August 24

August 24th is the 236th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (237th in leap years), with 129 days remaining.

Events:

79: Mount Vesuvius erupts. The cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae are buried in volcanic ash.
410: The Visigoths take Rome.
1215: Pope Innocent III declares the Magna Carta invalid.
1349: 6,000 Jews are killed in Mainz because they are blamed for the plague.
1391: Jews massacred in Palma de Mallorca.
1456: The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed.
1511: The Portugueses conquer Malacca.
1572: Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre: Ordered by king Charles IX, a massacre of Huguenots (French Protestants) is started. In the end, 70,000 people will be killed.
1608: The first official British representative to India lands in Surat.
1682: William Penn receives the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania.
1814: British troops invade Washington DC and burn down the White House and several other buildings.
1831: Charles Darwin is asked to travel on the HMS Beagle.
1847: Charlotte Brontë finishes Jane Eyre.
1853: Potato chips first prepared.
1857: Beginning of the Panic of 1857, one of the most severe economic crises in US history.
1858: In Richmond, 90 blacks are arrested for learning.
1891: Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera.
1909: Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.
1914: German troops capture Namur.
1929: Turkey and Persia sign a friendship treaty.
1931: France and the Soviet Union sign a neutrality/no attack treaty.
1932: Amelia Earhart is the first first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to Newark).
1936: The Australian Antarctic Territory is created.
1944: French and allied troops start the attack on Paris.
1949: The NATO goes into effect.
1950: Edith Sampson is the first black US delegate to the UN.
1954: The Communist Control Act goes into effect. The American Communist Party is outlawed.
1960: A temperature of -88°C (-127°F) is measured in Vostok, Antarctica - a world record low.
1963: The 200m freestyle is swum under 2 minutes for the first time (Don Schollander in 1:58).
1968: France explodes its first hydrogen bomb, thus becoming the world's fifth thermonuclear power.
1979: In Central Park, New York a concert is given by cars.
1981: Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life for murdering John Lennon.
1989: Colombian drugs barons declare "total war" on the Colombian government.
1989: Voyager 2 passes Neptune.
1990: A judge rules Judas Priest irresponsible for the death of two youths who committed suicide after listening to the band's music.
1990: Sinead O'Connor refuses to perform at the Garden State Arts Plaza in Homdel NJ if The Star Spangled Banner is played before her show as is custom.
1991: Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party.
1991: The Ukraine declares itself independent from the Soviet Union.
1992: Diplomatic relations are established between China and South Korea.
1994: Initial accord between Israel and the PLO about partial self-rule of the Palestinians on the West Bank.
1995: Windows 95 becomes available.
1998: The Netherlands are selected as the site for the trial of the two Libyan suspects of the 1988 PanAm bombing.

Births:

1113: Geoffrey Plantaget, conqueror of Normandy for France
1750: M. Laetitita Bonaparte-Ramolino, Napoleon's mother
1759: Wilbur Wilberforce, campaigner against slavery
1772: Willem I, first king of the Netherlands (1814-1840)
1787: James Weddell, Antarctic explorer
1817: Aleksei Tolstoi, writer/poet
1865: Ferdinand I, king of Romania
1880: Joshua Lionel Cowen, inventor of the toy electric train
1899: Jorge Luis Borges, Argentinian writer
1901: Preston Foster, actor
1929: Yasser Arafat, Palestinian leader
1938: David Freiburg, bass guitar player (Jefferson Starship)
1944: Jim Capaldi, singer
1945: Ken Hensley, rock musician (Uriah Heep)
1958: Steve Guttenberg, actor
1960: Cal Ripken, Jr., shortstop
1963: John Bush, heavy metal singer (Anthrax)
1971: Claudia Schiffer, model

Deaths:

1103: Magnus III Berbein, king of Norway (1093-1103)
1313: Henry VII, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (1312-1313)
1680: Thomas Blood, thief of the British Crown Jewels
1991: Bernard Castro, inventor of the convertible couch, age 87

Holidays etcetera:

Liberia: Flag Day (1847)
Sierra Leone: President's Birthday
Ukraine: National Holiday (1991)

August 23 - August 25 - July 24 - September 24 - more historical anniversaries

See Also: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December