Today in History - March 24 | Guards at 'escape proof' prison had no idea what was going on under their feet
On March 24, 1944, Australian, British and other captured allied troops pulled off the biggest prisoner breakout of World War II in what became known as "The Great Escape".
Late in the night, 76 prisoners of war (POWs) escaped through a secret 110m tunnel built under the Stalag Luft III prison camp in what was Nazi occupied Poland.
The camp was reputed to be escape proof with special designs to thwart tunnel building.
Only three of the escapees made it to freedom, while 50 prisoners of the 73 recaptured were executed on the orders of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
The story of "The Great Escape" became a top-selling book and a 1963 film of the same name, starring Hollywood star Steve McQueen.
American film star Halle Berry achieved a historic moment on March 24, 2002, when she became the first black woman to win best lead actress at the 74th Academy Awards in Los Angeles.
Her watershed success came for her role in the film Monster's Ball in which she blamed the widow of a death row prisoner who falls in love with her husband's executioner.
On March 24, 2018, a cheating scandal rocked the touring Australian cricket team after Cameron Bancroft, Steve Smith and David Warner were found to have concocted a plan to tamper with the ball using sandpaper during the Cape Town Test match.
When they were busted by broadcast cameras, Cricket Australia banned Warner and Bancroft and then-captain Smith, shown here.
The three-hour epic film The Godfather, starring Marlon Brando as an Italian-American mafia boss, was released in US cinemas on March 24, 1972.
The movie by director Francis Ford Coppola was based on the best-selling book of the same name by Mario Puzo.
The Godfather is considered a cinematic masterpiece and spawned two sequels.
On March 24, 2016, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was found guilty of committing war crimes, including genocide, during the Balkans civil war by the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands.
He was convicted over the July 1995 massacre of more than 8000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb separatist forces in the eastern town of Srebrenica.
Karadzic was later sentenced to life in prison.
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