November 24 Birthday

Famous Birthdays on November 24

• Zachary Taylor (1784)

  American military general who became the 12th President of the United States.

• Scott Joplin (1868)

  American composer and pianist known as the King of Ragtime, celebrated for works including Maple Leaf Rag (his exact birth year is disputed by some sources, with a small number citing 1867).

• Dale Carnegie (1888)

  American writer and lecturer known for How to Win Friends and Influence People, one of the best-selling self-help books ever published.

• Katherine Heigl (1978)

  American actress known for Grey's Anatomy and Knocked Up.

This Day in History

• 1859 — Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, introducing the theory of evolution by natural selection to the public.

• 1963 — Jack Ruby fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald on live television, two days after Oswald's arrest in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

• 1971 — A man using the alias D. B. Cooper hijacked a commercial airliner, extorted a ransom, and parachuted from the plane, never to be conclusively identified or found.

What November 24 Says About You

Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species on this date in 1859, a book whose central argument is that enormous, permanent change happens gradually, through small variations compounding quietly over long stretches of time rather than arriving all at once. It's a strange fit, then, that this same date's other major anniversaries are both about the opposite: sudden, singular acts that changed the public record permanently in an instant. Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald on live television on this date in 1963, an act witnessed in real time by a stunned national audience and one that closed off, forever, any chance of a full public trial for Oswald. Eight years later, in 1971, a hijacker using the alias D. B. Cooper extorted a ransom from an airline and then parachuted out of the plane over the Pacific Northwest, vanishing so completely that his identity and fate remain unresolved more than fifty years later. Both events share a quality Scorpio is often associated with astrologically: an irreversible act that permanently forecloses further explanation, leaving behind mystery rather than resolution. The 24th works out to numerology day number 6 (2+4=6), linked to responsibility, care, and steady communal effort, sitting in interesting tension with the date's more abrupt historical anniversaries, though it fits Dale Carnegie, born on this date in 1888, whose entire career was built on teaching ordinary people how to build better, more responsible relationships with others. Scott Joplin, born on this date (with some sources placing his birth year a year earlier, in 1867, rather than the more commonly cited 1868), composed ragtime pieces built on careful, disciplined structure beneath their lively surface, a very day-number-6 combination of steadiness and craft. Zachary Taylor spent decades building a military reputation through patient, methodical campaigns before an unusually short presidency cut his second act off after little more than a year in office. Katherine Heigl has spent her career moving between ensemble television work and film, roles that consistently require steady collaborative chemistry with a cast. Zachary Taylor's presidency was cut short not by any of the era's political violence but by a sudden illness in office, a comparatively ordinary end that stands out against this date's otherwise dramatic, headline-grabbing anniversaries. November's topaz, in some folk traditions believed to help its wearer see difficult truths through to a full resolution, is a fittingly aspirational stone for a birthday whose real anniversaries include at least two mysteries that were never fully resolved at all. Dale Carnegie was born Dale Carnagey, adjusting the spelling of his surname early in his career, a change some biographers have linked to the more famous industrialist Andrew Carnegie, though Carnegie himself downplayed any deliberate connection. Katherine Heigl, after her early sitcom and blockbuster film work, moved into more dramatic television roles in later years, including Suits and Firefly Lane, a second act less flashy than her earlier fame but built on steadier, longer-running work.