First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - AUGUST 24th

Jorge Luis Borges, Quote

“Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy.”

~ Jorge Luis Borges

Wikiquote (Jorge Luis Borges (Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges (August 24, 1899 – June 14, 1986), known as Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires.)

This Day in History

August 24th, 49 BC

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that began growing on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to become one of the largest empires in the ancient world Roman Empire Decline and Fall of Rome

Roman Empire:
49 BC - Second Battle of the Bagradas River: Julius Caesar's general Gaius Scribonius Curio is defeated by the Numidians under Publius Attius Varus and King Juba of Numidia. Curio commits suicide to avoid capture.
410 - Sack of Rome (410); Visigoths under king Alaric I begin to pillage Rome.
455 - Sack of Rome (455); Vandals led by king Genseric begin to plunder Rome. Pope Leo I requests Genseric not destroy the ancient city or murder its citizens. He agrees and the gates of Rome are opened. However, the Vandals loot a great amount of treasure.

Wikipedia  Photo: ● Ancient roman statue ● Detail of Head from Roman Statue of Antinous, credit Corbis ● Statue of Neptune, Trevi Fountain, Rome ● International Sand Sculpture Festival, FIESA 7 ancient Rome.
Relief from a 3rd-century sarcophagus depicting a battle between Romans and Germanic warriors; the central figure is perhaps the emperor Hostilian / Depiction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome.

August 24th, 79

Mount Vesuvius erupts. The cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae are buried in volcanic ash (note: this traditional date has been challenged, and many scholars believe that the event occurred on October 24)

Mount Vesuvius erupts. The cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae are buried in volcanic ash (note: this traditional date has been challenged, and many scholars believe that the event occurred on October 24).

Wikipedia  Image: Computer-generated imagery of the eruption of Vesuvius in BBC/Discovery Channel's co-production Pompeii / Pompeii excavated / Ancient Pompeii Italy .

August 24th, 1349

Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for the bubonic plague

Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for the bubonic plague.

Wikipedia  Painting: Plague Physician in the William Shakespeare Era / Bubonic Plague, ”Ring around the rosy”

August 24th, 1391

Jews are massacred in Palma de Mallorca

Six thousand Jews are massacred in Palma de Mallorca.

Wikipedia  Painting: “The Massacre of Jews at Strasbourg” in 1349 by Edward Beyer

August 24th, 1456

The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed on August 24th, 1456

The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed.

Wikipedia  Image: A statue of Gutenberg is superimposed on the bible he created.

August 24th, 1682

William Penn receives the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania

William Penn receives the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania.

Wikipedia  Painting: Portrait of Young William Penn in Armor, Atwater-Kent Museum

August 24th, 1812

Napoleonic Wars: (1803–15) were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions French Revolutionary Wars, Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay): Battle begins when a British fleet engages the French Revolutionary Navy fleet in an unusual night action

French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1812 - Peninsular War; Siege of Cádiz - A coalition of Spanish, British, and Portuguese forces succeed in lifting the two-and-a-half-year-long Siege of Cádiz.

Wikipedia  Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar; Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806; Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet; Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani); Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo; Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807; Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars; Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen; Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford; Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay).

August 24th, 1814

War of 1812 collage

War of 1812:
1814 - British troops invade Washington, D.C. and burn down the White House and several other buildings.

Wikipedia  Painting: Damage to the US Capitol after the Burning of Washington; HMS Shannon leading the captured American frigate USS Chesapeake into Halifax, Nova Scotia (1813); USS Constitution vs HMS Guerriere; the death of Tecumseh at Moraviantown; Oliver Hazard Perry's message to William Henry Harrison after the Battle of Lake Erie began with what would become one of the most famous sentences in American military history: "We have met the enemy and they are ours; "Andrew Jackson leads the defence of New Orleans; The mortally wounded Isaac Brock spurs troops on at the Queenston Heights.

August 24th, 1857

Panic of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in United States history

Panic of 1857: begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in United States history.

Wikipedia  Painting: An Early Bear Market: Wall Street in 1857. PaineWebber Art Gallery, New York, NY

August 24th, 1891

Thomas Edison (right) demonstrating the kinetograph (motion picture camera), with the assistance of George Eastman, who helped develop the film used in the early motion picture machines

Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera.

Wikipedia  Photo: Thomas Edison (right) demonstrating the Kinetoscope (motion picture camera), with the assistance of George Eastman, who helped develop the film used in the early motion picture machines.

August 24th, 1909

Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal

Panama Canal: Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.

Wikipedia  Map of Panama

August 24th, 1912

Alaska: the largest state in the United States by area, is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait

Alaska becomes a United States territory.

Wikipedia  Photo: Alaska; the largest state in the United States by area, is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait

August 24th, 1932

Amelia Earhart</a> in 1935; Amelia Earhart appears above in her flight gear in this undated photo, credit Associated Press

Amelia Earhart a becomes the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles Newark, New Jersey).

Wikipedia  Photo: Amelia Earhart in 1935; Amelia Earhart appears above in her flight gear in this undated photo, credit Associated Press; Amelia Earhart and her mother in Boston, when 300,000 turned out to cheer the three flyers who made the non-stop flight across the Atlantic, July 1928; Amelia Earhart sitting on her plane, ca. 1935. George Palmer Putnam Collection of Amelia Earhart Papers, Courtesy of Purdue University Libraries, Karnes Archives and Special Collections; Amelia Earhart and Harpo Marx, dressed as a dog catcher, ca. 1932. George Palmer Putnam Collection of Amelia Earhart Papers, Courtesy of Purdue University Libraries, Karnes Archives and Special Collections; Amelia Earhart standing in front of the propellers on her plane, ca. 1935. George Palmer Putnam Collection of Amelia Earhart Papers, Courtesy of Purdue University Libraries, Karnes Archives and Special Collections; Amelia Earhart with arms spread in front of her plane, ca. February 12, 1937. George Palmer Putnam Collection of Amelia Earhart Papers, Courtesy of Purdue University Libraries, Karnes Archives and Special Collections.

August 24th, 1941

World War II, The Holocaust Adolf Hitler orders the cessation of Nazi Germany's systematic T4 euthanasia program of the mentally ill and the handicapped due to protests, although killings continue for the remainder of the war

World War II: Holocaust;
1941 - Adolf Hitler orders the cessation of Nazi Germany's systematic T4 euthanasia program of the mentally ill and the handicapped due to protests, although killings continue for the remainder of the war.

Wikipedia  Photo: World War II, The Holocaust. Sources: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum USHMM, History 1900s, Internet Masters of Education Technology IMET, Techno Friends, Veterans Today, Concern.
Propaganda and the Public. The Führer and Youth (Adolf Hitler with a Little Girl), Postcard (1933). © Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz / Heinrich Hoffmann GHDI / 1933, sterilization and euthanasia programs. Psychology and the Holocaust.

August 24th, 1942

World War II: Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless World War II: Battle of Leyte Gulf; Battle of Leyte Gulf; The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200-kilogram (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island World War II: German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944) World War II: Eastern Front (World War II); was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945 World War II: Liberation of Paris; Paris rises against German occupation with the help of Allied troops

World War II:
1942 - Battle of the Eastern Solomons; Japanese and the aircraft carrier Ryūjō is sunk and the U.S. carrier USS Enterprise is heavily damaged.
1944 - Allied troops begin Liberation of Paris. Post World War II:
1949 - The treaty creating NATO goes into effect.

Wikipedia  Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945. USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.

Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943. Liberation of Paris; Parisians line the Champs Élysées as French 2e DB tanks and half tracks pass before the Arc de Triomphe on 26 August.

August 24th, 1992

Hurricane Collage: (A tropical cyclone is a storm system characterized by a low-pressure center surrounded by a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce strong winds and heavy rain)

1992 - Hurricane Andrew makes landfall just south of Miami as a Category 5 hurricane.

Wikipedia  Image: Hurricane Andrew sequence, NASA ● Hurricane Mitch at peak intensity (formed October 22, 1998 - Dissipated November 5, 1998) ● Hurricane Katrina taken on August 28, 2005, at 11:45 AM EDT by NOAA when the storm was a Category Five hurricane ● Hurricane Jeanne September 23, 2004, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ● PDC Global Hazards Atlas displaying 3 hour precipitation accumulation, typhoon Evan (04P), with JTWC positions, segments, and winds...over the South Pacific Ocean ● Satellite imagery provided by NOAA and taken by the Japan Meteorological Agency's MTSAT weather satellite shows Typhoon Roke as it approaches Japan, September 20, 2011. Over 1.3 million ordered to evacuate in Japan ahead of Typhoon Roke.

August 24th, 1998

First RFID human implantation tested in the United Kingdom

First RFID (Radio-frequency identification) human implantation tested in the United Kingdom.

Wikipedia  Photo: Radio frequency identification or RFID is a technology that uses radio waves to communicate between a reader and an electronic tag attached to an object for the purpose of identification and tracking an object.

August 24th, 2010

Mexico’s Drug War

War on Drugs:
2010 - San Fernando massacre: In San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico 72 illegal immigrants are killed by Los Zetas and eventually found dead by Mexican authorities.

Wikipedia  Photo Mexico's Drug War ● U.S. - Mexico border fence between Yuma, Arizona and Calexico, California (David McNew, Getty Images) ● Seized ammunition in Mexico city's airport on March 12, 2009 (Jorge Dan, Reuters) ● Yaneth Deyinara Garcia (center) and Sigifrido Najera (2nd from left), members of the drug Organization "Cardenas Guillen", are presented to the press at the headquarters of the Defense Secretary in Mexico City on March 20, 2009. (Luis Acosta, AFP/Getty Images) ● Federal police officers sit aboard an aircraft while flying to the border city Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, Monday, March 2, 2009. (Miguel Tovar, AP) ● Bodies awaiting autopsies crowd a walk-in refrigerator at the morgue in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Feb. 18, 2009 (Eduardo Verdugo, AP) source: Boston Globe, The Big Picture