^{US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill meet at the Allied Conference in Casablanca (Photo: Lt. H. A. Mason, Royal Navy, courtesy Imperial War Museum)}

Today in History

• The California Gold Rush is triggered when gold is discovered at Sutter’s Mill, near Sacramento (1848)
• The first Boy Scout troop is organized (1908)
• Russia changes from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar (1918)
• FDR and Churchill conclude their meeting in Casablanca (1943)
• A bomber carrying two H-bombs breaks up in midair over North Carolina. One of the bomb uranium cores has never been found (1961)
• Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II (1972)
• Soviet satellite Kosmos 954, with a nuclear reactor on board, burns up on reentry, scattering radioactive debris over Canada’s Northwest Territories (1978)
• The Macintosh goes on sale (1984)

Birthdays

• Hadrian, Roman emperor (76)
• William Congreve, playwright and poet (1670)
• Frederick the Great, Prussian monarch (1712)
• E. T. A. Hoffman, author of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (1776)
• Edith Wharton, writer (1862)
• Ernst Henkel, aircraft designer (1888)
• Walter Model, German field marshal (1891)
• Robert Motherwell, painter (1915)
• Ernest Borgnine, actor (1917)
• Oral Roberts, evangelist (1918)
• Desmond Morris, zoologist and ethnologist (1928)
• John Romita, comics artist (1930)
• Ray Stevens, comic singer-songwriter (1939)
• Neil Diamond, singer-songrwriter (1941)
• Gary Hart, US senator and presidential candidate (1942)
• Sharon Tate, model and actress killed by the Manson Family (1943)
• Warren Zevon, singer-songwriter (1947)
• Michael Des Barres, singer-songwriter (1948)
• John Belushi, actor and comedian (1949)
• Yakov Smirnoff, comedian (1951)
• Nastassja Kinsky, actress (1961)
• Mary Lou Retton, gymnast (1968)

Deaths

• Caligula, Roman emperor (41)
• Amedeo Modigliani, painter and sculptor (1920)
• Winston Churchill, UK prime minister (1965)
• Bill W., co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (1971)
• Larry Fine, member of the Three Stooges (1975)
• George Cukor, filmmaker (1983)
• L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology (1986)
• Ted Bundy, serial killer (1989)
• Thurgood Marshall, Supreme Court justice (1993)
• Pernell Roberts, actor (2010)
• Marvin Minsky, artificial intelligence researcher (2016)

Holidays and Celebrations

• Feast of Our Lady of Peace (Roman Catholicism)
• Unification Day (Romania)

January 24 is the 24th day of the year. There are 341 days (342 in leap years) remaining until the end of the year.