ON THIS DAY, AUGUST 24

79 Mount Vesuvius erupts, burying the cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae in ash.

410 Rome is overrun by Visigoths, under Alaric I, for the first time in nearly 800 years. This is seen as the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Dark Ages.

1349 Six thousand Jews are killed in

Mainz, Germany, after being blamed for the catastrophic bubonic plague.

1456 The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed.

1759 William Wilberforce, the English philanthropist and champion for the abolishment of the slave trade, is born.

1844 The Prins Albert ship is wrecked in a storm near Plettenberg Bay. The cargo and all on board are rescued.

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

1891 Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera.

1932 Amelia Earhart makes the first transcontinental non-stop flight by a woman.

1941 Owing to protests, Adolf Hitler orders the cessation of Nazi Germany’s T4 euthanasia programme of the mentally ill and the handicapped. The killings continue in secret for the remainder of the war.

1944 Allied troops begin the liberation of Paris, which is surrendered in spite of Hitler’s order that it be destroyed.

1949 The treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) goes into effect.

1950 Operation Magic Carpet – the transport of 45 000 Yemenite Jews to Israel – ends.

1961 Former South African Nazi leader Johannes Vorster becomes minister of justice.

1976 Violent ethnic clashes between Zulus and others, involving about 10 000 people in running fights, start, causing chaos in Soweto which the police appear unable to control.

1981 Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years in prison for murdering Beatle John Lennon.

2011 A dying Steve Jobs resigns as CEO of Apple Inc, and is succeeded by Tim Cook.

2013 Thirty people are killed in a gang battle involving flame throwers in Palmasola prison, Bolivia. |