Thursday, April 24, 1692

A building in the Savar Upazila of Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed, killing 1,134 people, making it the deadliest accidental structural failure in modern history.

Secret documents relating to detainees at the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camp were released on WikiLeaks and several independent news organizations.

A backhoe breached a pipeline in Toronto, Canada, which caused a gas explosion that killed seven people.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a truck bomb in London's financial district in Bishopsgate, killing one person, injuring forty-four others, and causing damage that cost £350 million to repair.

Gruinard Island in Scotland, the site of biological warfare testing by British scientists, was declared free of anthrax after 48 years of quarantine.

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard STS-31 by Space Shuttle Discovery.

Eight U.S. servicemen died in Operation Eagle Claw, a failed attempt to rescue the captives in the Iran hostage crisis.

Cold War: The Dominican Civil War broke out due to tensions following a military coup against the democratically elected government of President Juan Bosch two years earlier.

World War II: The British Special Boat Service executed a successful raid to destroy an Axis radio station on the Greek island of Santorini.

Nazi Germany began its persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses by shutting down the Watch Tower Society office in Magdeburg.

An estimated 400 ramblers committed a wilful mass trespass of Kinder Scout (pictured) in the Peak District to highlight the denial of access to areas of open country in England.

The first portion of the Imperial Wireless Chain, a strategic international wireless telegraphy communications network created to link the countries of the British Empire, opened.