24th
August, on this day
49 BC Julius
Caesar's general Gaius
Scribonius Curio is defeated in the Second
Battle of the Bagradas River by the Numidians under Publius Attius
Varus and King Juba of Numidia. Curio commits suicide to avoid capture.
79 An eruption from Mount
Vesuvius destroys the Roman cities of Pompeii
and Herculaneum
killing at least 2,000. The hot volcanic ash helps preserve both bodies
and buildings for hundreds of years
410 Rome overrun by Visigoths,
symbolized fall of Western Roman Empire
1215 Pope
Innocent III declares Magna
Carta invalid.
1349 Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for
the bubonic plague.
1391 Jews massacred in Palma de Mallorca.
1456 The printing of the Gutenberg
Bible is completed.
1511 Alfonso
de Albuquerque of Portugal conquers Malacca, the capital of the
Sultanate of Malacca.
1561 Willem
of Orange marries duchess Anna
of Saxony.
1572 The St
Bartholomew's Day massacre in Paris after Charles IX orders the
killing of thousands of French Huguenots. An estimate 70,000 are put
to deaththroughout France
1608 The first official English representative to India lands in Surat.
1662 Act
of Uniformity requires English to accept book of Common Prayer
1682 DE awarded to William
Penn
1690 Calcutta, India is founded.
1751 Thomas Colley executed in England for drowning supposed witch
1814 British troops led by General Ross invade the city of Washington
and set fire to buildings in the capital, including the White House
and the Capitol
1816 The Treaty
of St. Louis is signed in St. Louis, Missouri.
1820 Constitutionalist insurrection at Oporto, Portugal; see Portugal's
crises of the Nineteenth Century.
1821 The Treaty
of Córdoba is signed in Córdoba, now in Veracruz,
Mexico, concluding the Mexican War of Independence from Spain.
1831 Charles
Darwin is asked to travel on HMS Beagle.
1853 1st potato chips prepared by Chef George
Crum (Saratoga Springs, NY)
1857 The Panic
of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises
in U.S. history.
1858 In Richmond, Virginia, 90 blacks are arrested for learning.
1869 Waffle iron invented
1870 The Wolseley
Expedition reaches Manitoba to end the Red River Rebellion.
1875 British Merchant Navy captain Matthew
Webb becomes first man to swim the English Channel in 21 hours
45 minutes
1891 Thomas Edison
patents motion picture camera
1909 Workers start pouring concrete for Panama Canal
1912 NYC ticker tape parade for
Jim Thorpe and victorious US olympians
1912 Territory of Alaska organized
1912 US passes Anti-gag law, federal employees right to petition the
govt
1914 German troops capture Namur.
1922 Arab states reject the granting of a British mandate in Palestine
given by the League of Nations
1929 Turkey and Persia sign a friendship treaty.
1929 Riots
in Palestine of 1929: 18 Jews in Safed, 67 in Hebron, and 22 in
Jerusalem killed by Arab Palestinians.
1931 France and the Soviet Union sign a neutrality/no attack treaty.
1931 Resignation of the United Kingdom's Second
Labour Government. Formation of the
UK National Government
1932 1st transcontinental non-stop flight by a woman, Amelia
Earhart
1936 Australian Antarctic Territory created
1937 In the Spanish Civil War, the Basque
Army surrenders to the Italian Corpo
Truppe Volontarie following the Santoña
Agreement.
1939 Germany and USSR sign 10-year
non-aggression pact
1942 The Battle
of the Eastern Solomons. Japanese aircraft carrier Ryujo is sunk
and US carrier Enterprise heavily damaged.
1944 Allied troops start the attack on Paris.
1949 North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) established
1950 Operation
Magic Carpet-45,000 Yemenite Jews move to Israel
1951 The start of the Mau-Mau rebellion against British
rule in Kenya
1954 The United States of America outlaws membership of the Communist
Party with the Communist
Control Act - signed by US President Dwight Eisenhower
1954 Getúlio
Dornelles Vargas, president of Brazil, commits suicide and is
succeeded by João Café Filho.
1954 International Amateur Athletic Federation recognizes Red China
1956 1st non-stop transcontinental helicopter flight arrived Wash
DC
1960 60 people die when bus plunges off bridge into Turvo River, Brazil
1960 A temperature of -88°C (-127°F) is measured in Vostok,
Antarctica — a world-record low.
1961 Former nazi leader Johannes
Vorster becomes South Africa's minister of justice (if the shoe
fits...)
1965 450,000 year old body of man is found in a Hungarian limestone
quarry
1966 USSR launches Luna 11 for orbit around Moon
1967 Liberian flag designed
1967 Led by Abbie
Hoffman, a group of hippies temporarily disrupt trading at the
NYSE by throwing dollar bills from the viewing gallery, causing a
cease in trading as the brokers scramble to grab them up.
1968 France becomes the world's fifth nuclear power when it successfully
explodes a hydrogen bomb near Fugataufa Atoll in the Pacific Ocean
1970 Bomb kills 1 at U of Wisconsin's Army Math Research Center in
Madison
1975 Death sentences imposed on former Greek Prime Minister Georgios
Papadopoulos and two other leaders of the 1967 coup, are commuted
to life imprisonment
1976 Soyuz 21 returns to Earth
1979 UN's Vienna office begins issuing postage stamps
1981 American Mark
Chapman is given a 20 year life sentence for shooting John Lennon
- the former member of the British group, The Beatles - in New York
1986 Irish musician Bob
Geldof marries Paula
Yates
1987 Announcement of possible Martian tornadoes
1989 Voyager
2 flies past Neptune
1989 Colombian drug barons declare "total war" on the Colombian
government.
1990 Iraqi troops surround US and other embassies in Kuwait City
1990 Irishman Brian
Keenan is released by his Islamic kidnappers in Beirut after spending
52 months in captivity
1990 A judge rules that Judas
Priest are not responsible for the deaths of two youths who committed
suicide after listening to the band's music.
1991 Gorbachev
resigns as head of USSR Communist Party
1991 The Parliament of Ukraine declares independence from the Soviet
Union
1992 Diplomatic relations are established between the People's Republic
of China and South Korea.
1992 Hurricane
Andrew hits South Florida as a Category 5 Hurricane.
1994 Initial accord between Israel and the PLO about partial self-rule
of the Palestinians on the West Bank.
1998 Britain, the United States and the Netherlands agree to put two
Libyans on trial for planting
the bomb which blew up a Pan Am airliner over the town of Lockerbie,
Scotland killing all those on board and several on the ground
1998 First RFID human
implantation tested in the United Kingdom.
2000 Argon
fluorohydride, the first Argon compound ever known, is discovered
at the University of Helsinki by Finnish scientists.
2001 Air
Transat Flight 236 runs out of fuel over the Atlantic Ocean (en
route to Lisbon from Toronto) and makes an emergency landing in the
Azores.
2004 89
passengers die after two airliners explode after flying out of Domodedovo
International Airport, near Moscow. The explosions were caused by
suicide bombers (reportedly female) from the Russian
Republic of Chechnya.
2006 The
International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term "planet"
such that Pluto is considered a Dwarf
Planet.
2008 The 2008
Olympics will come to an end in Beijing, Peoples Republic of China.
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Birthdates which
occurred on 24th August :
1113 Geoffrey Plantagenet
France, conquered Normandy
1591 Robert Herrick England, poet (Gather ye rosebuds) (baptized)
1759 Wilbur Wilberforce England, crusaded against slavery
1787 James Weddell Ostend England, Antarctic explorer (Weddell Sea)
1816 Sir Daniel Gooch laid 1st successful transatlantic cables
1872 Sir Max Beerbohm England, caricaturist/writer/wit (Saturday Review)
1886 William Francis Gibbs naval architect, designed Liberty ships
1890 Duke Kahanamoku Hawaii, 100m swimmer (Olympic-gold-1912, 20)
1894 Jean Rhys West Indies, writer (Voyage in the Dark)
1896 Phil Baker Phila, comedian (Who's Whose)
1898 Albert Claude Belgium, physician (Nobel 1974)
1898 Malcolm Cowley Belsano Penn, author (Flowering of New England)
1899 Jorge Luis Borges Argentina, writer of fiction, essays (Labyrinths)
19-- Carole Ita White NYC, actress (Rosie-Laverne & Shirley)
19-- Frank Runyeon actor (As the World Turns)
19-- Stephen Keep Camden SC, actor (Les Kincaid-Flo)
19-- Steve Hanks Wadsworth Ohio, actor (B.A.D. Cats)
1900 Preston Foster Ocean City NJ, actor (Waterfront, Gunslinger)
1902 Fernand Braudel French historian (Civililization & Capitalism)
1912 Durward Kirby Indianapolis Ind, TV announcer (Garry Moore Show)
1917 Dennis James Jersey City NJ, wrestling announcer/TV host (PDQ)
1922 R‚ne L‚vesque Quebec premier (1976-85)
1924 Louis Teicher pianist (Ferrante & Teicher-Exodus)
1927 William V Shannon journalist/ambassador to Ireland (1977-81)
1938 Mason Williams Abilene Tx, writer (Smother Brothers Hour)
1944 Gregory B Jarvis Detroit Mich, astronaut (STS 25)
1946 Richard "Dick" N Richards Key West Fl, USN/astr (STS-28,
41, sk:50)
1949 Anna L Fisher St Albans NY, MD/astronaut (STS 51-A)
1949 Joe Regalbuto Bkln NY, actor (Knots Landing, Frank-Murphy Brown)
1956 Gerry Cooney heavyweight boxer (Olympics-1980)
1958 Steve Guttenberg Bkln NY, actor (Police Academy, Short Circuit)
1961 Cal Ripken Jr all-star shortstop (Balt Orioles)
1963 John Bush heavy metal rocker (Armoured Saint-Can U Deliver)
1964 Pebbles rocker (Girlfriend)
1965 Marlee Matlin Ill, deaf actress (Children of Lesser God-Acad
Award)
1962 Mary E Weber Cleveland Ohio, PhD/astronaut
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Deaths which occurred
on August 24th:
1967 Amanda Randolph actress (Danny Thomas, Amos n Andy), dies at
65
1973 Billy Greene actor (Burton-One Man's Family), dies at 76
1983 Jack Somack actor (Ball Four, Stockard Channing Show), dies at
64
1988 Max Shulman author (Dobie Gillis, Tender Trap), dies at 69
1991 Abel Kivlat US 1500m runner (Olympic-silver-1912), dies at 99
1991 Bernard Castro patented convertible couch, dies at 87
1998 E.G. Marshall actor - "The Defenders", "Nixon",
"Absolute Power", dies at 88
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