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

August 23

• August 23, 406
  The Roman army under Stilicho beat the Barbarians and executes his Gothic king Radagaisus
• August 23, 1305
  William Wallace, one of the main leaders during the Wars of Scottish Independence, is hanged, drawn and quartered in London
• August 23, 1514
  The Ottoman Empire under Selim I gains decisive victory against a Persian army in the Battle of Chaldiran and wrests Eastern Anatolia from the Safavids
• August 23, 1617
  The first one-way street is opened in alleys near the River Thames in London
• August 23, 1689
  French cross the Rhine, destroying Baden-Baden by fire during Nine Years' War
• August 23, 1775
  Britain's King George III refuses the American colonies' offer of peace and proclaims the American colonies in a state of "open and avowed rebellion"
• August 23, 1833
  Slavery Abolition Act bans slavery throughout the British Empire and frees some 700,000 slaves, including those in the West Indies
• August 23, 1866
  Peace of Prague, lenient toward the Austrian Empire, ends the Austro-Prussian war and leads to the creation of the North German Confederation with Prussia as the only major power
• August 23, 1903
  In Russia the Bolsheviks, who ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the Mensheviks form from the breakup of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party as a result of a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Juliy Martov
• August 23, 1939
  Germany and the Soviet Union sign Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with secret protocol, which defines eastern Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, and the Romanian province of Bessarabia as Soviet domains of influence and western Poland and Lithuania as Germany's one
• August 23, 1942
  German forces attack Stalingrad in Soviet Union, starting 5-month-long battle of Stalingrad, the bloodiest battle in the history of warfare, with combined casualties amounting to nearly two million
• August 23, 1943
  Soviet forces recapture Kharkiv, the last stage of the Battle of Kursk, an important engagement between German and Soviet forces after which Red Army gains the initiative against the German Wehrmacht
• August 23, 1944
  Romania is liberated and King Michael unconditionally surrenders to the Allies
• August 23, 1962
  Mariner 2, an American space probe to Venus, and the first robotic space probe to conduct a successful planetary encounter, is launched
• August 23, 1996
  Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaeda, allegedly writes "The Declaration of Jihad on the Americans Occupying the Country of the Two Sacred Places," his first open call for war
• August 23, 2005
  Israel's unilateral disengagement from 25 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and West Bank ends
• August 23, 2006
  In Austria, Natascha Kampusch manages to escape after being kidnapped eight years ago by Wolfgang Priklopil who locked her up in his cellar; Priklopil commits suicide by throwing himself in front of a train

August 22

• August 22, 634
  Abu Bakr, successor of Mohammed and first Caliph, dies; Umar, a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, becomes the second Caliph
• August 22, 1138
  The english defeat Scots at the battle of the Standard
• August 22, 1236
  Volkwin, the Master of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, is defeated and killed by the Samogitians at the Battle of Saule which causes merging the order into the Teutonic Order
• August 22, 1350
  Philip VI of Valois, King of France, dies; John II of France succeeds
• August 22, 1485
  England's King Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet kings, is killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field, that ends the War of the Roses and establishes the Tudor dynasty in England
• August 22, 1614
  Trades people under Vincent Fettmilch chase and plunder Jews out of ghetto in Frankfurt
• August 22, 1642
  Civil war in England, resulted in the establishment of the supremacy of Parliament over the king, begins as King Charles I declared war on the Puritan Parliament at Nottingham
• August 22, 1676
  Ole Rømer, a Danish astronomer, publishes the first measurement of the speed of light based on the times of the eclipses of Io, the moon of Jupiter
• August 22, 1717
  The Austrian army under Eugene of Savoy force the Turkish army out of Belgrade, ending the Turkish revival in the Balkans
• August 22, 1787
  Inventor John Fitch demonstrates his steamboat, the Perseverance, on the Delaware River to delegates of the Continental Congress
• August 22, 1791
  Haitian Revolution, the only slave revolt which led to the founding of a state, begins in the French colony of Saint-Domingue
• August 22, 1831
  Nat Turner's Rebellion, a slave rebellion in Virginia, which claimed from 55 to 65 people, is suppressed by white militias
• August 22, 1849
  Earliest recorded air raid occurs, as Austria employs 200 balloons to deliver ordinance against Venice
• February 12, 1851
  Gold fields are discovered by gold prospector Edward Hargraves in New South Wales, Australia, starting Victorian gold rush
• August 22, 1864
  In Geneva, Switzerland, representatives of 12 nations agreed to sign the First Geneva Convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field"
• August 22, 1875
  Russia recognizes Japan's control over the 4 southernmost Kuril Islands and by the Treaty of Saint Petersburg and gets all rights over Sakhalin in exchange
• August 22, 1910
  Imperial Japan annexes Korea bringing to a close the Joseon Dynasty and starting the modernization and industrialization in the peninsula
• August 22, 1932
  The British Broadcasting Corporation begins experimental regular TV broadcasts
• August 22, 1942
  Brazil declares war on Germany
• August 22, 1969
  Hurricane Camille strikes U.S. Gulf Coast and kills 255
• August 22, 2006
  The International Congress of Mathematicians awards Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman the Fields Medal for proving the Poincare conjecture, one of seven Millennium Prize Problems, but Perelman refuses the medal
• August 22, 2007
  Myanmar government arrests thirteen dissidents who led protests against huge rises in fuel prices
• August 22, 2008
  Pirates hijack German, Iranian, and Japanese cargo ships off the coast of Somalia, in seven such attacks since June 20

August 21

• August 21, 1680
  Pueblo Indians take possession of Santa Fe and drives the Spanish out of New Mexico until 1692 during the Pueblo Revolt
• August 21, 1770
  British navigator, James Cook formally claims the East Coast of Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales during his first voyage
• August 21, 1808
  Napoleon Bonaparte's General Jean-Andoche Junot is defeated by British General Arthur Wellesley at the first Battle of the Peninsular War at Vimeiro, Portugal
• August 21, 1810
  Sweden's Riksdag elects Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of France under Napoleon, as heir apparent to the Swedish throne
• August 21, 1841
  John Hampson of New Orleans patents the Window blind
• August 21, 1944
  Dumbarton Oaks conference, which establishes United Nations, opens in Washington, DC
• August 21, 1968
  Radio Prague, Czechoslovakia, at 12:50 AM announces a Soviet-led invasion, after Warsaw Pact forces enter Czechoslovakia to end reform movement known as Prague Spring
• August 21, 1986
  A limnic eruption at Lake Nyos in Cameroon triggers the sudden release of about 200,000 tons of carbon dioxide and causes death of 1,744 people
• August 21, 2013
  1,429 are killed in the Ghouta chemical attack during the Syrian Civil War, blamed on President Bashar al-Assad

August 20

• August 20, 1191
  Crusader King Richard I executes some 2,700 Muslim prisoners in Acre
• August 20, 1530
  Hayreddin Barbarossa, a Barbary pirate, unites Algeria and Tunisia as military states under the Ottoman caliphate and becomes admiral of the Ottoman fleet
• August 20, 1619
  The first African slaves arrive to North America aboard a Dutch privateer and dock in Jamestown, Virginia, with twenty human captives among its cargo
• August 20, 1672
  Johan de Witt, Grand Pensionary of Holland and key figure in Dutch politics, is assassinated by a carefully organized lynch mob by a shot in the neck, and his naked body is hanged and mutilated beside body of his brother Cornelis de Witt
• August 20, 1745
  Bonnie Prince Charlie occupies Blair Castle, Scotland
• August 20, 1847
  General Winfield Scott wins the Battle of Churubusco, only 8 kilometers away from Mexico City
• August 20, 1860
  Robert O'Hara Burke leads a group of 15 men, 27 camels and 23 horses out of Melbourne on an expedition to cross Australia
• August 20, 1913
  Adolphe Pégoud becomes the first pilot to parachute from an aircraft
• August 20, 1939
  Soviet forces under Lieutenant General Georgi Zhukov successfully counterattack Japanese invaders at Nomanhan in the Mongolian People's Republic on the border with Manchukuo
• August 20, 1940
  Ramón Mercader, agent of Josef Stalin, fatally stabs Leon Trotsky with an ice pick in Mexico City
• August 20, 1956
  The Calder Hall atomic power station begins operation in Cumberland, Great Britain, generating up to 90,000 kilowatts of power and manufacturing plutonium becoming the world's first power station to generate electricity on an industrial scale
• August 20, 2011
  In the Battle of Tripoli, Libyan rebels take control the nation's capital, effectively overthrowing the government of Muammar Gaddafi

August 19

• August 19, 1099
  Crusaders led by Frankish knight Godfrey of Bouillon beat Fatimid forces at Battle of Ascalon
• August 19, 1399
  King Richard II of England surrenders to his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, who returns to England to claim his inherited lands
• August 19, 1493
  Maximilian I succeeds his father Frederick III, who bleeds to death after the amputation of his left leg, as Holy Roman Emperor
• August 19, 1524
  Emperor Charles V's troops besiege Marseille
• August 19, 1692
  Five women are hanged in Salem, Massachusetts after being convicted of the crime of witchcraft
• August 19, 1700
  Russia declares war on Sweden
• August 19, 1772
  Gustav III of Sweden eliminates the rule of parties, becoming almost an absolute monarch
• August 19, 1779
  Americans under Major Henry Lee take the British garrison at Paulus Hook, New Jersey
• August 19, 1821
  Navarino Massacre, a massacre of Turkish civilian population during Greek War of Independence, occurs
• August 19, 1871
  Orville Wright, aviation pioneer, is born in Dayton, Ohio
• August 19, 1934
  One day before the death of Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg, Chancellor of Germany Hitler and his cabinet issue a decree, that dissolves the office of the president and make Hitler Führer of Germany
• August 19, 1942
  United States Marines land on Guadalcanal, Solomon Island starting the first American offensive in Pacific in World War II
• August 19, 1953
  Mohammad Mosaddegh, Prime Minister of Iran and the leading champion of secular democracy, is deposed in Iran by the British MI6 and the American CIA
• August 19, 1988
  Iran and Iraq begin a cease-fire after eight years of war
• August 19, 1991
  Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is put under house arrest while vacationing in the Crimea during a coup, during the failed coup attempt, led by Vice President Gennady Yanayev and seven hard-liners, and collapsed in less than 72 hours

August 18

• August 18, 1227
  Genghis Khan, a Mongol conqueror, dies, which triggers subsequent division of Mongol empire among his sons
• August 18, 1459
  City of Smederevo falls under the Turks after three-months siege completing the Ottoman conquest of Serbia
• August 18, 1588
  A storm strikes the remaining 60 ships of the Spanish Armada under the Duke Alonso Pérez de Guzmán after which only 11 are left. Many of the ships go to Ireland where most of the Spaniards are killed by the English
• August 18, 1759
  The French fleet is destroyed by the British under Admiral Edward Boscawen, at the battle of Lagos Bay in southern Portugal
• August 18, 1807
  Robert Stevenson begins work on the 35-meters Bell Rock lighthouse at the mouth of Scotland's Firth of Forth, the world's oldest surviving sea-washed lighthouse
• August 18, 1838
  United States Exploring Expedition, an exploring and surveying expedition of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands, led by Charles Wilkes, departs from Hampton Roads
• August 18, 1846
  General Stephen W. Kearny proclaims all of New Mexico a territory of the United States and declares himself the military governor of the New Mexico Territory shortly after Capture of Santa Fe
• August 18, 1851
  The Platine War for the hegemony over South America begins between the Argentine Confederation and Empire of Brazil and its alliance
• August 18, 1862
  Dakota War of 1862 begins in Minnesota four young Sioux murder five white settlers at Acton Township, Minnesota
• August 18, 1870
  Prussian forces defeat the French at the Battle of Gravelotte, the largest battle during the Franco–Prussian War
• August 18, 1920
  Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, giving women right to vote, is ratified
• August 18, 1920
  Serbian geophysicist and astronomer Milutin Milanković links Earth's periodic long-term climate changes with orbital eccentricity and full cycles of Earth's axis precession, later called Milankovitch cycles
• August 18, 1955
  First Sudanese Civil War begins between the northern part of Sudan and the southern Sudan region