Local history

50 years ago: April 24, 1975

The Rev. Sean M. Sullivan, president of Saint Francis College, announced plans for the opening of a fine arts museum in a renovated Doyle Hall to be called the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art for Blair, Bedford, Cambria, Fulton, Huntingdon and Somerset Counties.

25 years ago: April 24, 2000

Joseph Reasy, chairman of the Sister City Committee, announced that a nine member Altoona group headed by Mayor Thomas Martin would travel to St. Polten, Austria, May 15, to ratify a sister-city committee, and a St. Polten group would visit Altoona July 4.

10 years ago: APril 24, 2015

Altoona City Councilman Mike Haire was concerned when bricks fell from four city buildings in about seven weeks: former LeBistro Restaurant (12th Avenue & 15th Street), former Austin’s Market (2300 7th Ave.), Thompson Pharmacy (12th Avenue & 12th Street) and former Rouzer Drugstore (18th Street & 20th Avenue).

— Compiled by Tim Doyle

World history

Today is Thursday, April 24, the 114th day of 2025. There are 251 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On April 24, 1916, Irish republicans launched the Easter Rising, a rebellion against British rule in Ireland. Though the rebels surrendered to British forces six days later, the uprising set the stage for republican victories in the Irish general election of 1918 and the establishment of the Irish Free State via the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922.

On this date:

– In 1915, in what is considered the start of the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Empire began rounding up Armenian political and cultural leaders in Constantinople.

– In 1960, rioting erupted in Biloxi, Mississippi, after Black protesters staging a “wade-in” at a whites-only beach were attacked by a crowd of hostile white people.

– In 1967, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when his Soyuz 1 spacecraft smashed into the Earth after his parachutes failed to deploy properly during reentry. He was the first human spaceflight fatality.

– In 1980, the United States launched Operation Eagle Claw, an unsuccessful attempt to free 53 American hostages in Iran that resulted in the deaths of eight U.S. service members.

– In 1990, Space Shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope.

– In 1995, the final bomb linked to the Unabomber exploded inside the Sacramento, California, offices of the California Forestry Association, killing chief lobbyist Gilbert B. Murray. (Theodore Kaczynski was later sentenced to four lifetimes in prison for a series of bombings that killed three people and injured 23 others.)

– In 2013, in Bangladesh, a shoddily constructed, eight-story commercial building housing garment factories collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people.

– In 2018, former police officer Joseph DeAngelo was arrested at his home near Sacramento after DNA linked him to crimes attributed to the Golden State Killer; authorities believed he committed 13 murders and more than 50 rapes in the 1970s and 1980s. (DeAngelo would plead guilty in 2020 to 13 counts of murder and be sentenced to life in prison without parole.)

— The Associated Press