August 24

• August 24, 79
  The eruption of Mount Vesuvius buries the Roman settlements of Pompeii and Herculaneum under 4 to 6 meters of ash and kills 33,000 inhabitants of the town-cities
• August 24, 410
  Rome is occupied and sacked by Alaric I, King of the Visigoths, for the first time since 390 BC
• August 24, 1109
  In the Battle of Hundsfeld, Boleslaus III Wrymouth Prince of Poland defeats Emperor Henry V, incited by Bolesław's half-brother Zbigniew
• August 24, 1215
  Pope Innocent III, following a request from King John, declares the Magna Carta annulled
• August 24, 1217
  Eustace the Monk, a French mercenary and pirate, is executed by English troops
• August 24, 1516
  The Ottomans under Selim I with the support of artillery defeat the Mamluks at Battle of Marj Dabiq and gain control of Egypt, Arabia, and the Levant
• August 24, 1572
  Catherine de' Medici instigates Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris in which French protestant leader Gaspard de Coligny and thousands of Calvinist Huguenots are killed throughout France by Roman Catholic mob
• August 24, 1662
  An Act of Uniformity, a part of the Clarendon Code, is passed by the English Parliament and required that England's college fellows and clergymen accept the newly published Book of Common Prayer
• August 24, 1690
  Job Charnock, a servant and administrator of the English East India Company, founds the city of Kolkata in East India, after the Mughal emperor transfer taxation rights to the East India Company
• August 24, 1751
  Thomas Colley, an English chimney sweep, is executed in England for drowning a supposed witch
• August 24, 1780
  King Louis XVI abolish torture as a means to get suspects to confess, as part of his reforms in France in accordance with Enlightenment ideas
• August 24, 1814
  The United States Capitol and White House in Washington D.C. are burned and sacked by British General Robert Ross and Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn during War of 1812
• August 24, 1821
  Mexico gains independence from Spain with the Treaty of Córdoba and becomes a constitutional monarchy after 11 years of war
• August 24, 1824
  Simon Bolivar's army beat the Spanish in Peru in the Battle of Junín
• August 24, 1853
  First potato chips prepared by Chef George Crum in Saratoga Springs, New York
• August 24, 1857
  The New York branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company fails, sparking the Panic of 1857, the first world-wide economic crisis
• August 24, 1936
  Australian Antarctic Territory is created
• August 24, 1940
  Edward R. Murrow, an American broadcast journalist, starts a series of radio news broadcasts from London during the Blitz, which follow by millions of listeners in the United States
• August 24, 1991
  Ukraine declares independence from the USSR
• August 24, 2006
  The International Astronomical Union defines 'planet' at its 26th General Assembly, demoting Pluto to the status of 'dwarf planet' more than 70 years after its discovery