On this date

A.D. 79 — Long-dormant Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic ash; an estimated 20,000 people died.

1572 — The St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of French Protestants at the hands of Catholics began in Paris.

1814 — During the War of 1812, British forces invaded Washington, D.C., setting fire to the Capitol (which was still under construction) and the White House, as well as other public buildings.

1912 — Congress passed a measure creating the Alaska Territory. Congress approved legislation establishing Parcel Post delivery by the U.S. Post Office Department, slated to begin on January 1, 1913.

1932 — Amelia Earhart embarked on a 19-hour flight from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey, making her the first woman to fly solo, non-stop, from coast to coast.

1949 — The North Atlantic Treaty came into force.

1954 — President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Communist Control Act, outlawing the Communist Party in the United States.

1967 — A group of demonstrators led by Abbie Hoffman caused a disruption at the New York Stock Exchange by tossing dollar bills onto the trading floor. American industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, 85, died in Honolulu.

1970 — An explosives-laden van left by antiwar extremists blew up outside the University of Wisconsin’s Sterling Hall in Madison, killing 33-year-old researcher Robert Fassnacht.

1981 — Mark David Chapman was sentenced in New York to 20 years to life in prison for murdering John Lennon. (Chapman remains imprisoned.)

1989 — Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti banned Pete Rose from the game for betting on his own team, the Cincinnati Reds.

2006 — The International Astronomical Union declared that Pluto was no longer a fullfledged planet, demoting it to the status of a “dwarf planet.”