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Today is Day 176 of 2024
St John's Day
Christian feast day celebrating the nativity of John the Baptist.
1374
A sudden outbreak of St. John's Dance occurs in the streets of Aachen, Germany.
People begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from utter exhaustion.
1497
Explorer John Cabot lands in Newfoundland leading the first European exploration of North America the since the Vikings some 500 years before.
1842 
Writer Ambrose Bierce (The Devil's Dictionary) born in Horse Cave Creek in Meigs County, Ohio.
He goes missing in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution.
This is the basis for Carlos Fuentes' book The Old Gringo.
1850 
1st Earl Kitchener, Irish field marshal and politician, Governor-General of Sudan, Herbert Kitchener born in Ballylongford, Ireland.
He was the model for the iconic 1914 recruitment Lord Kitchener Wants You poster.
1894
Fourth president of the Third Republic, Marie Francois Sadi Carnot is assassinated by anarchist Sante Geronimo Caserio.
Caserio stabbed the President with a dagger in the chest following a banquet.
1895
Heavyweight Boxing champion Jack Dempsey born in Manassa, Colorado.
1901 
Basketball player and salesman Chuck Taylor born in Brown County, Indiana.
He is the name behind the Converse All-Stars basketball shoe.
1907
Soviet poet and translator Arseny Tarkovsky born in Yelisavetgrad, Russian Empire.
He was the father of film maker Andrei Tarkovsky.
1916
Poet, translator, and etymologist John Ciardi born in Boston.
1939
Poet Stephen Dunn born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York.
1947
First modern sighting of UFO when Kenneth Arnold saw nine luminous disks in the form of saucers flying above the U.S. state of Washington.
This Day at the New Yorker
Proverb:
Laws catch flies but let hornets go free. ~ Russian Proverb
