On June 24, 1497, the first recorded discovery of the North American mainland occurred as explorer John Cabot sighted land between Halifax and southern Labrador.
In 1763, Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon, was born in Martinique.
In 1793, the first republican constitution in France was adopted.
In 1908, Grover Cleveland, the 22d and 24th U.S. president, died at age 71 in Princeton, N.J.
In 1940, the French government of Marshal Henri Petain signed an armistice with Italy in World War II.
In 1947, in what is believed to be the first report of ``flying saucers,`` Kenneth Arnold of Boise, Idaho, claimed he observed nine ``shining, saucerlike objects`` over Mt. Rainier, Wash.
In 1948, the Soviet Union began the Berlin blockade by halting road and rail traffic between Berlin and West Germany.
In 1975, an Eastern Airlines jet carrying 124 people from New Orleans to New York crashed at the edge of Kennedy International Airport, killing 113.
In 1976, the Supreme Court struck down laws extending the federal minimum wage to cover state and municipal workers.
In 1981, Oak Brook millionaire Paul Butler was struck and killed by an auto in front of his home. On the same date, former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said Israel had developed the capacity to produce an atomic bomb.