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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