August
24
Independence
Day
Russia : 24 August 1991
Ukraine : August 24 1991
Events
August
24
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 – Mount Vesuvius erupts. The cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum,
and Stabiae are buried in volcanic ash (note: this traditional
date has been challenged, and many scholars believe that the
event occurred on October 24).
410 – The Visigoths under king Alaric I begin to pillage Rome.
455 – The Vandals, led by king Genseric, begin to plunder Rome.
Pope Leo I requests Genseric not destroy the ancient city or
murder its citizens. He agrees and the gates of Rome are opened.
However, the Vandals loot a great amount of treasure.
1185 – Sack of Thessalonica by the Normans.
1200 – King John of England, signee of the first Magna Carta,
marries Isabella of Angouleme in Bordeaux Cathedral.
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 are massacred in Palma de Mallorca.
1456 – The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed.
1482 – The town and castle of Berwick upon Tweed is captured
from Scotland by an English army
1561 – Willem of Orange marries duchess Anna of Saxony.
1608 – The first official English representative to India lands
in Surat.
1662 – The Act of Uniformity requires England to accept the
Book of Common Prayer.
1682 – William Penn receives the area that is now the state
of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania.
1690 – Job Charnock of the East India Company establishes a
factory in Calcutta, an event formerly considered the founding
of the city (in 2003 the Calcutta High Court ruled that the
city has no birthday).
1812 – Peninsula War: A coalition of Spanish, British, and Portuguese
forces succeed in lifting the two-and-a-half-year-long Siege
of Cádiz.
1814 – British troops invade Washington, D.C. and burn down
the White House and several other buildings.
1815 – The modern Constitution of the Netherlands is signed.
1816 – The Treaty of St. Louis is signed in St. Louis, Missouri.
1820 – Constitutionalist insurrection at Oporto, Portugal.
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.
1857 – The Panic of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most
severe economic crises in United States history.
1870 – The Wolseley Expedition reaches Manitoba to end the Red
River Rebellion.
1875 – Captain Matthew Webb became first person to swim the
English Channel
1891 – Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera.
1891 – Tomáš Baťa and Antonín Baťa established T. & A. Bata
Shoe Company
1898 – Count Muravyov, Foreign Minister of Russia presents a
rescript that convoked the First Hague Peace Conference.
1902 – A statue of Joan of Arc is unveiled in Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier.
1909 – Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.
1912 – Alaska becomes a United States territory.
1914 – World War I: German troops capture Namur.
1929 – Second day of two-day Hebron massacre during the 1929
Palestine riots: Arab attacks on the Jewish community in Hebron
in the British Mandate of Palestine, result in the death of
65-68 Jews and the remaining Jews being forced to leave the
city.
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 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across
the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to Newark, New
Jersey).
1933 – The Crescent Limited train derails in Washington, D.C.,
after the bridge it is crossing is washed out by the 1933 Chesapeake–Potomac
hurricane.
1936 – The Australian Antarctic Territory is created.
1937 – In the Spanish Civil War, the Basque Army surrenders
to the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie following the Santoña
Agreement.
1941 – Adolf Hitler orders the cessation of Nazi Germany's systematic
T4 euthanasia program of the mentally ill and the handicapped
due to protests, although killings continue for the remainder
of the war.
1942 – World War II: The Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Japanese
aircraft carrier Ryūjō is sunk and US carrier USS Enterprise
heavily damaged.
1944 – World War II: Allied troops begin the attack on Paris.
1949 – The treaty creating NATO goes into effect.
1950 – Edith Sampson becomes the first black U.S. delegate to
the United Nations.
1954 – The Communist Control Act goes into effect. The American
Communist Party is outlawed.
1954 – Getúlio Dornelles Vargas, president of Brazil, commits
suicide and is succeeded by João Café Filho.
1963 – Buddhist crisis: As a result of the Xa Loi Pagoda raids,
the US State Department cables the US Embassy in Saigon to encourage
Army of the Republic of Vietnam generals to launch a coup against
President Ngo Dinh Diem if he did not remove his brother Ngo
Dinh Nhu.
1963 – Don Schollander swims the 200-metre freestyle in less
than 2 minutes for the first time, in a world record time of
1:58.
1967 – Led by Abbie Hoffman, the Youth International Party temporarily
disrupts trading at the NYSE by throwing dollar bills from the
viewing gallery, causing trading to cease as brokers scramble
to grab them.
1981 – Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in
prison for murdering John Lennon.
1989 – Colombian drug barons declare "total war" on
the Colombian government.
1989 – Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose is banned from baseball
for gambling by Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti.
1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union.
1991 – Ukraine declares itself independent from the Soviet Union.
1992 – Hurricane Andrew makes landfall just south of Miami 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 – First RFID human implantation tested in the United Kingdom.
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 – Eighty-nine passengers die after two airliners explode
after flying out of Domodedovo International Airport, near Moscow.
The explosions are 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 now considered
a Dwarf Planet.
2010 – In San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, 72 illegal immigrants
were killed by Los Zetas and eventually found dead by Mexican
authorities.
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Abban of Ireland
Aurea of Ostia
Bartholomew (Roman Catholic, Anglican)
Ouen
August 24 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Earliest date on which Notting Hill Carnival can fall, while
August 31 is the latest; celebrated on the last Monday in August
and the day before. (Notting Hill)
International Day Against Intolerance, Discrimination and Violence
Based on Musical Preferences, Lifestyle and Dress Code
National Day or Den' Nezalezhnosti, celebrates the independence
of Ukraine from the Soviet Union in 1991.
One of the three Mundus patet, a harvest feast involving the
dead. (Roman Empire)
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