Events on August 24 66
Year 367
Gratian, son of Roman Emperor Valentinian I, is named co-Augustus at the age of eight by his father .
Year 394
The Graffito of Esmet-Akhom, the latest known inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphs, was written.
Year 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.
Year 1200
King John of England, signer of the first Magna Carta, marries Isabella of Angoulême in Bordeaux Cathedral.
Year 1349
Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for the bubonic plague.[1]
Year 1482
The town and castle of Berwick upon Tweed is captured from Scotland by an English army
Year 1516
The Ottoman Empire under Selim I defeats the Mamluk Sultanate and captures present-day Syria at the Battle of Marj Dabiq.
Year 1682
William Penn receives the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania.
Year 1690
Job 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).
Year 1781
American 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.
Year 1812
Peninsular War: A coalition of Spanish, British, and Portuguese forces succeed in lifting the two-and-a-half-year-long Siege of Cádiz.
Year 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.
Year 1821
The Treaty of Córdoba is signed in Córdoba, now in Veracruz, Mexico, concluding the Mexican War of Independence from Spain.
Year 1857
The Panic of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in United States history.
Year 1898
Count Muravyov, Foreign Minister of Russia presents a rescript that convoked the First Hague Peace Conference.
Year 1929
Second 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.
Year 1931
Resignation of the United Kingdom's Second Labour Government. Formation of the UK National Government.
Year 1932
Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey).
Year 1933
The Crescent Limited train derails in Washington, D.C., after the bridge it is crossing is washed out by the 1933 Chesapeake-Potomac hurricane.
Year 1937
Spanish Civil War: the Basque Army surrenders to the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie following the Santoña Agreement.
Year 1937
Spanish Civil War: Sovereign Council of Asturias and León is proclaimed in Gijón.
Year 1941
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.
Year 1942
World War II: The Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō is sunk, with the loss of 7 officers and 113 crewmen. The US carrier USS Enterprise is heavily damaged.
Year 1954
The Communist Control Act goes into effect, outlawing the American Communist Party.
Year 1954
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas, president of Brazil, commits suicide and is succeeded by João Café Filho.
Year 1963
Buddhist 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.
Year 1967
Led 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.
Year 1970
Vietnam War protesters bomb Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, leading to an international manhunt for the perpetrators.
Year 1981
Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for murdering John Lennon.
Year 1989
Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose is banned from baseball for gambling by Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti.
Year 1989
Tadeusz Mazowiecki is chosen as the first non-communist prime minister in Central and Eastern Europe.
Year 1992
Hurricane Andrew makes landfall in Homestead, Florida as a Category 5 hurricane, causing up to $25 billion (1992 USD) in damages.
Year 1994
Initial accord between Israel and the PLO about partial self-rule of the Palestinians on the West Bank.
Year 1998
First radio-frequency identification (RFID) human implantation tested in the United Kingdom.
Year 2004
Eighty-nine passengers die after two airliners explode after flying out of Domodedovo International Airport, near Moscow. The explosions are caused by suicide bombers from Chechnya.
Year 2006
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term "planet" such that Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet.
Year 2010
In San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, 72 illegal immigrants are killed by Los Zetas and eventually found dead by Mexican authorities.
Year 2016
An earthquake strikes Central Italy with a magnitude of 6.2, with aftershocks felt as far as Rome and Florence.
Year ?
Julius Caesar's general Gaius Scribonius Curio is defeated in the Battle of the Bagradas (49 BC) by the Numidians under Publius Attius Varus and King Juba of Numidia. Curio commits suicide to avoid capture.
Year ?
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).