August 24Birthdays & History

On this day: August 24 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 367Gratian, son of Roman Emperor Valentinian I, is named co-Augustus at the age of eight by his father.Europe
2. 394The Graffito of Esmet-Akhom, the latest known inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphs, is written.Middle East
3. 410The Visigoths under King Alaric I begin to pillage Rome.Europe
4. 1185Sack of Thessalonica by the Normans.Europe
5. 1200King John of England, signer of the first Magna Carta, marries Isabella of Angoulême in Angoulême Cathedral.Europe
6. 1215Pope Innocent III issues a bull declaring Magna Carta invalid.Europe
7. 1217An English fleet defeats a French fleet in the battle of Sandwich, cutting off Prince Louis of France from supplies and diminishing his hopes to gain the English throne during the First Barons' War.Europe
8. 1349Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for the bubonic plague.Europe
9. 1482The town and castle of Berwick-upon-Tweed is captured from Scotland by an English army.Europe
10. 1516The Ottoman Empire under Selim I defeats the Mamluk Sultanate and captures present-day Syria at the Battle of Marj Dabiq.Middle East
11. 1561Willem of Orange marries duchess Anna of Saxony.Europe
12. 1608The first official English representative to India lands in Surat.EuropeAsia
13. 1643A Dutch fleet establishes a new colony in the ruins of Valdivia in southern Chile.EuropeLatin America
14. 1662The 1662 Book of Common Prayer is legally enforced as the liturgy of the Church of England, precipitating the Great Ejection of Dissenter ministers from their benefices.Europe
15. 1675A Polish-Lithuanian army under John III Sobieski defeats an Ottoman-Tartar army in the battle of Lwow.EuropeMiddle East
16. 1682William Penn receives the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania.North America
17. 1690Job 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's foundation date is unknown).Asia
18. 1743The War of the Hats: The Swedish army surrenders to the Russians in Helsinki, ending the war and starting Lesser Wrath.Europe
19. 1781American Revolutionary War: A small force of Pennsylvania militia is ambushed and overwhelmed by an American Indian group, which forces George Rogers Clark to abandon his attempt to attack Detroit.North America
20. 1789The first naval battle of the Svensksund begins in the Gulf of Finland.Europe
21. 1812Peninsular War: A coalition of Spanish, British, and Portuguese forces succeed in lifting the two-and-a-half-year-long Siege of Cádiz.Europe
22. 1814British troops capture Washington, D.C. and set the Presidential Mansion, Capitol, Navy Yard and many other public buildings ablaze.EuropeNorth America
23. 1815The modern Constitution of the Netherlands is signed.Europe
24. 1816The Treaty of St. Louis is signed in St. Louis, Missouri.North America
25. 1820Constitutionalist insurrection at Oporto, Portugal.Europe
26. 1821The Treaty of Córdoba is signed in Córdoba, now in Veracruz, Mexico, concluding the Mexican War of Independence from Spain.Latin AmericaEurope
27. 1857The Panic of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in United States history.North America
28. 1870The Wolseley expedition reaches Manitoba to end the Red River Rebellion.North America
29. 1898Count Muravyov, Foreign Minister of Russia presents a rescript that convoked the First Hague Peace Conference.Europe
30. 1909Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.Latin America
31. 1911Manuel de Arriaga is elected and sworn in as the first President of Portugal.Europe
32. 1914World War I: The Battle of Cer ends as the first Allied victory in the war.Europe
33. 1914World War I: German troops capture Namur.Europe
34. 1929Second 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; the remaining Jews are forced to flee the city.Middle EastEurope
35. 1931Resignation of the United Kingdom's Second Labour Government. Formation of the UK National Government.Europe
36. 1932Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey).North America
37. 1933The Crescent Limited train derails in Washington, D.C., after the bridge it is crossing is washed out by the 1933 Chesapeake–Potomac hurricane.North America
38. 1936The Australian Antarctic Territory is created.Oceania
39. 1937Spanish Civil War: Sovereign Council of Asturias and León is proclaimed in Gijón.Europe
40. 1937Spanish Civil War: the Basque Army surrenders to the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie following the Santoña Agreement.Europe
41. 1938Kweilin incident: A Japanese warplane shoots down the Kweilin, a Chinese civilian airliner, killing 14. It is the first recorded instance of a civilian airliner being shot down.AsiaAsia
42. 1941The Holocaust: 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.Europe
43. 1942World War II: The Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō is sunk, with the loss of seven officers and 113 crewmen. The US carrier USS Enterprise is heavily damaged.AsiaNorth America
44. 1944World War II: Allied troops begin the attack on Paris.Europe
45. 1949The treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization goes into effect.North AmericaEurope
46. 1950Edith Sampson becomes the first black U.S. delegate to the United Nations.North America
47. 1951United Air Lines Flight 615 crashes near Decoto, California, killing 50 people.North America
48. 1954The Communist Control Act goes into effect, outlawing the Communist Party in the United States.North America
49. 1954Vice president João Café Filho takes office as president of Brazil, following the suicide of Getúlio Vargas.Latin America
50. 1963Buddhist crisis: As a result of the Xá Lợi Pagoda raids, the US State Department cables the United States Embassy, Saigon to encourage Army of the Republic of Vietnam generals to launch a coup against President Ngô Đình Diệm if he did not remove his brother Ngô Đình Nhu.North AmericaAsia
51. 1967Led by Abbie Hoffman, the Youth International Party temporarily disrupts trading at the New York Stock Exchange by throwing dollar bills from the viewing gallery, causing trading to cease as brokers scramble to grab them.North America
52. 1970Vietnam War protesters bomb Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, leading to an international manhunt for the perpetrators.AsiaNorth America
53. 1981Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for murdering John Lennon.North America
54. 1989Tadeusz Mazowiecki is chosen as the first non-communist prime minister in Central and Eastern Europe.Europe
55. 1989Colombian drug barons declare "total war" on the Colombian government.Latin America
56. 1991Ukraine declares itself independent from the Soviet Union.Europe
57. 1991Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.Europe
58. 1992Hurricane Andrew makes landfall in Homestead, Florida as a Category 5 hurricane, causing up to $25 billion (1992 USD) in damages.North America
59. 1995Microsoft releases Windows 95 to the public in North America.North America
60. 1998First radio-frequency identification (RFID) human implantation tested in the United Kingdom.Europe
61. 2001Air Transat Flight 236 loses all engine power over the Atlantic Ocean, forcing the pilots to conduct an emergency landing in the Azores.Europe
62. 2004Ninety passengers die after two airliners explode after flying out of Domodedovo International Airport, near Moscow. The explosions are caused by suicide bombers from Chechnya.Europe
63. 2006The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term "planet" such that Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet.World
64. 2008A Cessna 208 Caravan crashes in Cabañas, Zacapa, Guatemala, killing 11 people.Latin America
65. 2008Sixty-five passengers are killed when Iran Aseman Airlines Flight 6895 crashes during an emergency landing at Manas International Airport in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.Middle EastAsia
66. 2010Henan Airlines Flight 8387 crashes at Yichun Lindu Airport in Yichun, Heilongjiang, China, killing 44 out of the 96 people on board.Asia
67. 2010Agni Air Flight 101 crashes near Shikharpur, Makwanpur, Nepal, killing all 14 people on board.Asia
68. 2010In San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, 72 illegal immigrants are killed by Los Zetas and eventually found dead by Mexican authorities.Latin America
69. 2012Anders Behring Breivik, perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, is sentenced to 21 years of preventive detention.Europe
70. 2014A magnitude 6.0 earthquake strikes the San Francisco Bay Area; it is the largest in that area since 1989.North America
71. 2016Proxima Centauri b, the closest exoplanet to Earth, is discovered by the European Southern Observatory.Europe
72. 2016An earthquake strikes Central Italy with a magnitude of 6.2, with aftershocks felt as far as Rome and Florence. Around 300 people are killed.Europe
73. 2017The National Space Agency of Taiwan successfully launches the observation satellite Formosat-5 into space.Asia
74. 2020Erin O'Toole is elected leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.North America
75. 2023Japan officially begins discharging treated radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean, sparking international concerns and condemnation.Asia

Source: Wikipedia "August 24" / CC BY-SA 4.0