HISTORY AT A GLANCE

TODAY is Thursday, August 24, the 236th day of 2017. There are 129 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1954 – Getúlio Dornelles Vargas, president of Brazil, commits

suicide and is succeeded by João Café Filho. 1963 – Buddhist crisis: As a result of the Xá Loi 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 Ðình Diem if he did not remove his brother Ngô Ðình Nhu.

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.

1981 – Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life

in prison for murdering John Lennon.

1989 – Colombian drug barons declare “total war” on the

Colombian government.

1989 – Tadeusz Mazowiecki is chosen as

the first noncommunist Prime Minister in Central and Eastern Europe.

1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist

Party of the Soviet Union.

1991 – Ukraine declares itself independent from the Soviet

Union. 1994 – Initial accord between Israel and the PLO about partial

self-rule of the Palestinians on the West Bank.

1995 – Microsoft Windows 95 was released to the public in

North America.

1998 – First radio-frequency identification (RFID) human

implantation tested in the United Kingdom.

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.

2010 – In San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, 72 illegal immigrants are killed by Los Zetas and eventually found dead by Mexican authorities.

2014 – A 6.0 magnitude earthquake strikes Napa, California, in the northern San Francisco Bay area, killing one person and injuring over 200 others. Estimated damage in the southern Napa Valley and Vallejo areas was between $362 million to 1 billion. It was the largest earthquake to strike northern California since 1989.