Historical Events on August 24

Events 1 - 200 of 201

• 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.

• 458 K'an Ak (Precious Peccary) ascends to the throne of the Maya city of Tikal as its twelfth ruler, succeeding his father Sian Ka'an (Stormy Sky) [1]

• 1217 Battle of South Foreland: English fleet beats France
• 1298 Albert I of Habsburg is crowned King of Germany at Aachen cathedral

• 1349 Black Death Massacre: Jews of Free Imperial City of Cologne set themselves on fire to avoid forced baptism into Christianity amidst Bubonic Plague accusations; part of a wave of pogroms across Western Europe
• 1391 Jews of Palma, Mallorca, massacred
• 1456 The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed

• 1516 Battle of Marj Dabiq: Ottoman forces decisively beat the Mamluk Sultanate
• 1542 Conquistador Francisco de Orellana returns to Spain

• 1608 1st English convoy lands at Surat, India
• 1635 The Great Colonial Hurricane - affects the Virginia Colony at Jamestown
• 1662 Act of Uniformity requires English to accept Book of Common Prayer

• 1690 Job Charnock sets up East India Company HQ camp by Kalikata village (modern Calcutta)
• 1704 Battle of Málaga: largest naval battle in the War of the Spanish Succession; Tactically indecisive but a Grand Alliance strategic victory
• 1751 Thomas Colley executed in England for drowning a supposed witch

• 1789 French Revolution: The National Assembly proclaims freedom of speech
• 1814 British forces capture Washington, D.C. and destroy many landmarks (War of 1812)
• 1816 The Treaty of St. Louis is signed by the USA and the united tribes of Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi in St. Louis, Missouri
• 1820 Constitutionalist insurrection at Oporto, Portugal; see Portugal's crises of the Nineteenth Century.
• 1826 Netherlands' South Willems Port (Bosch-Liege) opens
• 1828 Dutch army takes Fort Du Bus in New Guinea

• 1833 HMS Beagle reaches Bahia Blanca, Argentina

• 1853 1st potato chips prepared by chef George Crum at Moon's Lake House, near Saratoga Springs, New York (popular legend says he invented though earlier recipes exist)
• 1854 National emigration convention meets in Cleveland
• 1857 The Panic of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in U.S. history
• 1858 Richmond "Daily Dispatch" reports 90 blacks arrested for learning
• 1869 American inventor Cornelius Swarthout patents stove-top waffle iron
• 1870 The Wolseley Expedition reaches Manitoba to end the Red River Rebellion
• 1876 Riot abolishes fairs in Amsterdam, 2 killed
• 1877 American outlaw John Wesley Hardin, wanted for murder, is arrested by Texas Rangers on a train in Pensacola, Florida

• 1893 Tornado destroys coast of Savannah, Georgia & Charleston, South Carolina about 1000 die
• 1904 Battle of Liao-Yang-200,000 Japanese against 150,000 Russian, Japanese tactical victory
• 1905 Chicago Cubs beat Phillies 2-1 in 20 innings
• 1906 Cincinnati Red John Weimer no-hits Dodgers, 1-0 in 7 inning game

• 1908 NY Giants scores shown on electric diamonds known as "Compton's Baseball Bulletin" at Madison Square Garden
• 1909 Workers start pouring concrete for Panama Canal
• 1911 Manuel d'Arriaga elected first president of Portugal
• 1912 District of Alaska becomes an organized incorporated territory of the United States

• 1912 US passes Anti-gag law, federal employees right to petition government
• 1914 Battle of Bergen: Germans defeat Belgian/British troops
• 1914 German troops occupy Namur, Belgium

• 1918 Chicago Cubs, win earliest pennent ever (season ended Sept 2)
• 1919 Having pitched into the 9th inning Cleveland's Ray Caldwell is flattened by a bolt of lightning; goes on to record final out for Indians' 2-1 win over Philadelphia A's
• 1920 With British approval, Greece is encouraged to take offensive action against Turkish nationalists in Asia Minor
• 1921 Battle of Sakaray Valley begins between Turkey & Greece
• 1921 British airship R-38 crashes in River Humber, 44 die
• 1922 1st Phillie to hit for cycle (Cy Williams)

• 1929 Palestinians attack orthodox Jews in Jerusalem
• 1929 Turkey & Persia sign friendship treaty
• 1931 France & USSR sign neutrality/no attack treaty

• 1936 Australian Antarctic Territory created

• 1937 In the Spanish Civil War, the Basque Army surrenders to the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie following the Santoña Agreement.
• 1937 Republican offensive near Belchite, Spain
• 1938 England beat Australia by an innings & 579 runs at The Oval
• 1938 Virgil Trucks strikes out his 418th batter, highest season total in organized ball-for Andalusia in an Alabama-Florida League game
• 1939 Germany & USSR sign 10-year non-aggression pact
• 1940 Luftwaffe bombs London

• 1942 Sea battle off Eastern Solomon Islands between United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy
• 1942 Transport #23 departs with French Jews to nazi-Germany
• 1943 Philadelphia A's drop AL record tying 20th game in a row, win the 2nd game
• 1944 French General LeClerc's troops open assault on Paris

• 1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) goes into effect
• 1950 Edith Sampson named 1st African American US delegate to UN

• 1954 International Amateur Athletic Federation recognizes Red China

• 1954 William Heatherton's "Reluctant Debutante" premieres in London
• 1956 1st non-stop transcontinental helicopter flight arrived Washington, D.C.
• 1957 At age 17 future England soccer striker Jimmy Greaves scores on his First Division debut for Chelsea against Tottenham Hotspur in a 1–1 draw at White Hart Lane
• 1958 Sergei Popov wins Stockholm marathon (2:15:17.0) (WR)
• 1959 England complete 5-0 series drubbing of India
• 1959 Hiram L Fong sworn in as 1st Chinese-American US Senator while Daniel K Inouye sworn in as 1st Japanese-American US Representative; both from Hawaii
• 1960 -127°F (-88°C), Vostok, Antarctica (world record)
• 1960 60 people die when a bus plunges off bridge into Turvo River, Brazil
• 1961 Former South African nazi leader Johannes Vorster becomes South Africa's minister of justice
• 1961 Windward Islands' Airways International (Winair) forms

• 1962 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1963 1st 200 meter freestyle swum under 2 minutes (Don Schollander 1:58)
• 1963 24th Venice Film Festival: "Hands Over the City" directed by Francesco Rosi wins Golden Lion
• 1963 John Pennel is first person to pole-vault 17'
• 1966 USSR launches Luna 11 for orbit around Moon
• 1967 Liberia adopts national flag designed and hand-stitched by a committee of seven women chaired by Susannah Elizabeth Lewis; all of the women were born in the US
• 1968 France becomes the world's fifth thermonuclear power with a detonation on Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific
• 1968 Northern Ireland's first civil rights march held; many more marches would be held over the following year and Loyalists organized counter-demonstrations to get the marches banned
• 1969 Peru nationalizes US oil interests
• 1970 Bomb kills 1 at U of Wisconsin's Army Math Research Center in Madison
• 1971 India beat England by 4 wickets, their win against the Poms
• 1972 Dennis Amiss scores 1st one-day int century, 103 v Australia

• 1973 John Adams & his bass drum become a right-field fixture in Cleveland Stadium
• 1975 Davey Lopes steals his 38th consecutive base, then thrown out stealing
• 1975 Papadopoulos, Pattakos and Makarezos sentenced to death in Athens
• 1975 SF Giant Ed Halick no-hits NY Giants, 6-0
• 1975 Tampa Bay Rowdies beat Portland 2-0 for NASL cup
• 1976 Soyuz 21 returns to Earth
• 1978 USSR performs underground nuclear test

• 1979 NFL fans (60,916) choose old Patriots logo over new
• 1979 Rock band "The Cars" play concert at the Wollman Rink in NYC's Central Park
• 1979 UN's Vienna office begins issuing postage stamps
• 1980 Jozef Pinkovski replaces Poland premier Babiuch
• 1981 American Charles Chapman is 1st black to swim English Channel

• 1982 KCs' John Wathan steals 31st en route to 36 base for catcher's record

• 1985 STS 51-I mission scrubbed at T -5m because of bad weather
• 1987 Announcement of possible Martian tornadoes
• 1989 British brewery Bass buys Holiday Inn hotel chain
• 1989 Pete Rose is suspended from baseball for life for gambling
• 1990 3,500 peacekeepers arrive in Liberia
• 1990 Iraqi troops surround US & other embassies in Kuwait City

• 1991 Silky Stallone, wins the Cane Pace at Yonkers Raceway
• 1991 Ukraine declares independence from USSR
• 1992 1st structural steel beams are erected at Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) baseball stadium in Cleveland, Ohio
• 1992 Diplomatic relations are established between the People's Republic of China and South Korea.
• 1992 Hurricane Andrew hits South Florida, making landfall at Elliott Key and later Homestead; 44 die and $25 billion in damage is recorded
• 1992 NFL Cleveland Browns suffer their worst pre-season loss, 56-3, to Minnesota Vikings
• 1992 Screw magazine superimposed a gunsight over a picture of Larry Flint
• 1993 Mars Observer comes closest to Mars
• 1993 Padres scores 14 in 1st vs Cardinals
• 1994 Israel & PLO initialed accord giving autonomy to Palestinians in West Bank in education, health, taxation, social welfare & tourism
• 1994 Kieren Perkins swims world record 1500m free style (14:41.66)
• 1994 Kieren Perkins swims world record 800m free style (7:46.00)
• 1995 Fire that wipes 6,000 acres begins in Hamptons on Long Island
• 1995 Microsoft debuts Windows 95
• 1997 97th US Golf Amateur Championship won by Joel Kribel
• 1997 Gordon Spence discovers 2^2976221 - 1 (36th known Mersenne prime)
• 1998 First RFID human implantation tested in the United Kingdom.
• 1998 The Netherlands is selected as the site for the trial of the two Libyan suspects of the 1988 Pan Am bombing.
• 2000 Argon fluorohydride, the first Argon compound ever known, is discovered at the University of Helsinki by Finnish scientists.
• 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.
• 2001 Microsoft releases to manufacturing software for Windows XP
• 2004 89 passengers die after two airliners explode after flying out of Domodedovo International Airport, near Moscow. The explosions were caused by suicide bombers (reportedly female) from the Russian Republic of Chechnya.
• 2004 Americans Kerri Walsh and Misty May team up to win the women's beach volleyball gold at the Athens Olympics beating Brazilian pair Shelda Bede & Adriana Behar 21–17, 21–11

• 2004 Kenyan runners sweep the medals in the 3000m steeplechase at the Athens Olympics; Ezekiel Kemboi wins gold ahead of Brimin Kipruto and Paul Kipsiele Koech
• 2004 Moroccan super star athlete Hicham El Guerrouj wins 1st leg of his 1,500/5,000m double at the Athens Olympics in 3:34.18
• 2004 Roman Šebrle of the Czech Republic (8,893 points OR) edges American Bryan Clay (8,820) in the decathlon at the Athens Olympics
• 2004 Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia vaults 4.91m to break her own pole vault world record and win the gold medal from teammate Svetlana Feofanova at the Athens Olympics

• 2006 The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term "planet" such that Pluto is considered a Dwarf Planet.
• 2008 Dániel Varga & Péter Biros score 3 goals each as Hungary wins the men's water polo gold medal at the Beijing Olympics; third consecutive Olympic gold medal
• 2008 Samuel Wansiru becomes first Kenyan to win the men's Olympic marathon in Beijing; wins in Olympic record time; silver medallist Joauad Gharib of Morocco also faster than OR, yet 44 seconds behind
• 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing becomes the most watched event on TV ever - nearly 5 billion, 70% of world's population

• 2009 "Love Like Crazy" single released by Lee Brice (Billboard Song of the Year 2010)
• 2009 Thailand's GDP grew 2.3% in 2009's second quarter, technically leaving the recession

• 2012 A US jury in California finds that Samsung is guilty of patent infringement and awards over US$1 billion in damages to Apple meanwhile in a South Korea court both are found guilty of patent infringement
• 2012 Monsoon rains and floods kill 26 people in Pakistan
• 2012 Yangmingtan Bridge collapses in China killing three people
• 2013 30 people are killed in a gang battle involving flame throwers in Palmasola prison, Bolivia
• 2013 4 people are killed in a helicopter crash in the Shetland Islands
• 2014 Nurse William Pooley flies back to the UK for emergency treatment after contracting Ebola virus after attempting to treat patients in Sierra Leone
• 2015 China stock market's "Black Monday", Shanghai Composite loses 8.5%, sending other international markets lower

• 2016 6.2-magnitude earthquake strikes central Italy, north east of Rome, killing 268, injuring 400
• 2016 Astronomers announce discovery of earth-like planet named Proxima b orbiting star Proxima Centauri
• 2017 Largest-ever lottery jackpot win in the US - $758.7m won by Mavis Wanczyk of Massachusetts in US Powerball Jackpot

• 2019 Britain's Prince Andrew denies knowing his friend Jeffrey Epstein was involved in sexual trafficking of underage girls after public accusations made against him
• 2019 US adventurer Victor Vescovo is the first person to visit the deepest point of every ocean when he reaches Molloy Hole, in the Arctic
• 2020 First documented case of a person being re-infected with COVID-19 a second time, a Hong Kong man four months after first infection
• 2021 16th Paralympic Games opens in Tokyo, Japan

• 2021 UN says Madagascar on brink of world's first "climate change famine" with people suffering "catastrophic" levels of hunger, after four years without rain [1]
• 2022 British-Belgian teen Mack Rutherford (17) becomes youngest person to fly solo around the world, landing at Sofia, Bulgaria, after a five-month journey across 52 countries. [1]
• 2022 South Korea again records the world's lowest fertility rate at 0.81 (advanced economics average 1.6, population replacement needs 2.1) [1]

• 2023 BRICS meeting of emerging nations in South Africa agrees to invite six new nations to join, in attempt to balance global power of the US and Europe [1]
• 2023 FIFA opens disciplinary case against Luis Rubiales, head of Spanish football, for kissing a player on the lips during celebrations for the Spanish women's World Cup win [1]

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