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)
For details, contact Datacentre
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