Today in history: June 24

1534: Jacques Cartier becomes the first European captain to discover Prince Edward Island, though he can’t call it that because Prince Edward hasn’t been born yet.

1664: The future King James II gives the land between the Hudson and Delaware Rivers as a proprietary colony to  Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley of Stratton.  It will come to be called “New Jersey,” because Sir George had previously been governor of Jersey.

1693: Following the destruction of Port Royal by earthquake, the British found the town of Kingstown, Jamaica.

1793: France gets its first republican constitution.  Experience will show that there are some bugs to be worked out.

1880: The song O Canada receives its first public performance at a Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day banquet in Quebec City.

1908: Lawyer and former President Stephen Grover Cleveland dies at Princeton, New Jersey.  He set a record for the number of Presidential vetoes, noting that his greatest accomplishment was his blocking of other people’s bad ideas.

1913: Sir Joseph Cook, a former mineworker with no formal education, becomes the sixth Prime Minister of Australia.

1916: Mary Pickford becomes the first film star to sign a million-dollar contract.

1974: A UPC bar-coded grocery item is scanned in a check-out line for the first time.  The event takes place at Marsh’s Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, and involves a ten-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum.

1999: The guitar that Eric Clapton used to record Layla is sold at auction for $497,500.