TODAY in HISTORY: September 24

Following are some of the major events to have occurred on Sept 24

 

Reuters


1932 - Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi agrees Poona Pact to end fast.

 

1988 - Canadian Ben Johnson set a 100 metres world record of 9.79 seconds at the Olympic Games in Seoul. Six days later he was stripped of his medal for taking drugs.

 

1999 - About 30,000 protesters march through Warsaw in one of the biggest anti-government demonstration since the fall of communism.

 

2000 - Vladimiro Montesinos, the spy chief at the centre of a political crisis that prompted new elections, left Peru to seek political asylum in Panama.

 

2002 - Britain published a dossier on Iraq's weapons programme which suggested Saddam Hussein could launch a weapon of mass destruction at just 45 minutes' notice.

 

2004 - French author Francoise Sagan, who shot to fame in 1954 with her first novel "Bonjour Tristesse," died aged 69.

 

2006 - Switzerland voted by a big majority to make it harder for asylum-seekers to gain entry to the rich Alpine state.

 

2008 - Ghana's respected finance minister, Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, who earned praise for his steady guidance of Ghana through a period of economic growth, died.

 

2013 - Magnitude 7.7 earthquake strikes Pakistan.

 

2014 - Mars Orbiter Mission successfully inserted into planet's orbit by Indian Space Research Organisation.

 

2015 - Hundreds killed in Saudi haj stampede.