On this day in history - March 24

What Happened On This Day – March 24

• 1999 For the first time in its history, NATO attacks a sovereign country

  The military alliance bombed Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War - without a UN mandate.

• 1989 Oil tanker “Exxon Valdez” runs aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska

  The mishap resulted in one of the most devastating environmental disasters in history, killing up to 250,000 seabirds and other wildlife.

• 1965 Millions watch NASA spacecraft Ranger 9 crash into the Moon

  The U.S. space probe broadcast live pictures back to Earth, enabling TV viewers to follow its approach to the Moon and its controlled crash.

• 1896 Aleksander Popov achieves the world's first radio transmission

  The Russian physicist transmitted the words “Heinrich Hertz” from one building of St. Petersburg University to another.

• 1882 Robert Koch discovers the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis

  The German scientist, who is regarded as the father of modern bacteriology, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1905.