Former professional football player, businessman, and diplomat, Sidney Williams was born in Shreveport, Louisiana on March 24, 1942.

Z. Alexander Looby the first African American to serve on the Nashville City Council

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John W. Davis , in full John William Davis (born April 13, 1873, Clarksburg, W.Va., U.S.—died March 24, 1955, Charleston, S.C.), conservative Democratic politician who was his party’s unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the United States in 1924.

Davis was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1895 but returned to his birthplace two years later. In 1899 he was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates, and in 1910 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. From 1913 to 1918 he served as solicitor general of the United States, and he was one of Pres. Woodrow Wilson’s advisers at the Paris Peace Conference following World War I (1919). He also served as ambassador to Great Britain (1918–21), after which he accepted a partnership in a New York law firm.

At the Democratic National Convention of 1924, neither the supporters of New York Gov. Alfred E. Smith nor those of the more traditional William G. McAdoo would yield their votes in order to settle on a presidential candidate. After 102 ballots the party compromised by choosing Davis, who went down to overwhelming defeat that fall before Republican Calvin Coolidge.

Returning to private law practice, Davis appeared in many cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. The capstone of his career was his victory in 1952 when the Supreme Court ruled that Pres. Harry S. Truman had exceeded his constitutional powers in seizing control of the nation’s steel mills.

Halle Berry becomes the first black woman to win an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the movie Monsters Ball.

On Sept. 1, 1969, 27-year-old Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi deposed the king and revolutionized the country, making it a pro-Arabic, anti-Western, Islamic republic with socialist leanings. It was also rabidly anti-Israeli. A notorious firebrand, Qaddafi aligned himself with dictators, such as Ugandas Idi Amin, and fostered anti-Western terrorism.

On Aug. 19, 1981, two U.S. Navy F-14s shot down two Soviet-made SU-22s of the Libyan air force that had attacked them in air space above the Gulf of Sidra. On March 24, 1986, U.S. and Libyan forces skirmished in the Gulf of Sidra, and two Libyan patrol boats were sunk. Qaddafis troops also supported rebels in Chad but suffered major military reverses in 1987. A two-year-old U.S. covert policy to destabilize the Libyan government ended in failure in Dec. 1990.

On Dec. 21, 1988, a Boeing 747 exploded in flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, the result of a terrorist bomb, killing all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground. This and other acts of terrorism, including the bombing of a Berlin discotheque in 1986 and the downing of a French UTA airliner in 1989 that killed 170, turned Libya into a pariah in the eyes of the West. Two Libyan intelligence agents were indicted in the Lockerbie bombing, but Qaddafi refused to hand them over, leading to UN-approved trade and air traffic embargoes in 1992. In 1999, Libya finally surrendered the two men, who were tried in the Netherlands in 2000–2001. One was found guilty of mass murder; the other defendant was found innocent. Libya had hoped its fainthearted cooperation would lead to suspended sanctions, which had severely affected the Libyan economy. The UN did suspend its sanctions, but they were not formally removed for another four years, not until Sept. 2003, when Libya finally admitted its guilt in the Lockerbie bombing and agreed to pay $2.7 billion to the victims families. In 2004, Libya also agreed to compensate the families of the victims of the UTA airliner bombing ($170 million) and the Berlin disco bombing ($35 million).

Birthday of Dorothy Irene Height in Richmond, Virginia. Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women for more than three decades, organized a successful drive to place a statue of Mary McLeod Bethune in a District of Columbia park. Once erected, the statue became the first of an African American in a public park in Washington, D.C.

Olive Schreiner , in full Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner, pseudonym Ralph Iron (born March 24, 1855, Wittebergen, Cape Colony [now in South Africa]—died Dec. 11, 1920, Cape Town, S.Af.), writer who produced the first great South African novel, The Story of an African Farm (1883). She had a powerful intellect, militantly feminist and liberal views on politics and society, and great vitality that was somewhat impaired by asthma and severe depressions. Her brother William Philip Schreiner was prime minister of Cape Colony from 1899 to 1902.

Although Schreiner had no formal education, she read widely and was taught by her formidable mother. From early childhood she had an active fantasy life. From 1874 until 1881 (when she went to England, hoping to study medicine) she earned her living as a governess; during this time she wrote two semiautobiographical novels, Undine (published 1928) and The Story of an African Farm (1883), and began From Man to Man (1926), at which she worked intermittently for 40 years but never finished.

The Story of an African Farm was an immediate success in Europe and North America, bringing its author, though published pseudonymously, many distinguished admirers. It tells the story of a girl on an isolated farm in the veld who struggles for her independence in the face of rigid Boer social conventions. The book’s originality, assured handling of narrative and description, exotic background, and vigorous expression of feminist, anti-Christian views on religion and marriage gave it both notoriety and wide appeal.

Notable among Schreiner’s other works are an attack on the activities of Cecil Rhodes and his associates, Trooper Peter Halkett of Mashonaland (1897), and a widely acclaimed “bible” of the Women’s Movement, Woman and Labour (1911).

Dusanne was born Zola Graves on March 24, 1884 in Kansas to Letitia Denny and John Henry Graves, a stonemason.