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Today in History ~ August 24
Events0079 - Long-dormant Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic ash. An estimated 15,000-20,000 people died. [H]
0410 - Rome overrun by Visigoths, fall of Western Roman Empire
1215 - Pope Innocent III declares Magna Carta invalid
1349 - 6,000 Jews, blamed for the Bubonic Plague, are killed in Mainz
1349 - Jews of Cologne Germany set themselves on fire to avoid baptism
1391 - Jews of Palma Majorca massacred
1516 - Battle at Aleppo: Turks beat Syria
1572 - "St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre" King Charles IX orders massacre of thousands of French Protestants; the king under the sway of his mother Catherine de Medici believed the Huguenot Protestants were plotting a revolution, thus ordered the assassination of Huguenot Protestant leaders in Paris, setting off a massacre of 70,000 Huguenots all across France. [H]
1662 - Act of Uniformity requires English to accept book of Common Prayer
1682 - Duke James of York gives Delaware to William Penn
1751 - Thomas Colley executed in England for drowning supposed witch
1787 - Wolfgang A Mozart completes his viola sonata in A, K526
1814 - British forces captured Washington, DC, & burn down many landmarks including the Capitol and the White House. [H]
1831 - John Henslow asks Charles Darwin to travel with him on HMS Beagle
1847 - Charlotte Bronte finishes manuscript of "Jane Eyre"
1853 - 1st potato chips prepared by Chef George Crum (Saratoga Springs NY)
1858 - Richmond "Daily Dispatch" reports 90 blacks arrested for learning
1862 - C.S.S. Alabama was commissioned at sea off Portugal's Azore Islands, beginning a career that would see over sixty Union merchant vessels sunk or destroyed by the Confederate raider. The ship was built in secret in the in Liverpool shipyards, a diplomatic crisis between the US government and Britain ensued when the Union uncovered the ships birth place. [H]
1869 - Cornelius Swarthout patents waffle iron
1891 - Thomas Edison patents motion picture camera
1897 - Newspaper editor Charles Dudley Warner published his often-quoted sentence, "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." The quotation is often mistakenly attributed to his friend Mark Twain.
1904 - Field battle at Liao-Yang-200,000 Japanese against 150,000 Russian
1909 - Workers start pouring concrete for Panama Canal
1912 - NYC ticker tape parade for Jim Thorpe & victorious US olympians
1912 - US passes Anti-gag law, federal employees right to petition government
1929 - Palestinians attack orthodox Jews in Jerusalem
1932 - Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly non-stop across the United States, traveling from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., having flown the 2,600 mile journey in nineteen hours and five minutes.
1936 - FDR gives FBI authority to pursuit fascists & communists
1937 - Republican offensive near Belchite Spain
1940 - Luftwaffe bombs London
1949 - North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) goes into effect
1954 - Eisenhower signs Communist Control Act, virtually outlawing the Communist Party in the United States at height of McCarthyism
1961 - Former Nazi leader Johannes Vorster becomes South Africa's minister of justice
1968 - France became the world's fifth thermonuclear power as it exploded a hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific.
1969 - Peru nationalizes US oil interests
1970 - Bomb kills 1 at U of Wisconsin's Army Math Research Center in Madison
1981 - Mark David Chapman was sentenced in New York to 20 years to life in prison for slaying rock star John Lennon.
1989 - British brewery Bass buys Holiday Inn hotel chain
1989 - Pete Rose is suspended from baseball for life for gambling
1989 - Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti banned Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose from the game for gambling.
1989 - The Voyager 2 space probe flew by Neptune, sending back striking photographs.
1990 - Iraqi troops surround US & other embassies in Kuwait City
1991 - Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev resigned as head of the Communist Party, culminating a stunning Kremlin shakeup that followed the failed coup by hard-liners. In Moscow, thousands of people held a martyrs' funeral for three men killed fighting the coup.
1991 - Ukraine declared its independence from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR),
1992 - Hurricane Andrew smashed into Florida.
1994 - Israel & PLO initialed accord giving autonomy to Palestinians in West Bank in education, health, taxation, social welfare & tourism
1995 - Windows 95 debuts
1996 - Four women began two days of academic orientation at The Citadel; they were the first female cadets admitted to the South Carolina military school since Shannon Faulkner.
2000 - Mexican President-elect Vicente Fox met with Vice President Al Gore and President Clinton in Washington, a day before he met with Texas Gov. George W. Bush in Dallas.
Birthdays Today
1113 - Geoffrey Plantagenet, France, conquered Normandy
1591 - Robert Herrick, England, poet (Gather ye rosebuds) (baptized)
1669 - Alessandro Marcello, composer
1733 - David Traugott Nicolai, composer
1750 - Laetitia Bonaparte-Ramolino, , mother of Napoleon
1759 - Wilbur Wilberforce, England, crusaded against slavery
1816 - Daniel Gooch, laid 1st successful transatlantic cables
1817 - Aleksei K Tolstoi, [Kozjma Prutkov], Russian poet/writer
1872 - Max Beerbohm, England, caricaturist/writer/wit (Saturday Review)
1880 - Joshua L Cowen, inventor (electric train)
1899 - Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina, writer of fiction, essays (Labyrinths)
1901 - Preston Foster (actor: The Time Travelers, The Marshal's Daughter, My Friend Flicka, Dr. X, Annie Oakley, Waterfront)
1912 - Durward Kirby (TV announcer: The Garry Moore Show, The Perry Como Show, Auction-Aire; TV host: Candid Camera)
1917 - Dennis James (TV host: Chance of a Lifetime, High Finance, The Name's the Same, United Cerebral Palsy Telethon; "Okay? Okay!")
1919 - Penny (Millicent) Edwards (actress: Heart of the Rockies, North of the Great Divide, Trail of Robin Hood)
1924 - Louis Teicher (pianist: duo: Ferrante & Teicher: Exodus, Tonight, Theme from "The Apartment", Midnight Cowboy)
1930 - Roger McCluskey (race driver)
1936 - Murray Balfour (hockey)
1938 - David Freiburg (musician: bass guitar: group: Jefferson Starship: We Built this City; Quicksilver Messenger Service: Dino's Song, The Fool, Who Do You Love)
1938 - Mason Williams (musician: guitar: Classical Gas; Emmy Award-winning writer: The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour [1968-69], The Glenn Campbell Goodtime Hour)
1941 - Ernest Wright (singer: group: Little Anthony and the Imperials: Tears on My Pillow, Shimmy, Shimmy, Ko-Ko-Bop, Hurt So Bad)
1944 - Jim Brady (singer: group: The Sandpipers: Guantanamera, Come Saturday Morning)
1945 - Ken Hensley (musician: guitar, keyboard, composer: group: Uriah Heep: July Morning, Easy Livin')
1946 - Dean Halverson (football)
1949 - Joe Regalbuto (actor: Murphy Brown, Knots Landing, Writer's Block, The Queen of Mean, Invitation to Hell, Lassiter)
1949 - Stephen Harrison Paulus, composer
1954 - Chris Batton (baseball)
1956 - Tony Bernazard (baseball)
1958 - Steve Guttenberg (actor: Billy, No Soap Radio, Cocoon, Three Men and a Baby, Three Men and a Little Lady, Police Academy series, The Boys from Brazil)
1960 - Cal Ripken, Jr. (baseball: record: most consecutive games played [1996], Baseball Writers' Award [1991], Rookie of the Year [1982])
1965 - Marlee Matlin (Academy Award-winning actress: Children of a Lesser God; Hear No Evil, Bridge to Silence, Reasonable Doubts)
Famous deaths
1103 - Magnus III Berbein, [Blootbeen], King of Norway (1093-1103)
1217 - Eustace "the Monk", French buccaneer, killed in battle
1572 - Gaspard de Chastillon, Count the Coligny, French gen/admiral, beheaded
1595 - Thomas Digges, English astronomer (Universe Infinite), dies
1759 - Ewald C von Kleist, German poet, dies at 44
1770 - Thomas Chatterton, English poet (Revenge), commits suicide
1889 - Jan E Matzeliger, Suriname inventor (shoe lacing machine), dies
1923 - Kate Douglas Wiggin, author (US kindergarten movement), dies at 66
1958 - Leo Blech, conductor/composer, dies at 87
1967 - Henry J Kaiser, industrialist (Boulder Dam, Liberty ship), dies at 85
1975 - Charles H Revson, US cosmetic magnate, dies at 69
1988 - Leonard Frey, actor (Tattoo, Boys in the Band, Magic Christian), dies of AIDS at 49
1988 - Max Shulman, author (Dobie Gillis, Tender Trap), dies at 69
1991 - Bernard Castro, patented convertible couch, dies at 87
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-mail me
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