February 24

  • 1920 Nancy Astor, Unionist (now Conservative) MP, became the first woman to speak in Britain’s House of Commons.
  • 1969 General election in Northern Ireland. Unionists won 36 seats, of which 24 were pro-Terence O’Neill and twelve against. O’Neill himself had a narrow victory over Ian Paisley, standing as a ‘Protestant Unionist’. John Hume defeated Nationalist Party leader Eddie McAteer in the Foyle constituency.
  • 1766 Samuel Wesley, organist and composer known as ‘the English Mozart’, born in Bristol. o