TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 2018

On this day in history:

79 – Mount Vesuvius erupts and the cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae are buried in volcanic ash, killing about 20,000 people.

1456 – The printing of the Gutenberg Bible was completed.

1572 – The Catholics began their slaughter of the French Protestants in Paris - killing about 70,000.

1608 – The first official English representative to India lands in Surat.

1814 – British troops invade Washington, DC and during the Burning of Washington, the White House, the Capitol and many other buildings are set ablaze.

1857 – The Panic of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in United States history.

1872 – Queensland’s borders are extended to include Thursday Island and the Torres Strait Islands.

1875 – Captain Matthew Webb became first person to swim the English Channel.

1879 – Explorer Alexander Forrest’s expedition through northwest Australia is threatened with starvation.

1891 – Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera.

1909 – Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.

1914 – World War I: The Battle of Cer ends as the first Allied victory in the war.

1932 – Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the U.S. non-stop. The trip from Los Angeles, CA to Newark, NJ, took about 19 hours.

1936 – The Australian Antarctic Territory is created.

1944 – World War II: Allied troops begin the attack on Paris.

1949 – The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) went into effect. The agreement was that an attack against one of the parties would be considered “an attack against them all”.

1989 – US space probe Voyager 2 sent back photographs of Neptune.

1991 – Ukraine declares itself independent from the Soviet Union.

1995 – Microsoft Windows 95 went on sale.