August 24

79 Mount Vesuvius erupts destroying Pompeii, Stabiae, Herculaneum and other smaller settlements.

410 German barbarians sack Rome.

1542 In South America, Gonzalo Pizarro returns to the mouth of the Amazon River after having sailed the length of the great river as far as the Andes Mountains.

1572 Some 50,000 people are put to death in the ‘Massacre of St. Bartholomew’ as Charles IX of France attempts to rid the country of Huguenots.

1780 King Louis XVI abolishes torture as a means to get suspects to confess.

1814 British troops under General Robert Ross capture Washington, D.C., which they set on fire in retaliation for the American burning of the parliament building in York (Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada.
1847 Charlotte Bronte, using the pseudonym Currer Bell, sends a manuscript of Jane Eyre to her publisher in London.

1869 Cornelius Swarthout of Troy, New York, patents the waffle iron.

1891 Thomas Edison files a patent for the motion picture camera.

1894 Congress passes the first graduated income tax law, which is declared unconstitutional the next year.

1896 Thomas Brooks is shot and killed by an unknown assailant begining a six year feud with the McFarland family.

1912 By an act of Congress, Alaska is given a territorial legislature of two houses.

1942 In the battle of the Eastern Solomons, the third carrier-versus-carrier battle of the war, U.S. naval forces defeat a Japanese force attempting to screen reinforcements for the Guadalcanal fighting.

1948 Edith Mae Irby becomes the first African-American student to attend the University of Arkansas.

1954 Congress outlaws the Communist Party in the United States.

1963 US State Department cables embassy in Saigon that if South Vietnam’s president Ngo Dinh Diem does not remove his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu as his political adviser the US would explore alternative leadership, setting the stage for a coup by ARVN generals.

1975 The principal leaders of Greece’s 1967 coup—Georgios Papadopoulos, Stylianos Pattakos, and Nikolaos Maarezos—sentenced to death for high treason, later commuted to life in prison.

1981 Mark David Chapman sentenced to 20 years to life for murdering former Beatles band member John Lennon.

1989 Colombian drug lords declare "total and absolute war" on Colombia’s government, booming the offices of two political parties and burning two politicians’ homes.

1989 Baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti bans Pete Rose from baseball for gambling.

1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Comunist Party of the Soviet Union; Ukraine declares its independence from USSR.

1992 Hurricane Andrew makes landfall in Florida. The Category 5 storm, which had already caused extensive damage in the Bahamas, caused $26.5 billion in US damages, caused 65 deaths, and felled 70,000 acres of trees in the Everglades.

1994 Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) create initial accord regarding partial self-rule for Palestinians living on the West Bank, the Agreement on Preparatory Transfer of Powers and Responsibilities.

2004 Chechnyan suicide bombers blow up two airliners near Moscow, killing 89 passengers.

2006 Pluto is downgraded to a dwarf planet when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines "planet."

2010 The Mexican criminal syndicate Los Zetas kills 72 illegal immigrants from Central and South America in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico.

Born on August 24

1810 Theodore Parker, anti-slavery movement leader.

1890 Jean Rhys, writer (Wild Sargasso Sea).

1895 Richard Cushing, the director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.

1898 Malcolm Cowley, poet, translator, literary critic and social historian.

1899 Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer (Ficciones).

1905 Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, blues singer, a major influence on Elvis Presley.

1915 Alice H.B. Sheldon, science fiction writer and artist, CIA photo-intelligence operative, lecturer at American University and major in the U.S. Army Air Force.

1929 Yasir Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Movement.

1951 Oscar Hijeulos, novelist (The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love).

1960 Calvin "Cal" Ripken, Jr., shortstop and third baseman for Baltimore Orioles (1981–2001) who broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played.

1963 Hideo Kojima, creator and director of video games (Metal Gear series).

1965 Reginald "Reggie" Miller, professional basketball player who set record for most career 3-point field goals (later superseded by Ray Allen); Olympic gold medalist.

1973 Grey DeLisle-Griffin, voice-over actress in animated TV shows (The Fairly OddParents) and video games (Diablo III).

2003 Alexandre Coste, son of Albert II, Prince of Monaco, and former air stewardess Nicole Coste.

More about: