TODAY IN HISTORY - June 24

Reuters

Following are some of the major events to have occurred on June 24:

1901 - The first exhibition by the 19-year-old painter Pablo Picasso opened in Paris to critical acclaim.

1908 - Grover Cleveland, twice U.S. president, died.

1916 - The first Battle of the Somme began in World War One.

1948 - The Soviet Union began a blockade of Berlin, stopping all land traffic entering the city from West Germany.

1973 - Eamon de Valera resigned as president of Ireland at the age of 90.

2001 - The Philippines' Mayon volcano erupted, spitting out flaming ash and boulders "as big as trucks" and causing at least 25,000 people to flee.

2002 - In Tanzania, a passenger train, travelling from Dar es Salaam to the northwestern town of Kigoma, rolled backwards on the track crashing into a cargo train killing 281.

2004 - Iraqi insurgents bloodied five cities with coordinated assaults on local security forces in which over 100 people were killed and more than 320 were wounded.

2007 - Saddam Hussein's cousin, widely known as "Chemical Ali", was sentenced to hang for masterminding a genocidal military campaign that used poison gas against Iraq's Kurds in the 1980s.

2010 - John Isner, Nicolas Mahut play longest match in tennis history.

2012 - Wyoming forest fire starts, eventually displacing thousands from their homes.