Today in History - August 24
Return to home
79AD Aug 24,
Pliny the Elder, Roman naturalist, witnessed the eruption of
long-dormant Mount Vesuvius and was overcome by the fumes as he tried
to rescue refugees. The eruption buried the Roman cities of Pompeii,
Stabiae, Herculaneum and other, smaller settlements in 13 feet of
volcanic ash and pumice. An estimated 20,000 people died. The event was
described by Pliny the Younger, the elder’s nephew, in a letter to
Tacitus.
(HFA, '96, p.36)(DD-EVTT, p.70)(AP, 8/24/97)(WUD,
1994, p.1106)(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A2)(HNQ, 6/16/98)
410 Aug 24, Rome was overrun by
the Visigoths, an event that symbolized the fall of the Western Roman
Empire. German barbarians sacked Rome [see Aug 18].
(V.D.-H.K.p.87)(AP, 8/24/97)(HN, 8/24/98)
1103 Aug 24, Magnus III Berbein,
[Blootbeen], King of Norway (1093-1103), died.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1113 Aug 24, Geoffrey Plantagenet,
conquered Normandy, was born in France.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1215 Aug 24, Pope Innocent III,
following a request from King John, declared the Magna Carta invalid.
The barons of England soon retaliated by inviting King Philip of France
to come to England. Philip accepted the offer.
(MC, 8/24/02)(ON, 7/04, p.2)
1217 Aug 24, Eustace "the Monk",
French buccaneer, was killed in battle.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1349 Aug 24, Some 6,000 Jews,
blamed for the Bubonic Plague, were killed in Mainz.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1349 Aug 24, Jews of Cologne
Germany set themselves on fire to avoid baptism.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1391 Aug 24, Jews of Palma
Majorca, Spain, were massacred.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1516 Aug 24, At the Battle of Marj
Dabik, north of Aleppo, the Turks beat Syria. Suliman I (Selim the
Grim), the Ottoman Sultan, routed the Mamelukes (Egypt) with the
support of artillery capturing Aleppo and Damascus. This opened the way
to 400 years of Ottoman Turkish rule over most of the Arab world.
(PC, 1992, p.169)(Econ, 11/14/09, p.101)
1542 Aug 24, In South America,
Gonzalo Pizarro returned to the mouth of the Amazon River after having
sailed the length of the great river as far as the Andes Mountains.
(HN, 8/24/98)
1572 Aug 24, The slaughter of
French Protestants at the hands of Catholics began in Paris as Charles
IX of France attempted to rid the country of Huguenots. Charles, under
the sway of his mother Catherine de Medici, believed the Huguenot
Protestants were plotting a revolution. France’s fourth war of religion
started with the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day, in which 50,000
Huguenots and their leader, Admiral Gaspard de Chastillon, Count the
Coligny, were killed in and around Paris. Meyerbeer's 1836 opera "Les
Huguenots" was centered on the struggle. The House of Guise played a
leading role in the massacre. In 2009 Stuart Carroll authored “Martyrs
and Murderers: The Guise Family and the Making of Europe.”
(AP, 8/24/97)(HN, 8/24/98)(WSJ, 11/23/99,
p.A21)(Econ, 11/7/09, p.78)
1591 Aug 24, Robert Herrick,
English poet (Gather ye rosebuds) was baptized.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1595 Aug 24, Thomas Digges,
English astronomer (Universe Infinite), died.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1662 Aug 24, An Act of Uniformity,
a part of the Clarendon Code (1661-1665), was passed by the English
Parliament and required that England's college fellows and clergymen
accept the newly published Book of Common Prayer. Charles II attempted
to suspend the operation of the Clarendon Code by issuing a 2nd
Declaration of Indulgence, but opposition from Parliament forced him to
retract it in 1663.
(PC, 1992,
p.249)(www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=the%20Clarendon%20Code)
1669 Aug 24, Alessandro Marcello
(d.1747), composer, was born in Venice.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1680 Aug 24, Colonel Thomas Blood,
Irish adventurer who stole the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London in
1671, died. Captured after the theft, he insisted on seeing King
Charles II, who pardoned him.
(Reuters, 8/24/01)
1682 Aug 24, Duke James of York
gave Delaware to William Penn.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1750 Aug 24, Laetitia
Bonaparte-Ramolino, mother of Napoleon, was born.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1751 Aug 24, Thomas Colley was
executed in England for drowning a supposed witch.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1759 Aug 24, William Wilberforce
(d.1833), was born in Hull, Yorkshire, England. He became best known
for his efforts relating to the abolition of slavery in the British
Empire.
(www.nndb.com/people/824/000049677/)(HNQ, 12/6/02)
1759 Aug 24, Ewald C. von Kleist
(44), German poet, died.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1733 Aug 24, David Traugott
Nicolai (d.1799), composer, was born.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1770 Aug 24, Thomas Chatterton
(b.1752), English poet (Revenge), committed suicide.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1780 Aug 24, King Louis XVI
abolished torture as a means to get suspects to confess.
(HN, 8/24/98)
1787 Aug 24, Wolfgang A. Mozart
completed his viola sonata in A, K526.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1810 Aug 24, Theodore Parker,
anti-slavery movement leader, was born.
(HN, 8/24/98)
1814 Aug 24, 5,000 British troops
under the command of General Robert Ross marched into Washington, D.C.,
after defeating an American force at Bladensburg, Maryland. It was in
retaliation for the American burning of the parliament building in York
(Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada. Meeting no resistance from the
disorganized American forces, the British burned the White House, the
Capitol and almost every public building in the city before a downpour
extinguished the fires. President James Madison and his wife fled from
the advancing enemy, but not before Dolly Madison saved the famous
Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. This wood engraving of
Washington in flames was printed in London weeks after the event to
celebrate the British victory.
(AP, 8/24/97)(HNPD, 8/24/98)(
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bladensburg))
1816 Aug 24, Daniel Gooch, laid
1st successful transatlantic cables, was born.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1817 Aug 24, Aleksei K. Tolstoy,
[Kozjma Prutkov], Russian poet, writer, was born.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/reference/aleksey_konstantinovich_tolstoy)
1824 Aug 24, Simon Bolivar's army
beat the Spanish in Peru in the Battle at Junin.
(PC, 1992, p.394)
1831 Aug 24, John Henslow asked
Charles Darwin to travel with him on HMS Beagle.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1847 Aug 24, Charlotte Bronte,
using the pseudonym Currer Bell, sent a manuscript of "Jane Eyre" to
her publisher in London.
(HN, 8/24/00)
1853 Aug 24, The 1st potato chips
were prepared by Chef George Crum at Saratoga Springs, NY.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1857 Aug 24, The New York branch
of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Co. failed, sparking the Panic of
1857. Financial pressures exerted negative market influences as noted
in a letter to the Economist in 1865. The sharp but short 1857-58
financial crash in the US was touched off by the failure of the New
York branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company. Over
speculation in real estate and railroad securities fed the panic.
(AP, 8/24/07)(WSJ, 9/28/95c, p.A-18)(HNQ, 6/6/00)
1858 Aug 24, Richmond "Daily
Dispatch" reported 90 blacks arrested for learning.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1862 Aug 24, The C.S.S. Alabama
was commissioned at sea off Portugal's Azore Islands, beginning a
career that would see over 60 Union merchant vessels sunk or destroyed
by the Confederate raider. The ship was built in secret in the in
Liverpool shipyards, and a diplomatic crisis between the US government
and Britain ensued when the Union uncovered the ship’s birth place.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1869 Aug 24, Cornelius Swarthout
of Troy, New York, patented the waffle iron.
(HN, 8/24/00)
1872 Aug 24, Max Beerbohm
(d.1956), critic, caricaturist, writer, wit (Saturday Review), was born
in England. His work included "Nobody ever died of laughter."
(AP, 4/9/97)(MC, 8/24/02)
1880 Aug 24, Joshua L. Cowen,
inventor of the electric train, was born.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1889 Aug 24, Jan E. Matzeliger,
Suriname inventor (shoe lacing machine), died.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1889 Aug 24, Auguste Neal, a
convicted murderer, was executed in Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, becoming
the first and only person to be executed by guillotine in North
America. The device was specially shipped from Martinique for the
execution.
(SSFC, 11/16/08, p.E5)
1890 Aug 24, Jean Rhys, author of
"Wild Sargasso Sea," was born.
(HN, 8/24/00)
1891 Aug 24, Thomas Edison filed a
patent for the motion picture camera.
(HN, 8/24/98)
1893 Aug 24, A fire in south
Chicago left 5,000 people homeless.
(Reuters, 8/24/01)
1894 Aug 24, Congress passed the
first graduated income tax law, which was declared unconstitutional the
next year. It imposed a 2% tax on incomes over $4000. The Supreme Court
ruled it unconstitutional. [see Aug 27]
(WSJ, 3/11/98, p.A20)(HN, 8/24/98)
1895 Aug 24, Richard Cushing, the
director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, was born.
(HN, 8/24/98)
1896 Aug 24, Thomas Brooks was
shot and killed by an unknown assailant, beginning a six year feud with
the McFarland family.
(HN, 8/24/98)
1898 Aug 24, Malcolm Cowley, poet
and translator, literary critic and social historian was born. He wrote
"The Dream of the Golden Mountains."
(HN, 8/24/98)
1898 Aug 24, Ernest Narjot
(b.1826), French-born painter, died in SF. He came to California with
the Gold Rush in 1849 and became one of the state’s foremost artists.
Much of his work was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.
(SFCM, 10/28/01, p.20)
1899 Aug 24, Jorge Luis Borges
(d.1986), Argentine poet and philosophical essayist, was born in Buenos
Aires.
(WUD, 1994, p.171)(WSJ, 9/21/98, p.A26)(AP, 8/24/99)
1902 Aug 24, Fernand Braudel
(d.1985), French historian, was born. He was one of the most important
historiographers of the 20th century: "History may be divided into
three movements: what moves rapidly, what moves slowly and what appears
not to move at all."
(AP, 9/5/97)(DT internet 11/28/97)
1904 Aug 24, In the field battle
at Liaoyang, China, some 200,000 Japanese faced 150,000 Russians. The
Japanese defeated the Russians in October.
(MC, 8/24/02)(PC, 1992, p.654)
1905 Aug 24, Arthur "Big Boy"
Crudup, blues singer, was born. He was a major influence on Elvis
Presley.
(HN, 8/24/00)
1909 Aug 24, Workers started
pouring concrete for Panama Canal.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1912 Aug 24, US passed an anti-gag
law giving federal employees the right to petition government.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1912 Aug 24, By an act of
Congress, Alaska was given a territorial legislature of two houses.
(HN, 8/24/98)
1912 Aug 24, NYC held a ticker
tape parade for Jim Thorpe and victorious US Olympians.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1915 Aug 24, Alice H.B. Sheldon,
science fiction writer, was born. He also worked as an artist, CIA
photo-intelligence operative, lecturer at American University and major
in the U.S. Army Air Force.
(HN, 8/24/00)
1923 Aug 24, Kate Douglas Wiggin
(66), author (US kindergarten movement), died.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1929 Aug 24, Yasser Arafat
(d.2004), leader of the Palestinian Liberation Movement (Nobel 1994),
was born in Cairo according to his Cairo birth certificate. He was the
5th child of Palestinian merchant Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini. In
1998 Said K. Aburish published his biography "Arafat: From Defender to
Dictator."
(SFC, 11/11/04,
p.A18)(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Yasser-Arafat)
1929 Aug 24, Palestinians attacked
orthodox Jews in Jerusalem.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1932 Aug 24, Amelia Earhart became
the first woman to fly nonstop across the United States, traveling from
Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in just over 19 hours.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1934 Aug 24, In Philadelphia, Pa.,
Philo T. Farnsworth (28), a San Francisco scientist, produced a
televised picture of the moon, the first recorded use of television in
astronomy.
(SSFC, 8/16/09, p.46)
1936 Aug 24, FDR gave the FBI
authority to pursuit fascists and communists.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1937 Aug 24, Treasure Island in SF
Bay was completed after 18½ months. All told 20 million cubic
yards of sea bottom had been dredged, dug, dumped and poured inside the
rocky walls.
(www.treasureislandfestival.com/island.php)
1937 Aug 24, There was a
Republican offensive near Belchite, Spain.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1938 Aug 24, Mason Williams,
composer (Classical Gas), writer (Smother Brothers Hour), was born in
Abilene, Tx.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1940 Aug 24, Luftwaffe bombed
London.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1942 Aug 24, In the battle of the
Eastern Solomons, the third carrier-versus-carrier battle of the war,
U.S. naval forces defeated a Japanese force attempting to screen
reinforcements for the Guadalcanal fighting.
(HN, 8/24/98)
1944 Aug 24, Allied forces
captured Bordeaux.
(www.euronet.nl/users/wilfried/ww2/1944.htm)
1948 Aug 24, Edith Mae Irby became
the University of Arkansas' first African-American student.
(HN, 8/24/98)
1949 Aug 24, Stephen Harrison
Paulus, composer, was born in New Jersey.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1949 Aug 24, The North Atlantic
Treaty went into effect.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1951 Aug 24, Oscar Hijeulos,
novelist, was born. His work included "The Mambo Kings play Songs of
Love."
(HN, 8/24/00)
1954 Aug 24, President Dwight D.
Eisenhower signed the Communist Control Act, virtually outlawing the
Communist Party in the United States.
(WUD, 1994, p.1685)(AP, 8/24/07)
1954 Aug 24, In Brazil Pres.
Getulio Vargas killed himself in the midst of a scandal.
(WSJ, 4/6/06,
p.D8)(http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=428)
1958 Aug 24, Leo Blech (87),
German conductor and composer, died.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1959 Aug 24, Three days after
Hawaiian statehood, Hiram L. Fong was sworn in as the first
Chinese-American U.S. Senator while Daniel K. Inouye was sworn in as
the first Japanese-American U.S. Representative.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1961 Aug 24, Johannes Vorster, a
former Nazi leader, became South Africa's minister of justice.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1967 Aug 24, Henry J. Kaiser (85),
industrialist (Boulder Dam, Liberty ship), died.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1968 Aug 24, France became the
world's fifth thermonuclear power as it exploded a hydrogen bomb in the
South Pacific.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1970 Aug 24, A bomb planted by
anti-war extremists exploded at the University of Wisconsin's Army Math
Research Center in Madison, killing 33-year-old researcher Robert
Fassnacht.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1974 Aug 24, France
performed another nuclear test at Muruora Island.
(www.atomicforum.org/france/1974.html)
1975 Aug 24, Charles H. Revson
(b.1906), US cosmetic magnate, died.
(www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/500688/Charles-H-Revson)
1976 Aug 24, In Buenos Aires a
government task force kidnapped Marcelo Gelman (20) and his pregnant
wife Maria Claudia Garcia Irureta (19). Marcelo was shot and killed 2
months later and packed in cement in an oil drum. His wife disappeared
after giving birth in a military hospital in Uruguay. Juan Gelman, the
poet father of Marcelo, later campaigned in search of his grandchild
and authored the book "Not Even God's Feeble Pardon." In 2008 the
granddaughter of Argentine poet Juan Gelman urged Uruguayan courts to
reopen a probe into the 1976 disappearance of her dissident mother,
weeks before her grandfather was scheduled to receive the
Spanish-speaking world's most prestigious literary prize.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A16)(AP, 2/27/08)
1981 Aug 24, Mark David Chapman
(b.1955) was sentenced in New York to 20 years to life in prison for
the murder of rock star John Lennon.
(AP,
8/24/97)(www.jfkmontreal.com/john_lennon/app_c_sentencinghearing.htm)
1982 Aug 24, Some 800 US Marines
landed in Beirut, Lebanon, as part of a joint US-French peacekeeping
force.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/usmnf.htm)
1987 Aug 24, A military jury in
Quantico, Va., sentenced Marine Sgt. Clayton Lonetree to 30 years in
prison for disclosing U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union. The sentence
was later reduced; with additional time off for good behavior, Lonetree
ended up serving eight years in a military prison.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1987 Aug 24, Bayard Rustin
(b.1912), gay civil rights activist, died of cardiac arrest. In 2003 a
documentary of his life by Nancy Kates: "Brother Outsider: The Life of
Bayard Rustin," was aired on PBS TV. He was the chief architect of the
1963 march on Washington. In 2003 John D'Emilio authored "Lost Prophet:
The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin."
(SFC, 1/16/03, p.E1)(SSFC, 8/31/03, p.M3)
1988 Aug 24, Democratic
presidential nominee Michael Dukakis picked up the endorsement of the
AFL-CIO while Republican nominee George Bush campaigned in California
with President Reagan.
(AP, 8/24/98)
1988 Aug 24, Leonard Frey
(b.1938), American actor, died of AIDS. His film roles included “Boys
in the Band” (1970) and “Fiddler on the Roof” (1971).
(www.answers.com/topic/leonard-frey)
1988 Aug 24, Max Shulman (b.1919),
author (Dobie Gillis, Tender Trap), died.
(www.answers.com/topic/max-shulman)
1989 Aug 24, Commissioner A.
Bartlett Giamatti banned Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose from major
league baseball for gambling.
(AP, 8/24/99)
1989 Aug 24, Voyager II passed
within three thousand miles of Neptune sending back striking
photographs.
(V.D.-H.K.p.388)(AP, 8/24/99)
1989 Aug 24, British brewery Bass
bought the Holiday Inn hotel chain.
(www.worldofquotes.com/history/8_24/7/index.html)
1989 Aug 24, Colombian drug lords
declared "total war" on the government.
(AP, 8/24/99)
1989 Aug 24, Poland appointed
Tadeusz Mazowiecki prime minister, becoming the first country in the
Soviet bloc to name a non-communist prime minister since the late
1940s. Krzysztof Skubiszewski (d.2010 at 83) became foreign minister
under PM Mazowiecki. Skubiszewski served under three more prime
ministers before leaving the job in 1993.
(Reuters, 8/24/01)(AP, 2/8/10)
1990 Aug 24, Iraqi troops
surrounded foreign missions in Kuwait.
(AP, 8/24/00)
1990 Aug 24, Irish hostage Brian
Keenan was released by his captors in Lebanon after being held more
than four years.
(AP, 8/24/00)
1990 Aug 24, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev sent a message to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
warning the Persian Gulf situation was "extremely dangerous."
(AP, 8/24/00)
1991 Aug 24, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev resigned as head of the Communist Party,
culminating a stunning Kremlin shakeup that followed the failed coup by
hard-liners. In Moscow, thousands of people held a martyrs' funeral for
three men killed fighting the coup.
(AP, 8/24/01)
1991 Aug 24, Ukraine declared
independence from USSR.
(www.users.bigpond.com/kyroks/ukrhist10.html)
1991 Aug 24, Bernard Castro
(b.1904), Sicilian-born inventor of the convertible couch, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Castro)
1992 Aug 24, Hurricane Andrew
smashed into Florida causing record damage; 55 deaths in Florida,
Louisiana and the Bahamas were blamed on the storm. It swept across
Coral Gables, Florida, and destroyed two-thirds of the Fairchild
Tropical Garden. It cost $15.5 bil in insured losses and was the most
expensive natural disaster in US history. Insurance losses in the US
and Bahamas totaled $21.5 billion.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A11)(AP, 8/24/97)(Econ, 8/21/04,
p.62)(Econ, 9/17/05, p.73)
1992 Aug 24, China and South Korea
established diplomatic ties.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1993 Aug 24, The Clinton
administration unveiled its proposed revisions to wetlands policy,
which would expand protection but also give landowners some
flexibility.
(AP, 8/24/98)
1993 Aug 24, NASA’s Mars Observer,
which was supposed to map the surface of Mars, was declared lost.
(HN, 8/24/99)
1994 Aug 24, Israeli and PLO
negotiators agreed on an accord to give the Palestinians control of
health care, taxation, education and other services in West Bank areas
still controlled by Israel.
(AP, 8/24/99)
1995 Aug 24, Microsoft Corporation
began selling its highly publicized Windows 95 personal computer
software. The Windows 95 operating system was priced at $89 for an
upgrade.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)(AP, 8/24/00)
1995 Aug 24, Harry Wu, Chinese
human rights activist and writer, was sentenced to 15 years in prison
by Chinese law and then expelled from China. China expelled Harry Wu,
hours after convicting him of spying.
(SFC, 5/19/96, Zone 1, p.3)(AP, 8/24/00)
1996 Aug 24, Four women began two
days of academic orientation at The Citadel; they were the first female
cadets admitted to the South Carolina military school since Shannon
Faulkner.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1996 Aug 24, Steve Fossett sailed
across the Pacific Ocean and set a solo speed record of 20 days in his
60-foot 3-hulled boat, the Lakota.
(SFC, 8/25/96, p.B6)
1996 Aug 24, In Mozambique crops
in the fertile districts of Manica were severely damaged by an invasion
of red locusts.
(SFC, 8/24/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 24, In North Korea
American Evan Carl Hunzike was arrested for spying. He entered
illegally from China to get information on the domestic situation.
(SFEC, 10/7/96, A8)
1997 Aug 24, Officer Jeremy
Charron, 24, was shot and killed Gordon Perry (22) and Kevin Paul (18)
in Epsom, New Hampshire. Both captured suspects were on probation. Paul
later received a 16- to 50-year prison sentence. Perry was sentenced to
life in prison without parole.
(SFC, 8/25/97,
p.A8)(www.odmp.org/officer/14959-patrolman-jeremy-t.-charron)
1997 Aug 24, In Cambodia troops of
Hun Sen overran O’Smach, the last frontier town held by forces loyal to
Prince Ranariddh.
(SFC, 8/25/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 24, In France Pope John
Paul II offered tough challenges and affectionate encouragement to more
than 1 million faithful attending Mass during closing World Youth Day
ceremonies in Paris.
(AP, 8/24/98)
1997 Aug 24, In Honduras a power
outage at a state-run hospital resulted in the death of 14 patients.
The Sunday blackout was not reported until Monday.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.C3)
1997 Aug 24, In Zambia former
pres. Kaunda accused Pres. Frederick Chiluba of trying to kill
him after he was wounded by riot police during a protest rally.
(WSJ, 8/25/97, p.B5A)
1998 Aug 24, The United States and
Britain agreed to allow two Libyan suspects in the bombing of Pan Am
flight 103 to be tried by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands.
A former Libyan intelligence agent was later convicted of murder; the
other suspect was acquitted.
(AP, 8/24/08)
1998 Aug 24, A federal court
rejected the Census Bureau's plans to use statistical sampling for the
2000 census, a decision later upheld by the Supreme Court.
(AP, 8/24/99)
1998 Aug 24, Tropical Storm
Charley dropped a foot of rain on South Texas and northern Mexico and
left at least 14 people dead and over 60 missing.
(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 24, E.G. Marshall, actor,
died in Mount Kisco, N.Y, at age 84.
(SFC, 8/26/98, p.A17)(AP, 8/24/99)
1998 Aug 24, In Burma Aung San Suu
Kyi bowed to medical problems and ended her 13-day roadside standoff
against the government.
(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A8)
1998 Aug 24, In Congo some 2,000
Angolan troops captured a coastal naval base and oil port and moved up
the Congo River to battle the rebels.
(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A7)
1998 Aug 24, In Egypt Abu Nidal
was captured after crossing the border from Libya. He had split from
the PLO in 1974 and was responsible for terrorist bombings in 1985 at
the Rome and Vienna airports and a 1986 hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73
as well as a number of assassinations of PLO figures. Egypt denied the
report of Nidal’s capture.
(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A6)(WSJ, 8/27/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 24, In Indonesia Lt.
Gen’l. Prabowo Subianto, son-in-law of former Pres. Suharto, was
discharged. He had been the chief of Kopassus, a special forces unit
that was implicated in abductions and torture of political dissidents.
(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A8)
1998 Aug 24, Israel agreed to turn
over an additional 13% of the West Bank to the Palestinians.
(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A7)
1998 Aug 24, In Sierra Leone a
jury found 16 people, including 5 journalists, guilty of collaborating
with the ousted military junta.
(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A8)
1998 Aug 24, It was reported that
Salaheldin Idris, a Saudi Arabian banker, planned to sue the US for $50
million for damages to his Ashifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan.
(WSJ, 8/24/98, p.A9)
1999 Aug 24, The Federal Reserve
raised borrowing costs for millions of Americans, increasing its target
for the federal funds rate by a quarter point to 5.25 percent, and
hiking the discount rate a quarter point to 4.75 percent.
(SFC, 8/25/99, p.A1)(AP, 8/24/00)
1999 Aug 24, In Ohio a federal
judge halted the state's 4-year-old tuition voucher program saying that
it violated constitutional mandates for separation of church and state.
Officials scrambled to absorb 3,800 students participating in the
program. The judge later reversed the decision and allowed some
students to use vouchers, but no new participants.
(SFC, 8/25/99, p.A3)(SFC, 8/28/99, p.A3)
1999 Aug 24, Congo rebel leaders
agreed to sign a peace accord.
(WSJ, 8/25/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug 24, In Dagestan rebels
forces pulled back and Russian forces took control of 5 villages that
had been seized 3 weeks earlier.
(SFC, 8/25/99, p.A17)
1999 Aug 24, In Russia Sergei
Kiriyenko, Boris Nemtsov and Irina Khakamada formed the Union
Right-Wing Forces Block.
(SFC, 8/25/99, p.A18)
1999 Aug 24, In South Africa an
estimated 100,000 workers joined marches across the country in a
one-day strike for wage increases.
(SFC, 8/25/99, p.A16)
1999 Aug 24, The death toll in
Turkey’s August 17 earthquake was raised to near 18,000.
(SFC, 8/25/99, p.A14)
2000 Aug 24, Pres. Clinton and
Vice President Al Gore met with Pres.-elect Vincente Fox of Mexico. Fox
promoted his ideas on an open border a day before he met with Texas
Gov. George W. Bush in Dallas.
(SFC, 8/25/00, p.A14)(AP, 8/24/01)
2000 Aug 24, Ricardo Miguel
Cavallo, a suspected torturer from the Argentine "dirty war"
(1976-1983), was arrested in Mexico after former political prisoners
identified him. Cavallo was extradited to Spain in 2003 and charged
with genocide and terrorism.
(SFC, 8/25/00, p.D4)(AP, 6/30/03)
2000 Aug 24, Fighting from
Chechnya spilled into Ingushetia and 100 rebels were reported killed by
Russian forces.
(SFC, 8/25/00, p.D8)
2000 Aug 24, It was reported that
13 street kids had been killed over the last 7 months in Honduras.
(SFC, 8/24/00, p.A12)
2000 Aug 24, In India it was
reported that 49 people were killed following torrential rains in
Andhra Pradesh.
(SFC, 8/25/00, p.D8)
2000 Aug 24, India and Pakistan
traded accusations over a clash in Kashmir. India claimed that 10
Pakistani fighters were killed, while Pakistan said 2 were killed.
(SFC, 8/25/00, p.D8)
2000 Aug 24, John Kaiser (67), an
American priest of the Society of St. Joseph, was found shot to death
near Naivasha, Kenya. Kaiser was critical of the government’s human
rights record. In 2007 a Kenyan court ruled that his death was a
homicide.
(SFC, 8/25/00, p.D7)(AP, 8/11/03)(AP, 8/1/07)
2000 Aug 24, In the Philippines
police found the bodies of 5 truck drivers kidnapped 2 days earlier in
Maguindanao province.
(SFC, 8/25/00, p.D8)
2000 Aug 24, In Russia Pres. Putin
raised wage 20% for members of the military, police and security forces
effective Dec 1.
(SFC, 8/25/00, p.D8)
2001 Aug 24, President Bush blamed
the slumping economy for the shrinking budget surplus, rather than his
tax cut, and said it was up to Congress to restrain spending.
(AP, 8/24/02)
2001 Aug 24, Tom Green, a Mormon
fundamentalist with five wives and 30 children, was sentenced by a
court in Provo, Utah, to five years in prison in the state's biggest
polygamy case in nearly half a century.
(AP, 8/24/02)
2001 Aug 24, Bridgestone/Firestone
agreed to pay $7.5 million to the family of Marisa Rodriguez, who was
paralyzed in a Ford Explorer crash in 2000. Ford settled before the
trial for $6 million.
(SFC, 8/25/01, p.A3)
2001 Aug 24, Pope Shenouda III,
the 117th successor of St. Mark and head of the 12-million member
Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church, was denied access to a site in Marin,
Ca., where a new monastery was planned.
(SFC, 8/25/01, p.A10)
2001 Aug 24, Actress Jane Greer
died at age 76.
(AP, 8/24/02)
2001 Aug 24, In Angola gunmen
fired a missile at a passenger bus near Malanje and sprayed it with
gunfire. At least 50 people, including women and children were killed.
(SFC, 8/28/01, p.A7)
2001 Aug 24, In Macedonia rebels
agreed to hand over some 3,000 weapons. The government had earlier
charged that the rebels had 85,000 weapons.
(SFC, 8/25/01, p.A8)
2001 Aug 24, Yugoslavia’s Pres.
Kostunica accused Serbia’s government of failure to tackle rising crime
and corruption.
(SFC, 8/25/01, p.A8)
2002 Aug 24, In Oregon City, Ore.,
the FBI uncovered human remains in an outbuilding behind the house of
Ward Weaver III, a suspect in the case of two missing girls who lived
across the street. Authorities recovered the remains of Ashley Pond
(12) and Miranda Gaddis (13). In 2004 Weaver pleaded guilty to
aggravated murder and no contest to other charges of sexual abuse. A
plea bargain allowed him to avoid the death penalty and he was
sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison.
(AP,
8/24/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Weaver_III)
2002 Aug 24, It was reported that
Algerian elite soldiers, backed by artillery and helicopters, killed 16
suspected Islamist rebels during a week-long operation against
guerrillas east of Algiers.
(Reuters, 8/24/02)
2002 Aug 24, Azerbaijani voters
overwhelmingly approved changes to the constitution in a referendum the
opposition charged was marred by fraud.
(AP, 8/25/02)
2002 Sep 24-2002 Sep 25, In the
Canary Islands over a dozen beaked whales beached themselves following
NATO exercises that involved a cluster of warships and submarines. 9 of
the whales washed ashore dead and showed lesions in the brain and
hearing system, consistent with acoustic impact.
(SFC, 9/26/02, p.A20)(SFC, 10/7/02, p.A6)
2002 Aug 24, Suspected rebels shot
dead eight Muslim villagers, including three women, in Indian Kashmir
as a U.S. envoy took his peace mission to Islamabad to try to cool
tensions on the subcontinent.
(Reuters, 8/24/02)
2002 Aug 24, A Palestinian militia
shot and killed a Palestinian woman suspected of collaborating with
Israel, then dumped her bullet-riddled body on a street in the West
Bank town of Tulkarem. The next day her son said that Palestinian
gunmen tortured him until he invented a story about his mother's
involvement.
(AP, 8/24/02)(AP, 8/26/02)
2003 Aug 24, The US Justice
Department reported the crime rate in 2002 was the lowest since studies
began in 1973.
(AP, 8/24/04)
2003 Aug 24, Japan’s Musashi-Fuchu
routed East Boynton Beach, Fla., 10-1 to win the Little League World
Series.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2003 Aug 24, It was reported in
Nature that a chemical in red wine called resveratrol was able to
increase the life a Saccharomyces yeast cell by 80%. A beneficial
effect on humans was implied.
(NW, 9/1/03, p.9)
2003 Aug 24, In Oregon 8
firefighters died as their van hit a tractor-trailer while returning
from fighting a wildfire in Idaho.
(WSJ, 8/25/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 24, John J. Rhodes Jr.
(86), former U.S. House Minority Leader, died in Mesa, Ariz.
(AP, 8/24/04)
2003 Aug 24, Sir Wilfred Thesiger
(93), British writer, explorer and chronicler of the world's vanishing
ways of life, died. Thesiger's most famous books were "Arabian Sands,"
about his travels with the Bedu people across the Empty Quarter of
southern Arabia in the 1940s, and "The Marsh Arabs," the story of the
Shiite marsh dwellers of southern Iraq. In 2006 Alexander Maitland
authored “Wilfred Thesiger: The Life of the Great Explorer.”
(AP, 8/26/03)(Econ, 2/18/06, p.79)
2003 Aug 24, Public power went out
in Kabul, Afghanistan, due to lack of water in the local reservoirs.
Return of power was not expected until Dec.
(Econ, 8/30/03, p.30)
2003 Aug 24, In central Colombia a
rebel bomb exploded as passengers were disembarking from a boat,
killing six people, including the woman carrying the device.
(AP, 8/24/03)
2003 Aug 24, A 150-strong US
Marine force ended an 11-day deployment and headed back to warships off
the coast of Monrovia, Liberia.
(AP, 8/24/03)
2003 Aug 24, A twin-engine
turboprop Let L-410 crashed in Haiti and 21 people were killed.
(AP, 8/26/03)
2003 Aug 24, Hurricane
Ignacio sideswiped the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2003 Aug 24, Palestinian militants
carried out their deepest rocket strike against Israel. A Qassam-2
rocket, a makeshift weapon produced by the militant Islamic group
Hamas, landed near a lifeguard station on Zikim beach with no damages
or casualties. Israeli missile fire killed 4 Palestinian militants in
Gaza City.
(Reuters, 8/24/03)(SFC, 8/25/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 24, In northern Turkey a
bus in a wedding convoy veered off the road and slammed into a
retaining wall, killing 19 people and injuring several others.
(AP, 8/24/03)
2004 Aug 24, An independent
commission said the blame for abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison lay
mainly with the American soldiers who ran the jail, but said senior
commanders and top-level Pentagon officials could also be faulted for
failed leadership and oversight.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2004 Aug 24, Osama bin Laden's
chauffeur was arraigned at first U.S. military commission hearing since
World War II.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2004 Aug 24, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
(78), a psychiatrist who revolutionized the way the world looks at
terminally ill patients and later as a pioneer for hospice care, died
in Scottsdale, Arizona. Her book "On Death and Dying" (1969) identified
five stages of grief. Her last book, co-written with David Kessler, "On
Grief and Grieving" was released in July 2005.
(AP, 8/25/04)(Econ, 9/4/04,
p.81)(http://www.elisabethkublerross.com/)
2004 Aug 24, China evacuated
hundreds of thousands of people as Typhoon Aere lashed neighboring
Taiwan, triggering landslides and disruption and leaving at least seven
people feared dead and one missing.
(AFP, 8/24/04)
2004 Aug 24, Hong Kong announced
the official end to nearly 6 years of deflation.
(WSJ, 8/24/04, p.A10)
2004 Aug 24, In India a 4-day
strike by truckers over a new tax paralyzed the movement of goods.
Employees of state-owned banks launched a strike over pay.
(WSJ, 8/25/04, p.A9)
2004 Aug 24, In Iraq a car bomb
killed at least 2 people in Baghdad. In Najaf US forces intensified
fighting against rebels loyal to al-Sadr.
(SFC, 8/24/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 24, Nepalese rebels
lifted a weeklong blockade that cut off Katmandu from the rest of the
nation.
(WSJ, 8/25/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 24, The Nigerian Senate
ordered Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell to pay 1.5 billion dollars (1.2
billion euros) compensation for damages caused by nearly 60 years of
exploration in the Niger Delta.
(AFP, 8/25/04)
2004 Aug 24, The International
Committee of the Red Cross said it was mounting a major airlift of
relief supplies to Sudan's troubled Darfur region.
(AP, 8/24/04)
2004 Aug 24, A Russian airliner
crashed and a second disappeared from radar about the same time night
after both planes took off from the same Moscow airport, raising fears
that terrorism was involved. A distress signal was activated on the
second plane. All 89 passengers and crew were killed, 46 aboard a
TU-154 and 43 aboard a TU-134.
(AP, 8/25/04)(SFC, 8/25/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 24, In South Africa Mark
Thatcher, the son of former British PM Margaret Thatcher, was arrested
and charged with helping to finance a foiled coup attempt in oil rich
Equatorial Guinea. Thatcher was later fined three million rand
(approximately $500,000) and received a four-year suspended jail
sentence. In 2008 Equatorial Guinea issued an international arrest
warrant against Mark Thatcher, accusing him of being an instigator of
the abortive coup plot.
(AP,
8/25/04)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Thatcher)(FP, 3/29/08)
2005 Aug 24, US military said the
Pentagon has ordered 1,500 additional troops to Iraq to provide
security in advance of two upcoming votes.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, A federal commission
voted against closing the New London submarine base in Groton, Conn.,
and the Portsmouth shipyard in Kittery, Maine.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2005 Aug 24, Religious broadcaster
Pat Robertson apologized for calling for the assassination of
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2005 Aug 24, Hawaii planned caps
on rising gas prices effective Sep 1.
(WSJ, 8/25/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 24, The New York Times
reported that officials in nine northeastern US states have reached a
preliminary agreement to freeze power plant emissions at their current
levels and then reduce them by 10 percent by 2020.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Tropical Depression
12 strengthened into Tropical Storm Katrina over the central Bahamas; a
hurricane warning was issued for the southeastern Florida coast.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2005 Aug 24, In Dublin, Ga., a
girl shot, killed and robbed Fredrick Williams (25) and Reante Stanley
(26) after they had given her and a 14-year-old friend a ride to a
motel. The girls stole about $200 from the men. Lakeisha Davis (15) of
Dublin was charged with murder and armed robbery. The 14-year-old, who
was not immediately identified, was tried in juvenile court on a charge
of theft. In 2008 Davis was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 8/26/05,
p.A3)(www.prisontalk.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-143798.html)
2005 Aug 24, In Afghanistan’s
Uruzgan province coalition aircraft killed 5 alleged insurgents after a
firefight with troops on the ground.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 24, The US-led coalition
and Afghan forces killed Payenda Mohammed, a suspected Taliban
commander and three of his fighters in the country's south.
(AP, 8/29/05)
2005 Aug 24, Strong thunderstorms
rolled through Argentina and Uruguay, slowing air traffic, felling
trees and leaving at least eight people dead.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Brazilian police
arrested Francisco Antonio Cadena Collazzos, a Colombian man accused of
being an unofficial ambassador for Colombia's largest rebel group.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Brazilian officials
said an 80-year-old woman filmed drug traffickers near her Copacabana
beach apartment for two years and delivered 22 films to police,
triggering a massive raid against a slum drug gang. Police arrested 15
suspected traffickers, including two Rio de Janeiro state police
officers.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Jack Slipper (81),
Scotland Yard detective, died. He pursued one of the fugitives from
Britain's "Great Train Robbery" across many years and two continents.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Chinese share prices
surged after the government issued new market guidelines and pledged to
push ahead with shareholding reforms.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, In southern China a
bus swerved to avoid an oncoming bicycle and veered onto a roadside
crowded with pedestrians in Shenzhen, killing 19 people and injuring 16.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, In northwest Colombia
suspected leftist guerrillas killed at least 14 peasant farmers who
were cultivating coca near Puerto Valdivia.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 24, Government officials
from Ecuador and Venezuela singed a preliminary agreement by which
Venezuela would lend Ecuador a million barrels of crude oil between
September and October. A loan of naphtha and diesel was also part of
the deal.
(WSJ, 8/25/05, p.A7)
2005 Aug 24, Egyptian security
forces besieging parts of rugged northern Sinai clashed with gunmen and
arrested 26 people during a massive search for suspects linked to the
recent attacks in the peninsula.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Israel and Egypt
reached an agreement to have 750 Egyptian troops take control of a
volatile Egypt-Gaza border area from Israeli forces.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, A Hong Kong judge
ruled that laws against gay sex, including one that demands a life
sentence for men under 21 who engage in sodomy, are unconstitutional
and discriminatory.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Officials in India
said the death toll from an outbreak of encephalitis in Uttar Pradesh
has increased to 178, with more than 60 deaths reported in the past
five days.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Sunni insurgents
killed 13 people in a series of raids in Baghdad. Sadr fighters
attacked pro-government Badr militia and fighting raged in 5 cities.
(WSJ, 8/25/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 24, Rumors of a coup in
Myanmar's ruling military junta weakened the Southeast Asian nation's
currency and boosted the price of gold in local trading.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas said that the Israeli Army is expected to leave the Gaza
Strip by Oct. 4 at the latest.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Jailed Russian tycoon
Mikhail Khodorkovsky lashed out at the Kremlin and announced a hunger
strike to support his business partner, Platon Lebedev, who was moved
into an isolation cell on Aug 19.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, The Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria said it has suspended grants to Uganda based
on evidence of serious financial mismanagement.
(SFC, 8/25/05, p.A5)
2005 Aug 24, Venezuela condemned
American religious broadcaster Pat Robertson for suggesting President
Hugo Chavez should be killed, saying he committed a crime that is
punishable in the United States.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, In Vietnam a man died
of bird flu in Hanoi raising the regional toll to 62.
(WSJ, 9/1/05, p.A13)
2006 Aug 24, A US House report
said 70% of contracts for Hurricane Katrina were let with little or no
competition. 4 Katrina contractors were indicted for taking $700,000
for no work.
(WSJ, 8/25/06, p.A1)
2006 Aug 24, The US FDA approved
Plan B, also called the morning after pill, for sale without
prescription to women 18 and older.
(SFC, 8/25/06, p.A1)
2006 Aug 24, In Oakland, Ca.,
police moved to serve 65 arrest warrants and picked up 30 suspected
drug dealers. They planned to continue their sweep.
(AP, 8/25/06)
2006 Aug 24, A Kentucky judge
dropped charges against Gov. Fletcher in a plea deal in which Fletcher
acknowledged failure to follow the state’s merit-hiring rules.
(WSJ, 8/25/06, p.A1)
2006 Aug 24, In Essex, Vermont,
Christopher Williams (26) shot and killed 2 people after breaking up
with his girlfriend, and then shot himself in the head. Williams killed
Andrea Lambesis (57), the mother of his girlfriend at her home. He then
went to Essex Elementary School where he killed teacher Mary
Shanks (56) and wounded 2 others.
(SFC, 8/25/06, p.A5)(AP, 8/25/06)
2006 Aug 24, Deadly storms swept
across the northern Plains, bringing tornadoes that ripped roofs off
houses and hail that smashed car windshields. One man was killed when a
tornado hit his home in Minnesota, and in Wisconsin, lightning
apparently killed a dozen cows and struck a woman as she left a
supermarket.
(AP, 8/25/06)
2006 Aug 24, Carl C. Clark (82),
US auto safety and air-bag pioneer, died.
(WSJ, 9/23/06, p.A4)
2006 Aug 24, Arthur Schiff
(b.1940), TV-advertising pitchman, died. His pitched products included
a kitchen knife, which he renamed Ginsu, made in Ohio. “But wait,
there’s more.”
(WSJ, 9/9/06, p.A4)
2006 Aug 24, Ralph Schoenstein
(73), American humorist, writer and NPR commentator, died in
Philadelphia. His 18 books included “Fatherhood” (1987), ghost written
for Bill Cosby.
(SFC, 8/28/06, p.B4)
2006 Aug 24, Leading astronomers
meeting in Prague declared that Pluto is no longer a planet under
historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine
planets to eight.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2006 Aug 24, American and Afghan
forces killed seven suspected al-Qaida operatives after coming under
fire during a raid in eastern Afghanistan. Police, however, claimed
those killed were members of two families trying to resolve a dispute.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2006 Aug 24, A Bangladesh court
acquitted former military ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad of graft
charges in an oil and defense deal, easing the way for his return to
the political mainstream ahead of elections next year.
(Reuters, 8/24/06)
2006 Aug 24, An explosion in
Chechnya's capital Grozny killed four people.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2006 Aug 24, In China a blind
activist who was arrested after recording complaints of forced
abortions was sentenced to four years and three months in prison. Chen
Guangcheng was convicted of damaging property and "organizing a mob to
disturb traffic" after a trial in the eastern province of Shandong.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2006 Aug 24, China reported that a
chemical spill on the Mangniu River in Jilin province was contained. A
3-mile slick had been created by a xylidine spill from a local chemical
company.
(SFC, 8/24/06, p.A3)
2006 Aug 24, A Danish prosecutor
charged four young Muslims with helping to supply weapons and
explosives for a planned terror attack in Europe. The four men,
arrested in Denmark last October 27, helped the two main suspects in
Bosnia get hold of weapons and explosives with the aim of committing a
terror act.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2006 Aug 24, France said it was
ready to send an extra 1,600 troops to bolster a revamped U.N. force
for Lebanon, bringing the total French contingent to 2,000 and making
it easier to recruit other nations.
(Reuters, 8/24/06)
2006 Aug 24, Murat Kurnaz
(b.1982), a German native, was released after spending more than 4
years locked up at Guantanamo Bay. He had been arrested in Pakistan in
late 2001. In 2007 he and Helmut Kuhn authored “Fünf Jahre meines
Lebens: Ein Bericht aus Guantanamo” (Five years of My Life: A Report
from Guantanamo).
(Econ, 2/3/07,
p.53)(http://tinyurl.com/36pdk5)(Econ, 6/9/07, p.97)
2006 Aug 24, In Iraq gunmen
overnight killed at least three people. A US soldiers was killed south
of Baghdad. 3 car bombs in Baghdad and a series of bombings and
shootings across the country killed 16 Iraqis and two US soldiers.
Police found four handcuffed bodies dumped separately in the streets of
Kut.
(AP, 8/24/06)(AP, 8/25/06)
2006 Aug 24, Israeli forces
crossed into the Gaza Strip in a raid that captured a local Hamas
militant leader and left his brother dead near a Gaza border town.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2006 Aug 24, Jihad Hamad (20), the
second main suspect in a failed plot to bomb two German trains, was
arrested in his native Lebanon after surrendering to police.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2006 Aug 24, Nigeria released
10,000 prisoners incarcerated for up to 10 years without trial. (WSJ,
8/25/06, p.A1)
2006 Aug 24, South Africa's
cabinet gave the green light for a bill allowing gay marriage, which
would make it the first country in Africa to accord homosexual couples
the same rights as their straight counterparts.
(Reuters, 8/24/06)
2007 Aug 24, A US federal appeals
court revived California’s request for at least $1 billion in refunds
for electricity customers due to overcharges during the Enron debacle.
(SFC, 8/25/07, p.A1)
2007 Aug 24, In California Gov.
Schwarzenegger signed the overdue state budget after cutting $703
million in exchange for the support of Senate Republicans. Line-item
cuts included $527 million in health and human services, $70 million in
raises to state workers and $39 million in prison funding.
(SFC, 8/25/07, p.A1)
2007 Aug 24, A judge in Inverness,
Fla., sentenced John Evander Couey to death for kidnapping 9-year-old
Jessica Lunsford in 2005, raping her and burying her alive.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2007 Aug 24, Atlanta Falcons
quarterback Michael Vick admitted he participated in an illegal
dogfighting operation and was suspended indefinitely by the National
Football League.
(Reuters, 8/24/07)
2007 Aug 24, In Mississippi
Klansman James Ford Seale (71) was sentenced to 3 life terms in prison
for his role in the 1964 deaths of Charles Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee.
(WSJ, 8/25/07, p.A1)
2007 Aug 24, In Afghanistan
insurgents attacked a police patrol in eastern Paktika province,
sparking a gunbattle that killed six militants and one officer.
(AP, 8/25/07)
2007 Aug 24, In Canada 11 people
were hurt and two killed after a hot air balloon caught fire as it left
for a sunset flight in British Columbia. A pickup truck driven by an
elderly man struck a pre-wedding party near Vancouver, killing six
people and injuring 17.
(Reuters, 8/26/07)
2007 Aug 24, In China Meng
Xianchen and Meng Xianyou surfaced after more than 130 hours trapped in
an illegal mine in Beijing's Fangshan district.
(AP, 8/27/07)
2007 Aug 24, Georgia said it fired
on a Russian plane flying over its territory. The Tbilisi City Court,
behind closed doors, convicted 13 people from minor opposition parties
for plotting a violent overthrow of the government. Maia Topuria, the
lead defendant and head of the pro-Moscow Justice party, was sentenced
to 8 ½ years in prison.
(WSJ, 8/25/07,
p.A1)(www.geotimes.ge/index.php?m=home&newsid=6353)
2007 Aug 24, Major wildfires broke
out in Greece, burning half a million acres and claiming 65 lives in 11
days.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2007 Aug 24, A car bomb exploded
in northern Baghdad, killing seven passers-by and wounding dozens of
others in an apparent sectarian attack near the capital's most
important Shiite shrine. US and Iraqi forces killed two insurgents and
arrested seven others during raids on two villages along the road
linking Baghdad with the northern oil city of Kirkuk. Iraqi security
forces killed a man suspected of links to the Islamic State of Iraq, an
al-Qaida front group. Ten other al-Qaida suspects were arrested in the
raid northeast of Baghdad. US helicopters blasted rooftops in a Shiite
neighborhood of north Baghdad in a gunfight that left 8 Shiite gunmen
dead. Iraqi police and hospital officials said the dead included a
woman and a young boy. Sixteen other people were wounded, including
four women and three boys in their early teens who had been sleeping on
the roofs to escape the summer heat. One US soldier was killed in an
explosion in Salahuddin province.
(AP, 8/24/07)(AP, 8/25/07)
2007 Aug 24, In Jordan former
Iraqi President Abdel-Rahman Aref (91), overthrown more than 35 years
ago in a coup that brought Saddam Hussein's Baath party to power, died
in Amman.
(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 Aug 24, A deal was reached
with Islamic extremists holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp in
northern Lebanon to allow their families to leave the besieged area.
The UN Security Council voted unanimously to keep peacekeepers in
Lebanon for another 12 months.
(AP, 8/24/07)(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 Aug 24, Mozambique’s health
minister said large amounts of drugs, which have been imported into
Mozambique with the aid of the international community, end up being
sold on the black market at home and abroad.
(AFP, 8/24/07)
2007 Aug 24, Myanmar's military
junta moved swiftly to crush the latest in a series of protests against
fuel price hikes, arresting more than 10 activists in front of Yangon
City Hall before they could launch any action.
(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 Aug 24, In Pakistan six
soldiers were killed in a suicide attack and roadside bombing near
Miran Shah. Hours later the army said a month of fierce fighting near
the Afghan border has killed about 250 militants and 60 Pakistani
troops. Pro-Taliban militants kidnapped an army officer, two guards and
a government official near an army base. A Pakistani army helicopter
had fired on a vehicle near Miran Shah, the main town in the North
Waziristan tribal region, killing three suspected militants. A villager
said the slain men were not militants.
(AP, 8/24/07)(AP, 8/25/07)
2007 Aug 24, Hamas security agents
clashed with supporters of the rival Fatah movement, firing into the
air and beating journalists covering a demonstration against the
Islamic militant group's rule in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 8/25/07)
2007 Aug 24, Russia issued an
international warrant for the arrest of Mikhail Gutseriyev, two days
after the death in Moscow of his 21-year-old son. Chingiskhan
Gutseriyev died in his sleep after a minor car accident, raising
suspicions that he was killed to send a message to his father. On Sep 5
a court upheld a warrant for his arrest and refused to lift a freeze on
the shares of his company, Russneft. The freeze has blocked a sale that
would have handed him an estimated $3 billion.
(AP, 9/6/07)
2007 Aug 24, In Somalia gunmen
shot and killed Abdulkadir Moallim Kaskey, a Somali radio journalist,
in southwestern Gedo province.
(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 Aug 24, In Spain a van loaded
with explosives blew up outside a police station in the Basque city of
Durango, slightly injuring two officers in what appeared to be the
first major attack by the separatist group ETA since it called off a
cease-fire in June.
(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 Aug 24, Turkish Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul failed to win enough votes in the second round of
a presidential election, but is expected to clinch the post next week.
A clash between troops and Kurdish rebels near Turkey's southeast
border with Iraq left 10 rebels and two soldiers dead.
(Reuters, 8/24/07)(AP, 8/25/07)
2008 Aug 24, The US Democratic
national convention’s credentials committee ruled to give full voting
rights to delegates from Michigan and Florida, despite their defying
party rules and holding their primaries early.
(SFC, 8/25/08, p.A6)
2008 Aug 24, In New Mexico 8
inmates escaped from a county jail in Clovis. 3 were captured the next
day and 5 remained at large.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 24, Taliban militants
attacked a patrol of US-led coalition troops in northern Afghanistan,
while insurgents came under fire by NATO aircraft after attacking an
Afghan army outpost in the south. At least 10 militants were killed in
the fighting. In eastern Kunar province, a civilian Mi-8 supply
helicopter contracted by NATO-led troops crashed shortly after takeoff,
killing one person on board and wounding three others.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, Algerian security
forces killed 10 Islamist rebels in a security operation southwest of
the capital.
(Reuters, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 24, In Bolivia a truck
plunged off a cliff high in the Andes killing 21 people with 53 left
injured.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 24, In London some 40,000
people, including record-breaking swimmer Michael Phelps, gathered to
celebrate 2012 host London taking over from Beijing as the Olympic city.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, The Beijing Olympics,
played out against a background of political intrigue and featuring 16
days of compelling and controversial action, drew to a spectacular
close. China's haul of 51 gold medals was the largest since the Soviet
Union won 55 in Seoul in 1988. The US won 36 gold medals and Russia
came in 3rd with 23. Jamaica ended up with 11 medals including 6 gold.
Cuba took home 24 medals, but only 2 gold.
(AP, 8/24/08)(Econ, 8/30/08, p.38)
2008 Aug 24, Kenya took home 14
medals from the Beijing Olympics, 5 of them gold.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.55)
2008 Aug 24, A wall of snow in the
Mont Blanc range of the French Alps buried 3 Swiss and 5 Austrian
climbers.
(AFP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In Guatemala a Cessna
Caravan carrying humanitarian workers crashed about 60 miles east of
Guatemala City killing 10 people, including five Americans. At least 2
people survived. The plane was headed to a village in the area of El
Estor to build homes for CHOICE Humanitarian, a group based in West
Jordan, Utah.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 24, The USS McFaul, a US
Navy warship carrying humanitarian aid, anchored at the Georgian port
of Batumi, sending a strong signal of support to an embattled ally as
Russian forces built up around two separatist regions. In central
Georgia, an oil train exploded and caught fire, sending plumes of black
smoke into the air. A Georgian official said the train hit a land mine
and blamed the explosion on departing Russian forces.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In India about 40,000
protesters surrounded the Tata Motors factory slated to produce the
Nano, the world's cheapest car, alleging land for the site was forcibly
taken from local farmers. A day earlier Ratan Tata, whose Tata Motors
is India's top vehicle-maker, warned he would move the plant out of the
state if the demonstrations kept up, although his company has already
invested 350 million dollars in the project.
(AFP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In India Swami
Laxmanananda Saraswati, a hard-line Hindu leader, was killed in the
eastern state of Orissa. His death triggered violence between Hindus
and Christians that left dozens dead. Right-wing Hindu groups blamed
Christians for killing, but a month later Maoist rebels say they had
murdered the Hindu leader.
(AP, 10/5/08)
2008 Aug 24, Iran's official news
agency said the country has begun designing its second light-water
nuclear power plant, a 360-megawatt facility in the southwest.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In Baghdad,
back-to-back roadside bombs targeting a police patrol killed three
Iraqi civilians and wounded 20, including six police officers. A bomb
in a pile of hay killed 3 farmers southeast of Baghdad. Three separate
attacks in Diyala province killed 9 people. A suicide bomber struck
west of Baghdad, killing at least 25 people. Raina, a teenage Iraqi
girl (b.1993) wearing a vest packed with explosives, was captured on
video as she turned herself in rather than go through with a suicide
bombing in Baquba. The US military announced the arrest of Salim
Abdallah Ashur Shujayri (aka Abu Uthman), a Baghdad leader of al-Qaida
in Iraq believed to have planned the 2006 abduction of US journalist
Jill Carroll.
(AP, 8/24/08)(Reuters, 8/25/08)(SFC, 8/25/08,
p.A8)(SFC, 8/26/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 24, In Kashmir soldiers
and police fired at Muslim protesters demanding an end to Indian rule
killing one person, as authorities arrested top separatist leaders in a
bid to quash unrest that has left at least 37 people dead since June.
(AP, 8/25/08)(SFC, 8/25/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 24, In Kyrgyzstan a
Boeing 737 passenger jet carrying 90 people to Iran crashed near
Bishkek’s Manas Int’l. Airport. At least 65 people were killed.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In Niger dozens of
land mines accidentally exploded during a ceremony in which a group of
former rebels were handing over arms, killing one person and wounding
about 40 including the regional governor.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, The "Benue", a
Nigerian ship with eight crew members, was hijacked. It was owned by
service and repair firm West African Offshore Ltd (WAO).
(AFP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 24, Pakistan rejected a
ceasefire offered by Taliban militants in the tribal belt near the
Afghan border as troops in the last 24 hours killed seven rebel
fighters. Officials said that Taliban militants in the area had slit
the throat of a 35-year-old man after accusing him of spying for US
troops across the border in Afghanistan.
(AFP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In Somalia the
Shabab, the former military wing of the Islamic courts, and local clan
factions took control of the southern port of Kismayo. Muktar Robow, a
Shabab commander, wanted to merge with al-Qaeda.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.56)
2008 Aug 24, In Sri Lanka soldiers
reportedly killed 12 Tamil separatists in fighting along the front
lines dividing government territory from the rebels de facto state.
(AP, 8/25/08)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Go to August 25