On April 24

A building in the Savar Upazila of Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed, killing 1,134 people, making it the deadliest accidental structural failure in modern history.

Secret documents relating to detainees at the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camp were released on WikiLeaks and several independent news organizations.

A backhoe breached a pipeline in Toronto, Canada, which caused a gas explosion that killed seven people.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a truck bomb in London's financial district in Bishopsgate, killing one person, injuring forty-four others, and causing damage that cost £350 million to repair.

The Hubble Space Telescope (pictured) was launched aboard STS-31 by Space Shuttle Discovery.

Eight U.S. servicemen died in Operation Eagle Claw, a failed attempt to rescue the captives in the Iran hostage crisis.

Cold War: The Dominican Civil War broke out due to tensions following a military coup against the democratically elected government of President Juan Bosch two years earlier.

World War II: The British Special Boat Service executed a successful raid to destroy an Axis radio station on the Greek island of Santorini.

Nazi Germany began its persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses by shutting down the Watch Tower Society office in Magdeburg.

An estimated 400 ramblers committed a wilful mass trespass of Kinder Scout (pictured) in the Peak District to highlight the denial of access to areas of open country in England.

The first portion of the Imperial Wireless Chain, a strategic international wireless telegraphy communications network created to link the countries of the British Empire, opened.

First World War: The Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux began, which contained the first instance of tanks fighting against each other.

Irish republicans led by Patrick Pearse began the Easter Rising against British rule in Ireland, and proclaimed the Irish Republic an independent state.

The Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire began with the arrest and deportation of hundreds of prominent Armenians in Constantinople.

The Franck–Hertz experiment, the first electrical measurement to clearly demonstrate quantum mechanics, was presented to the German Physical Society.

The Woolworth Building in New York City officially opened; at the time, it was the tallest building in the world, with a height of 792 ft (241 m).

Realizing that the Russification of Lithuania was not working, the Russian Empire lifted the 40-year-old ban on publications written in Lithuanian language using the Latin alphabet.

German composer Max Bruch conducted the premiere of his first violin concerto, which later became his most famous work.

A fire broke out in Surat, India, which went on to destroy about 75% of the city.

The Library of Congress (building pictured), the de facto national library of the United States, was established as part of an act of Congress providing for the transfer of the nation's capital from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.