TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: AUG 24
0079 Mount Vesuvius erupts destroying Pompeii, Stabiae, Herculaneum and other smaller settlements.
0410 German barbarians sack Rome.
1456 The printing of the Gutenberg Bible was completed.
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.
1662 Act of Uniformity requires English to accept Book of Common Prayer
1751 Thomas Colley executed in England for drowning supposed witch
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.
1853 1st potato chips prepared by Chef George Crum (Saratoga Springs, NY)
1869 Cornelius Swarthout of Troy, New York, patents the waffle iron
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 beginning a six year feud with the McFarland family.
1912 US passes Anti-gag law, federal employees right to petition the govt
1912 By an act of Congress, Alaska is given a territorial legislature of two houses.
1949 NATO is Established. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) went into effect. The agreement was that an attack against on one of the parties would be considered “an attack against them all.”
1950 Operation Magic Carpet-45,000 Yemenite Jews move to Israel
1954 Congress outlaws the Communist Party in the United States.
1959 Hiram L Fong sworn in as 1st Chinese-American senator while Daniel K Inouye sworn in as 1st Japanese-American Rep (Both from Hawaii)
1961 Former nazi leader Johannes Vorster becomes South Africa’s minister of justice
1979 NFL fans (60,916) choose old Patriots logo over new
1981 Mark David Chapman sentenced to 20 years to life for murdering former Beatles band member John Lennon.
1989 “Total war” was declared by Columbian drug lords on their government.
1989 The U.S. space probe, Voyager 2, sent back photographs of Neptune.
1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; Ukraine declares its independence from USSR.
2001 The remains of nine American servicemen killed in the Korean War were returned to the U.S. The bodies were found about 60 miles north of Pyongyang. It was estimated that it would be a year before the identies of the soldiers would be known.
2001 U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly was randomly picked to take over the Microsoft monopoly case. The judge was to decide how Microsoft should be punished for illegally trying to squelch its competitors.
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.”
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
