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Just Plain Fun

This Day in History – August 24, 2011

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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 Rome overrun by Visigoths, symbolized fall of Western Roman Empire 1215 Pope Innocent III declares Magna Carta invalid. 1349 Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for the bubonic plague. 1391 Jews are massacred in Palma de Mallorca. 1456 The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed. 1572 St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre: On the orders of king Charles IX of France, a massacre of Huguenots (French Protestants) begins. 1662 The Act of Uniformity requires England to accept the Book of Common Prayer. 1682 Delaware awarded to William Penn 1682 William Penn receives the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania. 1751 Thomas Colley executed in England for drowning supposed witch 1814 British sack Washington, DC, White House burned 1831 Charles Darwin is asked to travel on HMS Beagle. 1853 1st potato chips prepared by Chef George Crum (Saratoga Springs, NY) 1854 National emigration convention meets in Cleveland 1869 Waffle iron invented 1891 Thomas Edison patents motion picture camera 1902 A statue of Joan of Arc is unveiled in Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier. 1909 Workers start pouring concrete for Panama Canal 1912 NYC ticker tape parade for Jim Thorpe & victorious US Olympians 1912 Territory of Alaska organized 1912 US passes Anti-gag law, federal employees right to petition the government 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 and the remaining Jews being forced to leave the city. 1932 1st transcontinental non-stop flight by a woman, Amelia Earhart 1936 Australian Antarctic Territory created 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. 1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) established 1950 1st US Negro delegate to UN appointed-ES Sampson 1950 Operation Magic Carpet-45,000 Yemenite Jews move to Israel 1956 1st non-stop transcontinental helicopter flight arrived Wash DC 1960 -127 F (-88ø C), Vostok, Antarctica (world record) 1967 Led by Abbie Hoffman, a group of hippies temporarily disrupt trading at the NYSE by throwing dollar bills from the viewing gallery, causing trading to cease as brokers scramble to grab them. 1968 France became world’s 5th thermonuclear power 1970 Bomb kills 1 at U of Wisconsin’s Army Math Research Center in Madison 1979 NFL fans (60,916) choose old Patriots logo over new 1981 Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 yrs to life for Lennon’s murder 1987 Announcement of possible Martian tornadoes 1989 Pete Rose is suspended from baseball for life for gambling 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 1995 Computer software developer Microsoft releases its Windows 95 operating system. 1998 First 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. 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 (reportedly female) from the Russian Republic of Chechnya. 2006 The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term “planet” such that Pluto is now considered a Dwarf Planet.]]]]> ]]>

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