August 24 is the 236th day of the year (237th in leap years ) in the Gregorian calendar . There are 129 days remaining until the end of the year.
Up to 1900
79 – Mount Vesuvius erupted, destroying Pompeii , Herculaneum and Stabiae . The modern city of Naples now stands on the edge of the disaster area.
410 - The Visigoths under King Alaric I begin to pillage Rome .
455 - The Vandals , led by King Genseric , begin to plunder Rome .
1200 - King John of England marries Isabella of Angoulême in Bordeaux Cathedral .
1215 – Pope Innocent III declares Magna Carta invalid.
1349 - 6000 Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for the Bubonic Plague.
1391 - Massacre on the Jewish population of Palma de Mallorca .
1456 – Printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed.
1482 - The town and castle of Berwick-upon-Tweed are captured from Scotland by English troops.
1516 - The Ottoman Empire under Selim I defeats the Mamluk Sultanate and captures present-day Syria at the Battle of Maq Dabiq .
1561 - William of Orange marries Anne of Saxony .
1572 – St. Batholomew's Day massacre : Start of a massacre of Huguenots (French Protestants) under the orders of King Charles IX of France .
1608 - The first English representative to India lands in Surat.
1662 - The Act of Uniformity requires England to accept the Book of Common Prayer .
1682 - William Penn adds present-day Delaware to his colony of Pennsylvania .
1812 - Peninsular War : A coalition of Spanish , British and Portuguese forces succeeds in lifting the two-and-a-half-year-long Siege of Cadiz .
1814 – British troops invade Washington, D.C. , burning many buildings, including the White House .
1815 – The modern Constitution of the Netherlands is signed.
1821 - The Treaty of Cordoba is signed in present-day Veracruz , Mexico , concluding the Mexican War of Independence from Spain .
1848 - The ship Ocean Monarch bursts into flames near Llandudno , north Wales . 208 people are saved by nearby ships, while 178 are killed.
1857 - The Panic of 1857 economic crisis begins in the United States .
1875 – Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first man to swim across the English Channel .
1891 - Thomas Edison receives a patent for the motion-picture-camera.
1901 – 2000
1909 – Workers start pouring concrete for the construction of the Panama Canal .
1912 – Alaska becomes a United States territory .
1914 - World War I : German troops occupy Namur , Belgium .
1929 - 67 are killed in a massacre in Hebron , leading to the expulsion of Jews from the city.
1931 - France and the Soviet Union sign a neutrality/no attack treaty .
1932 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly non-stop across the United States .
1936 – The Australian Antarctic Territory is created.
1949 - The treaty creating NATO goes into effect.
1954 - President of Brazil Getulio Vargas resigns and commits suicide shortly after.
1954 - US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Communist Control Act, which bans the American Communist Party .
1960 - At -88.3 degrees Celsius , the lowest-ever temperature up until that point, is measured at the Soviet Vostok Research Station in Antarctica . This record stands until 1983 , when, also at the Vostok Station, the even colder temperature of -89.2 degrees Celsius is measured.
1963 - The German football league, the Bundesliga , starts.
1968 – France explodes its first hydrogen bomb.
1981 – Mark David Chapman is sentenced to at least 20 years in prison for the murder of John Lennon .
1989 - Tadeusz Mazowiecki becomes Prime Minister of Poland , becoming the first non-Communist leader of Poland in the post-World War II period.
1989 - Colombian drug barons declare "total war" on Colombia 's 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 Soviet Union 's Communist party.
1991 – Ukraine declares independence from the Soviet Union .
1992 – Hurricane Andrew makes landfall in southern Florida as a Category 5 hurricane. It causes a lot of damage and becomes one of the US 's costliest natural disasters.
1994 - Initial accord between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization about partial self-rule in the Palestinians in the West Bank
1995 – MSN is launched.
From 2001
2001 - Air Transat Flight 236 runs out of fuel over the mid-Atlantic Ocean , making a safe emergency landing on the island of Terceira, Azores .
2004 – 89 people die in explosions on two jets at Moscow 's Domodedovo Airport .
2006 – The definition of the word planet is changed, therefore stripping Pluto of its planet status, making it a dwarf planet .
2008 - The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing end. The host nation, the People's Republic of China , wins the most gold medals , ahead of the United States .
2011 - Steve Jobs resigns as CEO of Apple Inc. . He dies six weeks later.
2012 - American cyclist Lance Armstrong announces that he is no-longer fighting doping allegations, and is stripped of the seven Tour de France titles he won by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
2012 - Anders Behring Breivik is declared sane by a court in Oslo , and sentenced to 21 years in prison for the 2011 Norway attacks , in which he had killed 77 people.
2016 - A major earthquake hits Central Italy , killing 276 people.
2016 - The discovery of "Proxima Centauri b", a planet orbiting around the star Proxima Centauri , is announced.
2018 - Scott Morrison becomes the 30th Prime Minister of Australia , after defeating Peter Dutton in a contest to replace Malcolm Turnbull .
Up to 1900
1113 - Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou (d. 1151 )
1198 – King Alexander II of Scotland (d. 1249 )
1358 – King John I of Castile (d. 1390 )
1393 - Arthur III, Duke of Brittany (d. 1458 )
1552 - Lavinia Fontana , Italian painter (d. 1614 )
1591 - Robert Herrick , English poet (d. 1674 )
1635 - Peder Griffenfeld , Danish statesman (d. 1699 )
1669 – Alessandro Marcello , Italian composer (d. 1747 )
1750 – Letizia Ramolino , mother of Napoleon Bonaparte (d. 1836 )
1758 – Sophia Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin , Queen of Denmark and Norway (d. 1790 )
1759 – William Wilberforce , English abolitionist (d. 1833 )
1772 – King William I of the Netherlands (d. 1840 )
1787 – James Weddell , English Antarctic explorer (d. 1834 )
1792 - Joaquim Antonio de Aguiar , Portuguese politician (d. 1884 )
1815 - Bartolomé Calvo , Colombian statesman (d. 1889 )
1816 - Daniel Gooch , English railway pioneer and mechanical engineer (d. 1889 )
1824 - Antonio Stoppani , Italian geologist and scholar (d. 1891 )
1831 - Prince August, Duke of Dalarna , Swedish royal (d. 1873 )
1837 - Theodore Dubois , French composer , organist and music teacher (d. 1924 )
1855 - Infanta Maria Theresa of Portugal (d. 1944 )
1865 – King Ferdinand II of Romania (d. 1927 )
1872 - Max Beerbohm , British caricaturist (d. 1956 )
1886 - William Gibbs , American naval architect (d. 1967 )
1887 - Harry Hooper , American baseball player (d. 1974 )
1890 – Duke Kahanamoku , Hawaiian -American athlete (swimming and surfing ) (d. 1968 )
1890 - Jean Rhys , Dominican -English writer (d. 1979 )
1893 - Haim Ernst Wertheimer , German-born Israeli biochemist (d. 1978 )
1895 - Abdul Rahman of Negeri Sembilan , Malaysian king (d. 1960 )
1895 - Richard Cushing , Archbishop of Boston, Massachusetts (d. 1970 )
1897 - Gertrude Bambrick , American actress (d. 1974 )
1899 – Jorge Luis Borges , Argentine writer (d. 1986 )
1899 – Albert Claude , French biologist (d. 1983 )
1900 - Leonardo Conti , German physician and Nazi war criminal (d. 1945 )
1901 – 1950
1902 - Fernand Braudel , French historian (d. 1985 )
1903 - Karl Hanke , German SS leader (d. 1945 )
1904 - Alice White , American actress (d. 1983 )
1905 – Arthur Crudup , American blues musician (d. 1976 )
1905 – Siaka Stevens , President of Sierra Leone (d. 1988 )
1907 – Bruno Giacometti , Italian sculptor (d. 2012 )
1908 - Shivaram Rajguru , Indian activist (d. 1931 )
1915 - James Tiptree, Jr. , American writer and psychologist (d. 1987 )
1916 - Léo Ferré , French singer , composer and poet (d. 1993 )
1916 - Hal Smith , American actor (d. 1994 )
1918 - Sikander Bakht , Governor of Kerala (d. 2004 )
1918 - Abdallah Ibrahim , Prime Minister of Morocco (d. 2005 )
1918 - Avery Dulles , American cardinal (d. 2008 )
1919 - Carlos Julio Arosemena Monroy , President of Ecuador (d. 2004 )
1919 - Drs. P , Swiss-Dutch singer-songwriter , poet and writer (d. 2015 )
1921 - Ercole Rabitti , Italian footballer (d. 2009 )
1922 – René Lévesque , Canadian politician (d. 1987 )
1922 – Howard Zinn , American historian (d. 2010 )
1924 - Ahmadou Ahidjo , President of Cameroon (d. 1989 )
1927 – Harry Markowitz , American economist
1927 - Anjali Devi , Indian actress and producer (d. 2014 )
1927 - Guido Ceronetti , Italian journalist and poet (d. 2018 )
1929 – Yasser Arafat , leader of the Palestinian Authority (d. 2004 )
1932 – Cormac Murphy-O'Connor , Archbishop of Westminster and cardinal (d. 2017 )
1934 - Kenny Baker , English actor (d. 2016 )
1935 - Tsutomu Hata , Prime Minister of Japan (d. 2017 )
1936 - Kenny Guinn , 27th Governor of Nevada (d. 2010 )
1936 - A. S. Byatt , English writer
1939 - Michael E. Phelps , American biophysicist
1940 - Francine Lalonde , Canadian politician (d. 2014 )
1941 - Jürgen Eschert , German canoeist
1942 - Max Cleland , American politician (d. 2021 )
1943 - John Cipollina , American guitarist (d. 1995 )
1943 - Dafydd Iwan , Welsh singer and politician
1944 - Bill Goldsworthy , Canadian ice hockey player (d. 1996 )
1944 – Gregory Jarvis , American astronaut (d. 1986 )
1945 – Vince McMahon , American Professional Wrestling promoter
1945 - Ken Hensley , English musician (Uriah Heep )
1945 - Ronee Blakley , American singer-songwriter , producer and actress
1946 - Vic Akers , English football coach
1946 - Rick Loomis , American game designer (d. 2019 )
1946 - Manfred Zapf , German footballer
1947 – Paulo Coelho , Brazilian writer
1947 – Joe Manchin , American politician, former Governor of West Virginia
1947 - Steve Pearce , American politician
1947 - Anne Archer , American actress
1947 – Roger De Vlaeminck , Belgian cyclist
1948 – Jean-Michel Jarre , French musician
1948 – Alexander McCall Smith , Scottish writer and professor
1948 - Sauli Niinistö , 12th President of Finland
1949 - Stephen Paulus , American composer (d. 2014 )
1951 – 1975
1951 - Oscar Hijuelos , American writer (d. 2013 )
1951 - Orson Scott Card , American writer
1952 - Bob Corker , American politician, United States Senator for Tennessee
1952 - Linton Kwesi Johnson , Jamaican poet
1953 – Sam Torrance , Scottish golfer
1955 – Mike Huckabee , American politician, former Governor of Arkansas and Presidential candidate
1956 - John Culberson , American politician
1956 - Gerry Cooney , American boxer
1957 – Stephen Fry , English actor, comedian, presenter and writer
1957 - Marcel Vanthilt , Belgian singer and television host
1958 – Steve Guttenberg , American actor
1959 - Meg Munn , English politician
1960 - Takashi Miike , Japanese director , producer , writer and actor
1960 – Cal Ripken, Jr. , American baseball player
1960 - Steven Lindsey , American astronaut
1961 – Jared Harris , English actor
1963 - Hideo Kojima , Japanese video game creator
1963 - Yrsa Sigurdardottir , Icelandic writer
1964 - Dana Gould , American comedian and writer
1964 - Salizhan Sharipov , Kyrgyz cosmonaut
1965 – Marlee Matlin , American actress
1965 - Reggie Miller , American basketball player
1968 - Shoichi Funaki , Japanese professional wrestler
1968 - James Toney , American boxer
1969 - Pierfrancesco Favino , Italian actor
1972 - Jean-Luc Brassard , Canadian freestyle skier
1973 - Andrew Brunette , Canadian ice hockey player
1973 – Dave Chappelle , American comedian and actor
1973 - Inge de Bruijn , Dutch swimmer
1973 - Carmine Giovinazzo , American actor and musician
1974 - Takuya Yamada , Japanese footballer
1975 - Mark de Vries , Surinamese -Dutch footballer
From 1976
1976 - Yang Yang (A) , Chinese short-track speed skater
1976 - Alex O'Loughlin , Australian actor
1977 – Robert Enke , German football goalkeeper (d. 2009 )[1]
1977 – Jürgen Macho , Austrian football goalkeeper
1977 – Denilson , Brazilian footballer
1979 – Orlando Engelaar , Dutch footballer
1979 - Kaki King , American guitarist and composer
1979 - Yelena Chernykh , Russian theatre actress (d. 2011 )
1981 - Jiro Wang , Taiwanese singer and actor
1981 - Chad Michael Murray , American actor
1982 - José Bosingwa , Portuguese footballer
1982 – Kim Kallstrom , Swedish footballer
1984 - Charlie Villanueva , Dominican -American basketball player
1986 - Fabiano Santacroce , Brazilian-Italian footballer
1986 - Joseph Akpala , Nigerian footballer
1986 - Stewart McDonald , Scottish politician
1987 - Daichi Miura , Japanese singer -songwriter , dancer and choreographer
1987 - Jon Scheyer , American basketball player
1988 – Rupert Grint , British actor
1988 - Maya Yoshida , Japanese footballer
1989 - Richie Gray , Scottish rugby union player
1997 - Alan Walker , English-Norwegian music producer
1998 - Robin , Finnish singer
2003 – Alexandre Coste , son of Albert II, Prince of Monaco
Up to 1900
79 – Pliny the Elder , Roman writer and naturalist (b. 23 )
1042 – Michael V , Byzantine Emperor (b. 1015 )
1103 – King Magnus III of Norway (b. 1073 )
1217 – Eustace the Monk , French mercenary and pirate
1313 - Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1278 )
1540 – Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola , Italian painter (b. 1503 )
1542 – Gasparo Contarini , Italian diplomat and cardinal (b. 1483 )
1572 – Victims of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre:
Gaspard de Coligny , French Huguenot leader (b. 1519 )
Pierre de la Ramée , French humanist (b. 1515 )
Charles de Téligny , French Huguenot soldier
1595 – Thomas Digges , English astronomer (b. 1546 )
1617 - Rose of Lima , Peruvian saint (b. 1586 )
1647 – Nicholas Stone , English sculptor and architect (b. 1586 )
1664 – Maria Cunitz , Silesian astronomer
1679 – Jean François Paul de Gondi, cardinal de Retz , French churchman and agitator (b. 1614 )
1680 – Thomas Blood , Irish-born thief of the British crown jewels (b. 1618 )
1683 – John Owen , English non-conformist theologian (b. 1616 )
1759 – Ewald Christian von Kleist , German poet (b. 1715 )
1779 – Kosmas Aitolos , Greek Orthodox martyr (b. 1714 )
1831 – August von Gneisenau , Prussian field marshal (b. 1760 )
1832 – Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot , French mathematician (b. 1796 )
1841 – Theodore Edward Hook , English writer (b. 1788 )
1856 - William Buckland , English geologist (b. 1784 )
1883 - Henri, Count of Chambord , claimant to the French throne (b. 1820 )
1888 – Rudolf Clausius , German physicist (b. 1822 )
1897 - Mutsu Munemitsu , Japanese politician (b. 1844 )
1901 – 2000
1921 – Nikolay Gumilyov , Russian poet (b. 1886 )
1940 – Paul Gottlieb Nipkow , German television pioneer (b. 1860 )
1943 – Simone Weil , French philosopher and social activist (b. 1909 )
1946 – James Clark McReynolds , U.S. Supreme Court justice (b. 1862 )
1950 - Arturo Alessandri , President of Chile (b. 1868 )
1954 – Getúlio Vargas , President of Brazil (b. 1882 )
1956 – Kenji Mizoguchi , Japanese movie director (b. 1898 )
1957 - Ronald Knox , British theologian and crime fiction writer (b. 1888 )
1961 – Günter Litfin , first shooting victim at the Berlin Wall (b. 1937 )
1967 – Henry J. Kaiser , American industrialist (b. 1882 )
1974 - Alexander P. de Seversky , Russian-American aviator , author and inventor (b. 1894 )
1975 – Éamon de Valera , President of Ireland (b. 1882 )
1978 – Louis Prima , American band leader (b. 1910 )
1979 – Hanna Reitsch , German pilot (b. 1912 )
1985 – Paul Creston , American composer (b. 1906 )
1990 – Sergei Dovlatov , Russian writer (b. 1941 )
1991 – Bernard Castro , Italian inventor (b. 1904 )
1995 – Alfred Eisenstaedt , German-born photographer (b. 1898 )
1998 – E.G. Marshall , American actor (b. 1910 )
1999 - Mary Jane Croft , American actress (b. 1916 )
2000 - Andy Hug , Swiss martial artist and kickboxer (b. 1964 )
From 2001
2001 - Jane Greer , American actress (b. 1924 )
2002 – Hoyt Wilhelm , American baseball player (b. 1922 )
2003 – Sir Wilfred Thesiger , British explorer (b. 1910 )
2004 – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross , Swiss-born psychiatrist (b. 1926 )
2005 – Ambrogio Fogar , Italian sailor, writer, rally driver and all-round adventurer and television presenter (d. 1941 )
2007 - Andrée Boucher , 39th Mayor of Quebec City (b. 1937 )
2009 – Toni Sailer , Austrian skier (b. 1935 )
2012 - Pauli Ellefsen , 6th Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands (b. 1936 )
2012 - Steve Franken , American actor (b. 1923 )
2012 - Félix Miéli Venerando , Brazilian footballer (b. 1937 )
2013 - Julie Harris , American actress (b. 1925 )
2013 - Newton de Sordi , Brazilian footballer (b. 1931 )
2014 - Richard Attenborough , English actor and movie director (b. 1923 )
2014 - Leonid Stadnyk , Ukrainian claimant to world's tallest man title (b. 1970 )
2015 - Justin Wilson , English racing driver (b. 1978 )
2015 - Cees van Kooten , Dutch footballer (b. 1948 )
2015 - Chico Maki , Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1939 )
2016 - Henning Voscherau , German politician (b. 1941 )
2016 - Walter Scheel , German politician, President of the Federal Republic of Germany (b. 1919 )
2016 - Roger Y. Tsien , Chinese-American biologist (b. 1952 )
2017 - Cecil D. Andrus , American politician, Governor of Idaho (b. 1931 )
2017 - Alan Boswell , English footballer (b. 1943 )
2017 - Charlie Robertson , American politician (b. 1934 )
2017 - Jay Thomas , American actor (b. 1948 )
2017 - Amelyn Veloso , Filipino journalist and broadcaster (b. 1974 )
2018 - Lawrence J. DeNardis , American politician (b. 1938 )
2018 - Tom Frost , American rock climber (b. 1938 )
2018 - Robin Leach , British writer and television host (b. 1941 )
2018 - Princeton Lyman , American diplomat (b. 1935 )
2018 - Javier Ochoa Palacios , Spanish cyclist (b. 1974 )
2018 - Aleksei Paramonov , Soviet-Russian footballer (b. 1925 )
2018 - Valentina Rastvorova , Soviet-Russian fencer (b. 1933 )
2018 - Ciril Zlobec , Slovenian poet, writer and politician (b. 1925 )
2019 - Arun Jaitley , Indian politician (b. 1952 )
2019 - Sidney Rittenberg , American journalist and linguist (b. 1921 )
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24 August .