On This Day, Oct. 24: Obama declares H1N1 national emergency

Oct. 24 (UPI) -- On this date in history:

In 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War in Europe.

In 1861, the first telegram was transmitted across the United States from California Chief Justice Stephen Field to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in Washington.

In 1901, daredevil Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

In 1929, $5 billion in market values were swept away in the greatest selling wave in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 would mark the beginning of a 10-year Depression which would affect the entire Western world.

In 1931, New York City's George Washington Bridge opened to public traffic.

File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

In 1962, the blockade of Cuba was in effect, with a ring of U.S. warships and planes under orders to block by whatever means, further aggressive arm deliveries to Fidel Castro.

In 1992, the Toronto Blue Jays become the first Major League Baseball team based outside the United States to win the World Series.

In 2002, police arrested two suspects in a three-week series of Washington-area sniper attacks that killed 10 people and wounded three others. John Allen Muhammad, 41, and John Lee Malvo, 17, were found sleeping in a car at a rest stop near Frederick, Md. Both were convicted. Muhammad was executed and Malvo sentenced to life in prison.

In 2003, an era in aviation history ended when the supersonic Concorde took off from New York to London on its final flight.

File Photo by Jeff Christensen/Pool

In 2005, civil rights icon Rosa Parks died at age 92. Parks gave new impetus to the rights movement in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala., bus.

In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama declared a national emergency related to the outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus, also known as swine flu, to aid local authorities in dealing with the pandemic. Medical officials put the American death toll at 530 with thousands hospitalized.

In 2012, a 41-mile final stretch of Texas Highway 130, a toll road from Mustang Ridge, south of Austin, to Seguin, opened with the highest speed limit in the United States -- 85 mph.

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy made landfall for the first time, in Jamaica, killing two people there. The storm would go on to cause tens of billions of dollars in the northeast United States and kill more than 200 people along its path.

In 2018, one person in South Carolina won the biggest lottery jackpot in U.S. history -- $1.6 billion -- after three months of no Mega Millions winners.