FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 2007

Today is Friday, August 24, the 235th day of 2007. There are 130 days left in the year.

79 _ Mt. Vesuvius erupts, buries Pompeii & Herculaneum

410 _ Rome overrun by Visigoths, symbolized fall of Western Roman Empire

1572 _ King Charles IX orders massacre of thousands of French Protestants

1662 _ The Act of Uniformity requires English to accept book of Common Prayer

1891 _ Thomas Edison patents motion picture camera

1909 _ Workers start pouring concrete for Panama Canal

1912 _ The Territory of Alaska organized

1936 _ The Australian Antarctic Territory created

1939 _ Germany and the USSR sign 10-year non-aggression pact

1949 _ North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) established

1954 _ The Communist Control Act passed, at height of McCarthyism

1966 _ The USSR launches Luna 11 for orbit around Moon

1968 _ France became the world's 5th thermonuclear power

1989 _ Voyager 2 flies past Neptune

1990 _ Iraqi troops surround U.S. and other embassies in Kuwait City

1991 _ Gorbachev resigns as head of USSR Communist Party

1991 _ Ukraine declares independence from the USSR