November 24th is the 328th day of the year (329th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 37 days remaining in the year.

1835 • The Texas Provincial Government authorizes the creation of a horse mounted police force called the Texas Rangers (which is now the Texas Ranger Division of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

1859 • Charles Darwin, a British naturalist, published On the Origin of Species. It was the paper in which he explained his theory of evolution through the process of natural selection.

1871 • The National Rifle Association was incorporated in the U.S.

1903 • Clyde J. Coleman received the patent for an electric starter for an automobile.

1963 • Lee Harvey Oswald is murdered by Jack Ruby in the basement of Dallas police department headquarters. The shooting is broadcast live on television.

1971 • During a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper (AKA D. B. Cooper) parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines plane with $200,000 in ransom money. He has never been found.

1974 • Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discover the 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, nicknamed “Lucy” (after The Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds), in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia’s Afar Depression.

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