August 24

Events
Up to 1900
79 - Mount Vesuvius erupted, destroying Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae. The modern city of Naples now stands on the edge of the disaster area.
410 - The Visigoths under King Alaric I begin to pillage Rome.
455 - The Vandals, led by King Genseric, begin to plunder Rome.
1200 - King John of England marries Isabella of Angouleme in Bordeaux Cathedral.
1215 - Pope Innocent III declares the Magna Carta invalid.
1349 - 6000 Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for the Bubonic Plague.
1391 - Massacre on the Jewish population of Palma de Mallorca.
1456 - Printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed.
1482 - The town and castle of Berwick-upon-Tweed are captured from Scotland by English troops.
1516 - The Ottoman Empire under Selim I defeats the Mamluk Sultanate and captures present-day Syria at the Battle of Maq Dabiq.
1561 - William of Orange marries Anne of Saxony.
1572 - St. Batholomew's Day massacre: Start of a massacre of Huguenots (French Protestants) under the orders of King Charles IX of France.
1608 - The first English representative to India lands in Surat.
1662 - The Act of Uniformity requires England to accept the Book of Common Prayer.
1682 - William Penn adds present-day Delaware to his colony of Pennsylvania.
1812 - Peninsular War: A coalition of Spanish, British and Portuguese forces succeeds in lifting the two-and-a-half-year-long Siege of Cadiz.
1814 - British troops invade Washington, D.C., burning many buildings, including the White House.
1815 - The modern Constitution of the Netherlands is signed.
1821 - The Treaty of Cordoba is signed in present-day Veracruz, Mexico, concluding the Mexican War of Independence from Spain.
1848 - The ship Ocean Monarch bursts into flames near Llandudno, north Wales. 208 people are saved by nearby ships, while 178 are killed.
1857 - The Panic of 1857 economic crisis begins in the United States.
1875 - Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first man to swim across the English Channel.
1891 - Thomas Edison receives a patent for the motion-picture-camera.
1901 2000
1909 - Workers start pouring concrete for the construction of the Panama Canal.
1912 - Alaska becomes a United States territory.
1914 - World War I: German troops occupy Namur, Belgium.
1929 - 67 are killed in a massacre in Hebron, leading to the expulsion of Jews from the city.
1931 - France and the Soviet Union sign a neutrality/no attack treaty.
1932 - Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly non-stop across the United States.
1936 - The Australian Antarctic Territory is created.
1949 - The treaty creating NATO goes into effect.
1954 - President of Brazil Getulio Vargas resigns and commits suicide shortly after.
1954 - US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Communist Control Act, which bans the American Communist Party.
1960 - At -88.3 degrees Celsius, the lowest-ever temperature up until that point, is measured at the Soviet Vostok Research Station in Antarctica. This record stands until 1983, when, also at the Vostok Station, the even colder temperature of -89.2 degrees Celsius is measured.
1963 - The German football league, the Bundesliga, starts.
1968 - France explodes its first hydrogen bomb.
1981 - Mark David Chapman is sentenced to at least 20 years in prison for the murder of John Lennon.
1989 - Tadeusz Mazowiecki becomes Prime Minister of Poland, becoming the first non-Communist leader of Poland in the post-World War II period.
1989 - Colombian drug barons declare "total war" on Colombia's 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 Soviet Union's Communist party.
1991 - Ukraine declares independence from the Soviet Union.
1992 - Hurricane Andrew makes landfall in southern Florida as a Category 5 hurricane. It causes a lot of damage and becomes one of the US's costliest natural disasters.
1994 - Initial accord between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization about partial self-rule in the Palestinians in the West Bank
1995 - MSN is launched.
From 2001
2001 - Air Transat Flight 236 runs out of fuel over the mid-Atlantic Ocean, making a safe emergency landing on the island of Terceira, Azores.
2004 - 89 people die in explosions on two jets at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport.
2006 - The definition of the word planet is changed, therefore stripping Pluto of its planet status, making it a dwarf planet.
2008 - The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing end. The host nation, the People's Republic of China, wins the most gold medals, ahead of the United States.
2011 - Steve Jobs resigns as CEO of Apple Inc.. He dies six weeks later.
2012 - American cyclist Lance Armstrong announces that he is no-longer fighting doping allegations, and is stripped of the seven Tour de France titles he won by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
2012 - Anders Behring Breivik is declared sane by a court in Oslo, and sentenced to 21 years in prison for the 2011 Norway attacks, in which he had killed 77 people.
2016 - A major earthquake hits Central Italy, killing 276 people.
2016 - The discovery of "Proxima Centauri b", a planet orbiting around the star Proxima Centauri, is announced.
2018 - Scott Morrison becomes the 30th Prime Minister of Australia, after defeating Peter Dutton in a contest to replace Malcolm Turnbull.
Births
Up to 1900
1113 - Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou (d. 1151)
1198 - King Alexander II of Scotland (d. 1249)
1358 - King John I of Castile (d. 1390)
1393 - Arthur III, Duke of Brittany (d. 1458)
1552 - Lavinia Fontana, Italian painter (d. 1614)
1591 - Robert Herrick, English poet (d. 1674)
1635 - Peder Griffenfeld, Danish statesman (d. 1699)
1669 - Alessandro Marcello, Italian composer (d. 1747)
1750 - Letizia Ramolino, mother of Napoleon Bonaparte (d. 1836)
1758 - Sophia Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Queen of Denmark and Norway (d. 1790)
1759 - William Wilberforce, English abolitionist (d. 1833)
1772 - King William I of the Netherlands (d. 1840)
1787 - James Weddell, English Antarctic explorer (d. 1834)
1792 - Joaquim Antonio de Aguiar, Portuguese politician (d. 1884)
1815 - Bartolome Calvo, Colombian statesman (d. 1889)
1816 - Daniel Gooch, English railway pioneer and mechanical engineer (d. 1889)
1824 - Antonio Stoppani, Italian geologist and scholar (d. 1891)
1831 - Prince August, Duke of Dalarna, Swedish royal (d. 1873)
1837 - Theodore Dubois, French composer, organist and music teacher (d. 1924)
1855 - Infanta Maria Theresa of Portugal (d. 1944)
1865 - King Ferdinand II of Romania (d. 1927)
1872 - Max Beerbohm, British caricaturist (d. 1956)
1886 - William Gibbs, American naval architect (d. 1967)
1887 - Harry Hooper, American baseball player (d. 1974)
1890 - Duke Kahanamoku, Hawaiian-American athlete (swimming and surfing) (d. 1968)
1890 - Jean Rhys, Dominican-English writer (d. 1979)
1893 - Haim Ernst Wertheimer, German-born Israeli biochemist (d. 1978)
1895 - Abdul Rahman of Negeri Sembilan, Malaysian king (d. 1960)
1895 - Richard Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, Massachusetts (d. 1970)
1897 - Gertrude Bambrick, American actress (d. 1974)
1899 - Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer (d. 1986)
1899 - Albert Claude, French biologist (d. 1983)
1900 - Leonardo Conti, German physician and Nazi war criminal (d. 1945)
1901 1950
1902 - Fernand Braudel, French historian (d. 1985)
1903 - Karl Hanke, German SS leader (d. 1945)
1904 - Alice White, American actress (d. 1983)
1905 - Arthur Crudup, American blues musician (d. 1976)
1905 - Siaka Stevens, President of Sierra Leone (d. 1988)
1907 - Bruno Giacometti, Italian sculptor (d. 2012)
1908 - Shivaram Rajguru, Indian activist (d. 1931)
1915 - James Tiptree, Jr., American writer and psychologist (d. 1987)
1916 - Leo Ferre, French singer, composer and poet (d. 1993)
1916 - Hal Smith, American actor (d. 1994)
1918 - Sikander Bakht, Governor of Kerala (d. 2004)
1918 - Abdallah Ibrahim, Prime Minister of Morocco (d. 2005)
1918 - Avery Dulles, American cardinal (d. 2008)
1919 - Carlos Julio Arosemena Monroy, President of Ecuador (d. 2004)
1919 - Drs. P, Swiss-Dutch singer-songwriter, poet and writer (d. 2015)
1921 - Ercole Rabitti, Italian footballer (d. 2009)
1922 - Rene Levesque, Canadian politician (d. 1987)
1922 - Howard Zinn, American historian (d. 2010)
1924 - Ahmadou Ahidjo, President of Cameroon (d. 1989)
1927 - Harry Markowitz, American economist
1927 - Anjali Devi, Indian actress and producer (d. 2014)
1927 - Guido Ceronetti, Italian journalist and poet (d. 2018)
1929 - Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Authority (d. 2004)
1932 - Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster and cardinal (d. 2017)
1934 - Kenny Baker, English actor (d. 2016)
1935 - Tsutomu Hata, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 2017)
1936 - Kenny Guinn, 27th Governor of Nevada (d. 2010)
1936 - A. S. Byatt, English writer
1939 - Michael E. Phelps, American biophysicist
1940 - Francine Lalonde, Canadian politician (d. 2014)
1941 - Jurgen Eschert, German canoeist
1942 - Max Cleland, American politician (d. 2021)
1943 - John Cipollina, American guitarist (d. 1995)
1943 - Dafydd Iwan, Welsh singer and politician
1944 - Bill Goldsworthy, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 1996)
1944 - Gregory Jarvis, American astronaut (d. 1986)
1945 - Vince McMahon, American Professional Wrestling promoter
1945 - Ken Hensley, English musician (Uriah Heep)
1945 - Ronee Blakley, American singer-songwriter, producer and actress
1946 - Vic Akers, English football coach
1946 - Rick Loomis, American game designer (d. 2019)
1946 - Manfred Zapf, German footballer
1947 - Paulo Coelho, Brazilian writer
1947 - Joe Manchin, American politician, former Governor of West Virginia
1947 - Steve Pearce, American politician
1947 - Anne Archer, American actress
1947 - Roger De Vlaeminck, Belgian cyclist
1948 - Jean-Michel Jarre, French musician
1948 - Alexander McCall Smith, Scottish writer and professor
1948 - Sauli Niinisto, 12th President of Finland
1949 - Stephen Paulus, American composer (d. 2014)
1951 1975
1951 - Oscar Hijuelos, American writer (d. 2013)
1951 - Orson Scott Card, American writer
1952 - Bob Corker, American politician, United States Senator for Tennessee
1952 - Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jamaican poet
1953 - Sam Torrance, Scottish golfer
1955 - Mike Huckabee, American politician, former Governor of Arkansas and Presidential candidate
1956 - John Culberson, American politician
1956 - Gerry Cooney, American boxer
1957 - Stephen Fry, English actor, comedian, presenter and writer
1957 - Marcel Vanthilt, Belgian singer and television host
1958 - Steve Guttenberg, American actor
1959 - Meg Munn, English politician
1960 - Takashi Miike, Japanese director, producer, writer and actor
1960 - Cal Ripken, Jr., American baseball player
1960 - Steven Lindsey, American astronaut
1961 - Jared Harris, English actor
1963 - Hideo Kojima, Japanese video game creator
1963 - Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Icelandic writer
1964 - Dana Gould, American comedian and writer
1964 - Salizhan Sharipov, Kyrgyz cosmonaut
1965 - Marlee Matlin, American actress
1965 - Reggie Miller, American basketball player
1968 - Shoichi Funaki, Japanese professional wrestler
1968 - James Toney, American boxer
1969 - Pierfrancesco Favino, Italian actor
1972 - Jean-Luc Brassard, Canadian freestyle skier
1973 - Andrew Brunette, Canadian ice hockey player
1973 - Dave Chappelle, American comedian and actor
1973 - Inge de Bruijn, Dutch swimmer
1973 - Carmine Giovinazzo, American actor and musician
1974 - Takuya Yamada, Japanese footballer
1975 - Mark de Vries, Surinamese-Dutch footballer
From 1976
1976 - Yang Yang (A), Chinese short-track speed skater
1976 - Alex O'Loughlin, Australian actor
1977 - Robert Enke, German football goalkeeper (d. 2009)
1977 - Jurgen Macho, Austrian football goalkeeper
1977 - Denilson, Brazilian footballer
1979 - Orlando Engelaar, Dutch footballer
1979 - Kaki King, American guitarist and composer
1979 - Yelena Chernykh, Russian theatre actress (d. 2011)
1981 - Jiro Wang, Taiwanese singer and actor
1981 - Chad Michael Murray, American actor
1982 - Jose Bosingwa, Portuguese footballer
1982 - Kim Kallstrom, Swedish footballer
1984 - Charlie Villanueva, Dominican-American basketball player
1986 - Fabiano Santacroce, Brazilian-Italian footballer
1986 - Joseph Akpala, Nigerian footballer
1986 - Stewart McDonald, Scottish politician
1987 - Daichi Miura, Japanese singer-songwriter, dancer and choreographer
1987 - Jon Scheyer, American basketball player
1988 - Rupert Grint, British actor
1988 - Maya Yoshida, Japanese footballer
1989 - Richie Gray, Scottish rugby union player
1997 - Alan Walker, English-Norwegian music producer
1998 - Robin, Finnish singer
2003 - Alexandre Coste, son of Albert II, Prince of Monaco
Deaths
Up to 1900
79 - Pliny the Elder, Roman writer and naturalist (b. 23)
1042 - Michael V, Byzantine Emperor (b. 1015)
1103 - King Magnus III of Norway (b. 1073)
1217 - Eustace the Monk, French mercenary and pirate
1313 - Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1278)
1540 - Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, Italian painter (b. 1503)
1542 - Gasparo Contarini, Italian diplomat and cardinal (b. 1483)
1572 - Victims of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre:
Gaspard de Coligny, French Huguenot leader (b. 1519)
Pierre de la Ramee, French humanist (b. 1515)
Charles de Teligny, French Huguenot soldier
1595 - Thomas Digges, English astronomer (b. 1546)
1617 - Rose of Lima, Peruvian saint (b. 1586)
1647 - Nicholas Stone, English sculptor and architect (b. 1586)
1664 - Maria Cunitz, Silesian astronomer
1679 - Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, cardinal de Retz, French churchman and agitator (b. 1614)
1680 - Thomas Blood, Irish-born thief of the British crown jewels (b. 1618)
1683 - John Owen, English non-conformist theologian (b. 1616)
1759 - Ewald Christian von Kleist, German poet (b. 1715)
1779 - Kosmas Aitolos, Greek Orthodox martyr (b. 1714)
1831 - August von Gneisenau, Prussian field marshal (b. 1760)
1832 - Nicolas Leonard Sadi Carnot, French mathematician (b. 1796)
1841 - Theodore Edward Hook, English writer (b. 1788)
1856 - William Buckland, English geologist (b. 1784)
1883 - Henri, Count of Chambord, claimant to the French throne (b. 1820)
1888 - Rudolf Clausius, German physicist (b. 1822)
1897 - Mutsu Munemitsu, Japanese politician (b. 1844)
1901 2000
1921 - Nikolay Gumilyov, Russian poet (b. 1886)
1940 - Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, German television pioneer (b. 1860)
1943 - Simone Weil, French philosopher and social activist (b. 1909)
1946 - James Clark McReynolds, U.S. Supreme Court justice (b. 1862)
1950 - Arturo Alessandri, President of Chile (b. 1868)
1954 - Getulio Vargas, President of Brazil (b. 1882)
1956 - Kenji Mizoguchi, Japanese movie director (b. 1898)
1957 - Ronald Knox, British theologian and crime fiction writer (b. 1888)
1961 - Gunter Litfin, first shooting victim at the Berlin Wall (b. 1937)
1967 - Henry J. Kaiser, American industrialist (b. 1882)
1974 - Alexander P. de Seversky, Russian-American aviator, author and inventor (b. 1894)
1975 - Eamon de Valera, President of Ireland (b. 1882)
1978 - Louis Prima, American band leader (b. 1910)
1979 - Hanna Reitsch, German pilot (b. 1912)
1985 - Paul Creston, American composer (b. 1906)
1990 - Sergei Dovlatov, Russian writer (b. 1941)
1991 - Bernard Castro, Italian inventor (b. 1904)
1995 - Alfred Eisenstaedt, German-born photographer (b. 1898)
1998 - E.G. Marshall, American actor (b. 1910)
1999 - Mary Jane Croft, American actress (b. 1916)
2000 - Andy Hug, Swiss martial artist and kickboxer (b. 1964)
From 2001
2001 - Jane Greer, American actress (b. 1924)
2002 - Hoyt Wilhelm, American baseball player (b. 1922)
2003 - Sir Wilfred Thesiger, British explorer (b. 1910)
2004 - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Swiss-born psychiatrist (b. 1926)
2005 - Ambrogio Fogar, Italian sailor, writer, rally driver and all-round adventurer and television presenter (d. 1941)
2007 - Andree Boucher, 39th Mayor of Quebec City (b. 1937)
2009 - Toni Sailer, Austrian skier (b. 1935)
2012 - Pauli Ellefsen, 6th Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands (b. 1936)
2012 - Steve Franken, American actor (b. 1923)
2012 - Felix Mieli Venerando, Brazilian footballer (b. 1937)
2013 - Julie Harris, American actress (b. 1925)
2013 - Newton de Sordi, Brazilian footballer (b. 1931)
2014 - Richard Attenborough, English actor and movie director (b. 1923)
2014 - Leonid Stadnyk, Ukrainian claimant to world's tallest man title (b. 1970)
2015 - Justin Wilson, English racing driver (b. 1978)
2015 - Cees van Kooten, Dutch footballer (b. 1948)
2015 - Chico Maki, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1939)
2016 - Henning Voscherau, German politician (b. 1941)
2016 - Walter Scheel, German politician, President of the Federal Republic of Germany (b. 1919)
2016 - Roger Y. Tsien, Chinese-American biologist (b. 1952)
2017 - Cecil D. Andrus, American politician, Governor of Idaho (b. 1931)
2017 - Alan Boswell, English footballer (b. 1943)
2017 - Charlie Robertson, American politician (b. 1934)
2017 - Jay Thomas, American actor (b. 1948)
2017 - Amelyn Veloso, Filipino journalist and broadcaster (b. 1974)
2018 - Lawrence J. DeNardis, American politician (b. 1938)
2018 - Tom Frost, American rock climber (b. 1938)
2018 - Robin Leach, British writer and television host (b. 1941)
2018 - Princeton Lyman, American diplomat (b. 1935)
2018 - Javier Ochoa Palacios, Spanish cyclist (b. 1974)
2018 - Aleksei Paramonov, Soviet-Russian footballer (b. 1925)
2018 - Valentina Rastvorova, Soviet-Russian fencer (b. 1933)
2018 - Ciril Zlobec, Slovenian poet, writer and politician (b. 1925)
2019 - Arun Jaitley, Indian politician (b. 1952)
2019 - Sidney Rittenberg, American journalist and linguist (b. 1921)
Observances
National Day of Ukraine
Christian Feast Day of Saint Bartholomew
Night of Nostalgia, Eve of Independence Day (Uruguay)