12 History Lessons + 4 Births & 7 Deaths for August 24, 2025
Today’s History:
- 79 AD – Mount Vesuvius erupts, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum under ash and pumice.
- 410 – The Visigoths, led by Alaric, sack Rome for the first time in nearly 800 years.
- 1456 – The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed in Mainz, Germany.
- 1572 – Thousands of French Huguenots are killed in Paris during the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.
- 1814 – British troops burn the White House, Capitol, and other buildings in Washington, D.C., during the War of 1812.
- 1891 – Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera (Kinetograph).
- 1932 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly nonstop across the U.S.
- 1949 – The North Atlantic Treaty (NATO) goes into effect.
- 1954 – President Eisenhower signs the Communist Control Act, outlawing the Communist Party in the U.S.
- 1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Soviet Communist Party following a failed coup.
- 1992 – Hurricane Andrew strikes Florida, causing massive damage and becoming one of the most destructive storms in U.S. history.
- 2006 – Pluto is reclassified as a “dwarf planet” by the International Astronomical Union, losing its planetary status.
Today’s Birthdays:
- 1945 – Vince McMahon, wrestling promoter and WWE chairman (80)
- 1958 – Steve Guttenberg, actor (Police Academy, Three Men and a Baby) (67)
- 1965 – Marlee Matlin, actress and Oscar winner (Children of a Lesser God) (60)
- 1988 – Rupert Grint, actor best known as Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter series (37)
Today’s Deaths:
- 79 AD – Pliny the Elder, Roman author and naturalist, dies during the Vesuvius eruption (~56)
- 1954 – Getúlio Vargas, President of Brazil, dies by suicide amid political crisis (72)
- 1961 – Tom Ewell, American actor (The Seven Year Itch) (61)
- 2003 – Wilfred Thesiger, British explorer and travel writer (93)
- 2006 – Ted Grant, South African-British Marxist and founder of the Militant tendency (93)
- 2012 – Neil Armstrong, astronaut and first human to walk on the Moon (82)
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