Today in History: October 24

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On October 24, 1929 share prices collapsed as nearly 13 million shares changed hands in panic selling on the New York Stock Exchange in what became known as “Black Thursday”.

Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors.

In the aftermath of that event, the United States and the rest of the industrialized world spiraled downward into the great depression, the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the western industrialized world up to that time.

In 1931, the American gangster boss Al Capone was sentenced to 11 years in jail for tax evasion.

Photographs of infamous criminals, show Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly on a wall along cell block “D” at Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay in San Francisco, California, August 9, 2009.

A U.S. National Park Service commemorated the 75th anniversary of Alcatraz as a federal prison.

1957 saw the death of French fashion designer Christian Dior, responsible for the “new look”.

Dior showcased a new line of evening gowns for summer season 1948 in fashion show in Paris.

In 1989, the U.S. television evangelist Jim Bakker was sentenced to 45 years in jail and fined $500,000 for swindling his followers.

The former televangist and host of the religious television program “The PTL Club” attends ceremonies honoring Grammy award-winning brother and sister gospel recording artists Bebe and Cece Winans, with their star on the Hollywood walk of fame in Hollywood October 20, 2011.

Bakker hired the Winans in 1982 as part of the singing group “The PTL Singers”.

In 2005, Rosa Parks, who galvanized the U.S. civil rights movement, died at the age of 92.

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James Blake’s order that she give up her seat to a white passenger. Her action sparked a bus boycott.

Civil rights crusader Parks was seen waving as she listened to President Bill Clinton’s address on race relations at the white house September 18, 1998.

Clinton’s initiative on race concluded a 15-month assessment of U.S. race relations in the country which showed that despite great progress, much more is needed, as the population expands from primarily whites and blacks, to increasing numbers of Hispanics and Asian Americans.

In 2007, the world’s most premature living baby was born in Miami.

Baby Amillia Sonja Taylor’s feet were held in contrast with adult hands, just after her birth at Baptist Children’s Hospital in Miami, Florida.

Taylor, only slightly longer than a ballpoint pen at birth, was due to be sent home in the coming days from a Florida hospital after four months of neonatal intensive care.