FRIDAY, July 24, 2026

1534-French explorer Jacques Cartier claims for France the lands around Gaspé by erecting a 30-foot cross at Pointe-Penouille

1567-Mary, Queen of Scots, is forced to abdicate; her 1-year-old son becomes King James VI of Scotland

1832-Benjamin Bonneville leads the first wagon train across the Rocky Mountains through Wyoming's South Pass

1911-American explorer Hiram Bingham rediscovers Machu Picchu, the Lost City of the Incas

1943-Operation Gomorrah: RAF begins bombing Hamburg (until Aug. 3), creating a firestorm and killing 42,600 people

2019-Global warming is the fastest in 2,000 years and scientific consensus that humans are the cause is at 99 percent, according to three major reports published in journals "Nature" and "Nature Geoscience"