August 24
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.
1349 – Six thousand Jews are killed in
Mainz after being blamed for the bubonic plague.
1456 – The printing of the
Gutenberg Bible is completed.
1682 –
William Penn receives the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania.
1814 – British troops invade Washington, D.C. and during the
Burning of Washington, the
White House, the
Capitol and many other buildings are set ablaze.
1875 – Captain
Matthew Webb became first person to swim the English Channel.
1909 – Workers start pouring concrete for the
Panama Canal.
1932 –
Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey).
1949 – The treaty creating the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) goes into effect.
1963 -
Stevie Wonder became the first artist ever to score a US No.1 album and single in the same week. Wonder was at No.1 on the album chart with '
Little Stevie Wonder / The 12 Year Old Genius' and had the No.1 single '
Fingertips part 2'. This was also the first ever live recording to make No.1.
1967 – Led by
Abbie Hoffman, the
Youth International Party (yippies) 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.
1975 - Queen started recording '
Bohemian Rhapsody' at
Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales, (the song was recorded over three weeks).
Freddie Mercury had mentally prepared the song beforehand and directed the band throughout the sessions.
May, Mercury, and
Taylor sang their vocal parts continually for ten to twelve hours a day, resulting in 180 separate overdubs.
1977 - Singer, songwriter
Waylon Jennings was arrested and charged with possession of cocaine. Jennings had recently been named an honorary police chief.
1981 –
Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for murdering
John Lennon.
1983, The fifth wife of
Jerry Lee Lewis, Shawn Michelle Stevens was found dead at their Mississippi home of a
methadone overdose. They had been married less than three months.
1989 – Cincinnati Reds manager
Pete Rose is banned from baseball for gambling by Commissioner
A. Bartlett Giamatti.
1990 -
Judas Priest successfully defended themselves against a lawsuit, after two fans attempted suicide while listening to the
Stained Class album. Both fans eventually died, one immediately from a shotgun blast, and the other on a second attempt three years later by a methadone overdose. The prosecution claimed that there were subliminal messages in the group’s music that caused the two seventeen year-olds to carry out the suicide pact in 1985.
1995 –
Microsoft Windows 95 was released to the public in North America.
1998 – First
radio-frequency identification (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.
2006 – The
International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term "planet" such that
Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet.
2009 - The Los Angeles County Coroner ruled
Michael Jackson's death a homicide caused by a mix of drugs meant to treat insomnia. On February 8, 2010,
Dr. Conrad Murray was charged with involuntary manslaughter by prosecutors in Los Angeles. Dr. Murray pleaded not guilty and was released after posting $75,000 bail, but would be found guilty in November, 2011 and was sentenced to four years in a Los Angeles County jail.
Births
1787 – James Weddell (namesake of the Weddell Sea); 1845 – James Calhoun (Custer's bro-in-law, died at The Little Bighorn); 1884 – Earl Derr Biggers (created 'Charlie Chan'); 1902 – Carlo Gambino (mob boss); 1905 – Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup♪ ♫(
That's All Right); 1929 – Yasser Arafat; 1934 – Kenny Baker ('R2D2'); 1943 – John Cipollina

(Quicksilver Messenger Service); 1945 – Ken Hensley

(Uriah Heep); 1945 – Vince McMahon; 1947 – Anne Archer, Jim Fox


(James Gang); 1948 – Jean Michel Jarre

; 1949 – Joe Regalbuto (
Murphy Brown); 1951 – Orson Scott Card (
Ender's Game); 1952 – Bob Corker; 1955 – Mike Huckabee; 1956 – Gerry Cooney

; 1957 – Stephen Fry; 1958 – Steve Guttenberg (
Police Academy); 1960 – Cal Ripken, Jr.; 1962 – Craig Kilborn; 1963 – John Bush♪ ♫(Anthrax); 1964 – Oteil Burbridge

(Allman Bros); 1965 – Marlee Matlin; 1968 – James Toney

; 1973 – Dave Chappelle

; 1988 – Rupert Grint (
Harry Potter movies)
Deaths
1967 – Henry J. Kaiser; 1978 – Louis Prima♪ ♫; 1991 – Bernard Castro (invented the convertible couch); 1998 – E. G. Marshall; 2001 – Jane Greer; 2014 – Richard Attenborough