10 Events from 2024 That’ll Be in History Textbooks One Day

We’re not entirely sure if they still have history books in school or if they just teach kids these days using TikTok videos and Instagram reels to account for their short and fractured attention spans. Okay, we’re kidding about that little quip… we hope. We’re pretty certain that textbooks are still a thing, whether in their traditional hardcover version or delivered digitally. And future textbooks will have a lot to answer for in 2024. Plenty of groundbreaking, shocking, tragic, and otherwise world-changing things have gone on this year. So many, in fact, that we didn’t struggle to make a full list of the ten biggest ones!

In this list, we’ll take a look at ten events from 2024 that will absolutely, undoubtedly wind up in the history books of the future. In another ten, twenty, or thirty years, children who haven’t even been born yet will crack open those books in class and learn about the following events that occurred in 2024. And if you’re still alive and around (and coherent enough!), you can tell ’em all about how you lived through these things! Be sure to start every sentence with “back in my day,” and we’re sure you’ll have them on the edges of their seats…

Related: 10 Eyewitness Accounts of History

10 Biden Drops Out

Undoubtedly, one of the biggest news stories of the year was when Joe Biden chose not to pursue reelection for a second presidential term. It was July 21, 2024, when Biden officially announced that he was stepping away from the presidency after just one term, and he blessed his then-Vice President Kamala Harris to carry the torch for him instead. The context for his decision came after a complete bomb of a presidential debate against then-Republican candidate Donald Trump. Biden’s performance was so bad in the debate that it couldn’t be ignored or pushed off the front page.

It’s obviously very rare, especially in the modern age, for a sitting President not to seek reelection. So, for Biden to have chosen to do so—especially following such an embarrassing and dismal public performance in that debate—is beyond newsworthy. For years (decades, maybe even centuries, depending on how the next decade or two goes!), we’ll be looking back on Biden’s presidency, his choice to bow out, and his VP’s middling presidential campaign coming in the last few months of the year before losing to Trump. We live in interesting times, that’s for sure…^[1]

9 Donald Trump’s Second Term

Obviously, a president of the United States being elected (and/or re-elected) to office is big news that’ll make it into any history textbook in any scenario. However, the fact that November 2024’s election battle between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris saw the former elected to his second term is particularly history book-worthy because the elections came non-consecutively. Trump first served as president from his January 2017 inauguration through January 2021. Then, he lost his reelection bid to Joe Biden that year, only to come back and beat Biden’s vice president for the job beginning in 2025.

The non-consecutive wins matter because it’s only ever happened once before in American history. You have to go all the way back to 1892 when Grover Cleveland was re-elected President for the second time. He initially won the job in the 1884 election, then was booted out of office in 1888. Like Trump, though, he stuck to it and got his second term after stumbling through reelection, winning in 1892 and returning to the White House. Thus, Trump made history this year by being the only other person to ever take Grover Cleveland’s winding road back to Washington. Certainly, that’s textbook-worthy!^[2]

8 The Trump Assassination Attempts

Speaking of Trump, another way that he’ll wind up in the history books of the future is by surviving two different attempts on his life in 2024. Back on July 13 of this year, a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man named Matthew Crooks managed to get onto a rooftop near a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, with a long gun. He opened fire on Trump as the former reality TV star was speaking at the campaign rally. The former (and future) president’s ear was just barely grazed by a bullet, which then rocketed into the crowd and killed a spectator. Crooks was then immediately killed by Secret Service snipers.

Amazingly, that wasn’t the only attempt on Trump’s life. A little more than a month later, a man with a gun was found hiding in the bushes in a remote area of a golf course where Trump was playing a round with some pals. The suspect, later identified as Ryan Routh, was thankfully arrested before he could get a shot off at the political mainstay. He was subsequently charged with an attempted assassination. Of course, all presidents face assassination plots of varying levels of success (and, usually, total failure). But in 2024, Trump’s attempted assassinations—especially the first one that missed by millimeters—were especially notable. Without a doubt, they’ll go down in history.^[3]

7 Guilty (34 Times)

Let’s keep our focus on Donald Trump for one more round, shall we? On March 30, 2024, the then-former President became the first-ever American commander-in-chief to be convicted of a felony. He’d been brought up on charges that he falsified documents to conceal hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. And on that fateful day at the end of March, Trump was found guilty of 34 felony crimes by a jury in New York City.

Obviously, it didn’t hurt his reelection campaign very much. And while Democrats pointed out the troublesome nature of a convicted felon running for president, Republicans cried about politicized prosecutions. All the while, Trump kept running for president, eventually winning his bid over Kamala Harris. Now, and forever after moving forward, 2024 will be remembered by subsequent generations for being the year that a former prez was convicted on felony charges… and was then voted back into the White House! Even Hollywood couldn’t come up with this!^[4]

6 The Russia-Ukraine War

Russia first launched its invasion of Ukraine back in February 2022. Since then, Ukraine has pushed forth a number of counter-offensives as Russia has methodically moved to take control of more and more land. The whole conflict has been absolutely devastating for both sides up to this point. Russia is losing an unfathomable amount of military-age men who are being thrown into the meat grinder of a brutal war, while the exact same is happening to Ukraine along with their ever-present threat of possibly losing their nation (or a large chunk of it) altogether.

As all this has gone on, the rest of the world has watched along in horror. The United States and other countries, including the United Kingdom and Germany, have come to major financial aid of Ukraine to try to help them out. But thus far, it hasn’t been enough. The conflict raged on all throughout 2024 with absolutely no signs of slowing down. It’ll be interesting to see how this vicious fight is covered in future history books—and that coverage will largely depend on how the war ends. Time will only tell on both. For now, we can be certain of one thing: future generations will study this war just as we study wars from the last few centuries and long before that.^[5]

5 Sweden to NATO

On March 7, 2024, Sweden officially joined NATO. That was a major moment in the world of international relations for a few different reasons, not least of which was because both Turkey and Hungary had previously objected to the Nordic nation joining with the rest of NATO’s European and North American powers. And with Sweden now officially in the mix there, that brings the alliance up to 32 countries, making it all the more formidable as a unified group of allies operating (uh, mostly) in congruence on the world stage.

But it’s also a major moment that will be covered in future history textbooks because of who else is not in NATO. As you might have already guessed (or known), Ukraine is not in NATO, even as Sweden has now joined. And that’s a particularly sore point for many Ukrainians and other Europeans, among Ukraine’s aforementioned brutal war with Russia. See, the Russians have been dead-set on Ukraine not joining NATO for as long as the alliance has been in existence. And while Sweden joining doesn’t necessarily mean another domino has fallen for Ukraine to follow next, it certainly does make the European international relations landscape that much more complicated.^[6]

4 The Brian Thompson Murder

Very early in the morning on the day of December 4, 2024, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was shot and killed on the street in New York City. Brian Thompson had been at the helm of the biggest health insurance company in the United States—and one of the biggest overall companies in the entire world. But he was gunned down on the street while walking to a shareholder meeting in Midtown Manhattan. The murder was unbelievably brazen. It was also apparently a targeted attack, according to early details released by investigators. And days later, his alleged killer—a 26-year-old man identified as Luigi Mangione—was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

The news here wasn’t just the murder itself, which was shocking enough in its own right. The big news that’ll be covered in history textbooks also centers on the social media conversation that has bubbled up around the aftermath of Thompson’s killing. Millions of social media users reacted with a shocking mix of emotions about the killing, the horrors of the insurance industry in the United States, and whether the country could change course when it comes to giving its citizens worthwhile and meaningful medical coverage.^[7]

3 The Hottest Summer Ever

If you thought that the summer of 2024 was particularly unbearable, you were right. Climate scientists who have become experts at using all kinds of historical models to track these things determined that the summer of 2024 was the hottest one ever recorded. Average global temperatures through the months of June, July, and August of 2024 were the highest they’ve ever been. Certainly, that’ll make it into the history books of the future. Well, unless subsequent summers just keep getting hotter and hotter and hotter, that is.

As if that weren’t enough, the United States, in particular, saw an absolutely brutal first few months of 2024. During the first eight months of the year, America saw average temperatures that were a whopping three degrees higher than anything they’d recorded in the 20th century. Alaska saw all-time high temperatures, the Midwest saw horribly severe storms, and both Ohio and West Virginia saw brutal droughts that lasted for months on end. In sum, the United States (and the world, too) is experiencing a horrific climate adjustment that will be felt for decades—or centuries—on end.^[8]

2 Stuck in Space

On June 5, 2024, a pair of NASA astronauts flew up into space. Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were taken up to the International Space Station on the famed Boeing Starliner. All went well with getting them up into space, and they settled in on the ISS just as the world’s rocket scientists expected them to do. But then, the trouble began. When it was time for the Starliner to return home, experts at NASA ruled that Wilmore and Williams ought not to return to Earth. That was because they were worried about the spacecraft’s structural integrity through re-entry into the atmosphere and then landing on Earth.

So, while Wilmore and Williams were only supposed to spend eight days in space at the International Space Station, NASA scientists quickly determined that they were going to be spending months higher than that high above the Earth. Early estimates held that the duo would be stuck on the ISS until at least February 2025—from eight days in space to eight months—when they could return home on SpaceX. However, in December, NASA announced that the timeline had been pushed back until at least late March. Hope those two astronauts remembered to put all their bills on auto-pay in the meantime!^[9]

1 The Israel-Palestine War

The conflict between Israel and Palestine technically began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked the Jewish nation with a surprise terror onslaught. About three weeks later, in response, Israel invaded the Gaza Strip, which is the Palestinian area of the region governed by Hamas. And while the conflict bubbled up at first over the last couple of months of 2023, it really became a full-fledged war in 2024.

As of August 2024, more than 40,000 people had been killed in the conflict. Responding to Hamas’ terror attacks, Israel has launched countless bombings and military engagements all through the Gaza Strip. The entire region has turned into a war zone, and a humanitarian crisis has popped up right alongside. Ongoing violence, famine, and completely collapsed infrastructure will push this conflict into 2025—and possibly beyond.

While this is far from the first time Israel and Palestine have been in conflict, this is one of the most violent and long-lasting wars that has taken place in recent decades. To that end, there is no question that this ongoing war will make its way into the history books. It remains to be seen how it will end, but up until this point, the rest of the world’s horrified and tear-filled eyes have fallen upon the Gaza Strip and this terribly tragic conflict.^[10]