player who holds the records for career stolen bases and runs scored.
• 1960 – 2024 Fernando Valenzuela (1960-2024) Died 22 October 2024, aged 63 Mexican pitcher whose 1981 rookie season with the Los Angeles Dodgers set off Fernandomania.
• 1960 – 2024 Hassan Nasrallah (1960-2024) Died 27 September 2024, aged 64 Lebanese secretary-general of Hezbollah for over three decades, killed by an Israeli air strike on Beirut.
• 1960 – 2024 Ebrahim Raisi (1960-2024) Died 19 May 2024, aged 63 President of Iran from 2021 until his death in a helicopter crash. His tenure was marked by mass protests following the death of Mahsa Amini.
• 1961 – 2024 Toby Keith (1961-2024) Died 5 February 2024, aged 62 American country singer whose hits included Should've Been a Cowboy and Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.
• 1962 – 2024 Steve Albini (1962-2024) Died 7 May 2024, aged 61 American musician and recording engineer behind Nirvana's In Utero and the Pixies' Surfer Rosa.
• 1962 – 2024 Ismail Haniyeh (1962-2024) Died 31 July 2024, aged 62 Palestinian politician and Hamas leader, prime minister of the Palestinian Authority in 2006-07, assassinated in Tehran.
• 1962 – 2024 Yahya Sinwar (1962-2024) Died 16 October 2024, aged 61 De facto leader of Hamas from 2017 and considered a principal architect of the 7 October 2023 attacks. He was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.
• 1966 – 2024 Dikembe Mutombo (1966-2024) Died 30 September 2024, aged 58 Congolese-American basketball player, one of the great defenders in NBA history and a noted philanthropist.
• 1968 – 2024 Susan Wojcicki (1968-2024) Died 9 August 2024, aged 56 American technology executive who was chief executive of YouTube from 2014 to 2023 and an early Google employee.
• 1970 – 2024 Morgan Spurlock (1970-2024) Died 23 May 2024, aged 53 American documentarian best known for Super Size Me.
• 1976 – 2024 Alexei Navalny (1976-2024) Died 16 February 2024, aged 47 Russian anti-corruption activist and the most prominent domestic critic of Vladimir Putin. He died in an Arctic penal colony.
• 1993 – 2024 Liam Payne (1993-2024) Died 16 October 2024, aged 31 English singer and member of One Direction, one of the best-selling boy bands of all time.
• 1995 – 2024 Michaela DePrince (1995-2024) Died 10 September 2024, aged 29 Sierra Leonean-born American ballerina who overcame the loss of both parents in civil war to dance at the highest level.
• 2024 Anora Best Picture — 97th Academy Awards Sean Baker's comedy-drama about a Brooklyn stripper who marries the son of a Russian oligarch. Baker won four Oscars for the one film.
• 2024 Australian Open 2024 Men: Jannik Sinner · Women: Aryna Sabalenka Sinner's first Grand Slam. Sabalenka defended.
• 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake strikes Japan A magnitude 7.5 quake on New Year's Day A magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture on 1 January 2024, killing more than 400 people and destroying thousands of buildings.
• 2024 Collision at Haneda Airport A Japan Airlines A350 burns out with all 379 aboard evacuated A Japan Airlines Airbus A350 collided with a coastguard aircraft on landing at Tokyo's Haneda Airport on 2 January 2024. All 379 people aboard the airliner escaped before it was destroyed by fire; five coastguard crew died.
• 2024 Door plug blows out of an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 A fuselage panel departs at 16,000 feet A door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 shortly after take-off on 5 January 2024. Nobody was seriously hurt, but the incident grounded the type and reopened scrutiny of Boeing's production quality.
• 2024 Lai Ching-te wins Taiwan's presidential election A third consecutive term for the DPP Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party won Taiwan's presidential election on 13 January 2024, giving the party an unprecedented third consecutive term.
• 2024 Japan lands SLIM on the Moon The fifth nation to achieve a soft lunar landing Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon touched down on 20 January 2024, making Japan the fifth country to land softly on the Moon. The craft came to rest tilted, limiting its power.
• 2024 ICJ orders Israel to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza An interim ruling in South Africa's case The International Court of Justice ruled on 26 January 2024 that Israel must take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza, in interim orders on a case brought by South Africa.
• 2024 Odysseus makes the first commercial Moon landing Intuitive Machines reaches the lunar south pole region Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lander touched down near the lunar south pole on 22 February 2024, the first commercial spacecraft to land on the Moon and the first American craft to do so since 1972.
• 2024 Iditarod 2024 Winner: Dallas Seavey — record 6th title Dallas Seavey won his record sixth Iditarod in 2024, surpassing Rick Swenson's long-standing record of five victories.
• 2024 Claude 3 released Anthropic's most capable AI model Anthropic released Claude 3 in March 2024, a family of AI models including Opus, Sonnet and Haiku. Claude 3 Opus outperformed GPT-4 on multiple benchmarks, establishing Anthropic as a leading AI safety company.
• 2024 Oppenheimer wins seven Oscars Best picture, director and actor for Christopher Nolan's epic Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer won seven Academy Awards on 10 March 2024 including best picture, best director and best actor for Cillian Murphy. Emma Stone won best actress for Poor Things.
• 2024 Russia holds a presidential election Vladimir Putin returned for a fifth term Russia held a presidential election from 15 to 17 March 2024, returning Vladimir Putin for a fifth term with an official 88 percent of the vote in a contest with no meaningful opposition.
• 2024 Crocus City Hall attack near Moscow Gunmen kill 145 at a concert venue Gunmen attacked the Crocus City Hall concert venue outside Moscow on 22 March 2024, killing 145 people. Islamic State claimed responsibility in the deadliest attack in Russia in two decades.
• 2024 Francis Scott Key Bridge collapses in Baltimore A container ship strikes a support pier The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed on 26 March 2024 after the container ship Dali lost power and struck a support pier. Six road workers were killed and the port was closed for months.
• 2024 Total solar eclipse crosses North America Totality from Mexico through the United States to Canada A total solar eclipse crossed North America on 8 April 2024, with the path of totality running from Mexico through Texas and the Midwest into eastern Canada. It was the last such eclipse over the contiguous United States until 2044.
• 2024 Iran launches its first direct attack on Israel More than 300 drones and missiles, almost all intercepted Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles directly at Israel on 13 April 2024, its first direct attack from Iranian soil. Almost all were intercepted by Israel and its allies.
• 2024 India begins the world's largest election Nearly a billion voters over six weeks India began voting in its general election on 19 April 2024, a six-week process involving nearly a billion eligible voters. Results on 4 June returned Narendra Modi for a third term, but without a parliamentary majority for the BJP.
• 2024 2024 World Snooker Championship Wilson’s First Winner: Kyren Wilson; Runner-up: Jak Jones. Score: 18–14.
• 2024 TikTok divest-or-ban law signed in the United States ByteDance ordered to sell or face a ban President Joe Biden signed legislation on 24 April 2024 requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok's US operations or face a ban, setting up a prolonged legal fight.
• 2024 OpenAI releases GPT-4o Multimodal AI with real-time voice OpenAI released GPT-4o on May 13, 2024, a model capable of real-time voice conversation and vision, marking a major step toward natural human-AI interaction.
• 2024 Furiosa Mad Max prequel — $173m worldwide Directed by George Miller, starring Anya Taylor-Joy. The origin story of Furiosa as she attempts to make her way back to her homeland.
• 2024 Claudia Sheinbaum elected Mexico's first woman president A landslide for the ruling Morena party Claudia Sheinbaum won Mexico's presidential election on 2 June 2024 in a landslide, becoming the country's first woman president.
• 2024 Boeing Starliner launches with crew for the first time A test flight that would strand its astronauts for months Boeing's Starliner launched its first crewed test flight on 5 June 2024 carrying Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore. Thruster failures and helium leaks left the pair on the space station until 2025.
• 2024 European Parliament elections shift right Gains for right-wing parties across the continent Elections to the European Parliament were held from 6 to 9 June 2024, producing significant gains for right-wing and nationalist parties and prompting President Emmanuel Macron to call snap elections in France.
• 2024 Starship completes orbital test World's largest rocket reaches orbit SpaceX's Starship completed its first successful integrated flight test on June 6, 2024, with the Super Heavy booster caught by mechanical arms at the launch tower — a landmark in reusable rocket engineering.
• 2024 Inside Out 2 #1 film of 2024 — $1.70bn worldwide Directed by Kelsey Mann at Pixar. Riley enters adolescence and new emotions — including Anxiety — move into Headquarters.
• 2024 Despicable Me 4 #2 film of 2024 — $969m worldwide Directed by Chris Renaud. Gru and his family go on a new adventure as they are forced into the Witness Protection Programme.
• 2024 Labour wins a landslide in the United Kingdom Keir Starmer becomes prime minister after fourteen years of Conservative rule The Labour Party won a landslide in the United Kingdom general election on 4 July 2024, ending fourteen years of Conservative government. Keir Starmer became prime minister the following day.
• 2024 Assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania A rally shooting that killed one attendee Donald Trump was wounded in the ear by gunfire at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on 13 July 2024. One attendee was killed and the gunman was shot dead by the Secret Service.
• 2024 Joe Biden withdraws from the presidential race Kamala Harris endorsed as the Democratic nominee President Joe Biden announced on 21 July 2024 that he would not seek re-election, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. It was the first time since 1968 that an eligible incumbent stood aside.
• 2024 2024 Summer Olympics XXXIII Olympiad - Paris Opening ceremony held on the river Seine. Winner: USA.
• 2024 Paris Olympics open on the Seine A ceremony staged along the river rather than in a stadium The Paris Olympics opened on 26 July 2024 with a ceremony staged along the Seine, the first summer opening ceremony held outside a stadium.
• 2024 Google ruled an illegal monopolist in search A landmark US antitrust decision A US federal judge ruled on 5 August 2024 that Google had illegally maintained a monopoly in online search, the most significant antitrust decision against a technology company in a generation.
• 2024 Sheikh Hasina flees Bangladesh Student protests end fifteen years in power Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh by helicopter on 5 August 2024 after weeks of student-led protests, ending fifteen years in power. Muhammad Yunus was appointed to lead an interim government.
• 2024 WHO declares mpox a public health emergency A second emergency declaration for the virus The World Health Organization declared mpox a public health emergency of international concern on 14 August 2024, following a surge of a more severe strain in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighbouring countries.
• 2024 Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested in France Charges over moderation failures on the platform Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, was arrested at Le Bourget airport near Paris on 24 August 2024 and later charged over the platform's alleged failure to curb criminal activity.
• 2024 Polaris Dawn completes the first commercial spacewalk A private crew reaches the highest Earth orbit since Apollo The Polaris Dawn mission launched on 10 September 2024 and carried out the first spacewalk by a private crew, reaching the highest Earth orbit flown since the Apollo programme.
• 2024 Pagers explode across Lebanon A coordinated attack on Hezbollah communications Thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon on 17 September 2024, followed a day later by walkie-talkies. Dozens were killed and thousands injured in an operation widely attributed to Israel.
• 2024 Hurricane Helene devastates the southeastern United States Catastrophic flooding hundreds of miles inland Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida on 26 September 2024 and drove catastrophic flooding through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee. More than 230 people were killed, many in western North Carolina.
• 2024 Iran fires 180 ballistic missiles at Israel A second direct Iranian attack Iran launched around 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on 1 October 2024, its second direct attack of the year, in response to Israeli operations against Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.
• 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded for machine learning John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton honoured for neural networks The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded on 8 October to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton for foundational discoveries enabling machine learning with artificial neural networks.
• 2024 Hurricane Milton strikes Florida A rapid intensification to Category 5 in the Gulf Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida, on 9 October 2024, two weeks after Helene. It had intensified to Category 5 over the Gulf before weakening at landfall.
• 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded for protein structure David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper honoured The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was announced on 9 October, going to David Baker for computational protein design and to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for AlphaFold's prediction of protein structures.
• 2024 SpaceX catches a Starship booster with the launch tower Mechanical arms grip the returning Super Heavy SpaceX caught the Super Heavy booster of Starship in the arms of its launch tower on 13 October 2024, the first time an orbital-class booster had been recovered this way.
• 2024 Catastrophic floods hit Valencia More than 220 killed in hours of rainfall Torrential rain caused catastrophic flash flooding around Valencia on 29 October 2024, killing more than 220 people in Spain's deadliest natural disaster in decades.
• 2024 Trump re-elected 47th US President Donald Trump won the US presidential election on November 5, 2024, defeating Democratic candidate Kamala Harris to become the 47th President.
• 2024 South Korea's president declares martial law An order reversed by parliament within hours President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law in South Korea on 3 December 2024. Lawmakers forced their way into the National Assembly and voted it down within hours; Yoon was impeached on 14 December.
• 2024 Notre-Dame de Paris reopens Five years after the fire Notre-Dame cathedral reopened on 7 December 2024, five years after the fire that destroyed its roof and spire, following a restoration involving hundreds of craftspeople.
• 2024 The Assad regime falls in Syria Fifty-four years of family rule end in eleven days A rebel offensive that began in late November captured Damascus on 8 December 2024, ending the rule of Bashar al-Assad and fifty-four years of Assad family control. Assad fled to Russia.
• 2024 Azerbaijan Airlines flight crashes near Aktau Thirty-eight killed after an apparent shoot-down An Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer crashed near Aktau, Kazakhstan, on 25 December 2024, killing 38 of the 67 on board. Evidence pointed to the aircraft having been struck by Russian air defences.
• 2024 Jeju Air flight crashes at Muan One hundred and seventy-nine killed in South Korea's worst air disaster A Jeju Air Boeing 737 crashed on landing at Muan International Airport on 29 December 2024, killing 179 of the 181 on board in the deadliest aviation accident in South Korean history.