August 24

From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.

[edit] Events

• 79 - Mount Vesuvius erupted, destroying Pompeii
• 1995 - MSN launched.

[edit] Births

• 1929 - Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Authority
• 1960 - Cal Ripken, Jr., baseball star
• 1963 - Hideo Kojima, video game director

[edit] Deaths

• 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
• 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)
• 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)
• 1888 - Rudolf Clausius, German physicist (b. 1822)
• 1921 - Nikolay Gumilyov, Russian poet (b. 1886)
• 1841 - Theodore Edward Hook, English author (b. 1788)
• 1940 - Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, German television pioneer (b. 1860)
• 1946 - James Clark McReynolds, U.S. Supreme Court justice (b. 1862)
• 1954 - Getúlio Vargas, President of Brazil (b. 1882)
• 1956 - Kenji Mizoguchi, Japanese film director (b. 1898)
• 1967 - Henry J. Kaiser, American industrialist (b. 1882)
• 1975 - Eamon 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)
• 2002 - Hoyt Wilhelm, baseball player (b. 1922)
• 2003 - Sir Wilfred Thesiger, British explorer (b. 1910)
• 2004 - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Swiss-born psychiatrist (b. 1926)