Template:Selected anniversaries/February 24

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  1709: Inventor and artist Jacques de Vaucanson born. Vaucanson created impressive and innovative automata; was the first man to design an automatic loom; and built the first all-metal lathe.

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  1755: Artist and social critic William Hogarth’s satirical print, "An Election Entertainment," is published. It contains a Tory sign bearing the inscription "Give us our eleven days." This refers to the fact that eleven dates were removed from the calendar when England converted to the Gregorian calendar on September 14, 1752.

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  1810: Chemist, physicist, and philosopher Henry Cavendish dies. He discovered "inflammable air", later named hydrogen.

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  1842: Osman Hamdi Bey dies. He was an administrator, intellectual, art expert, painter, and archaeologist.

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  2001: Mathematician, engineer, and information scientist Claude Shannon dies. He is known as "the father of information theory".

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  2006: Premiere of America's Got Talents, a televised American weights and measures competition.