MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 2009

Toda is Monday, August 24, the 236th day of 2009. There are 129 days left in the year.

79 _ Mt. Vesuvius erupts, buries Pompeii and Herculaneum

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

1814 _ British sack Washington, D.C., White House burned

1853 _ First potato chips prepared by Chef George Crum (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.)

1891 _ Thomas Edison patents motion picture camera

1949 _ North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) established

1968 _ France became world's fifth thermonuclear power

1989 _ Voyager 2 flies past Neptune

1991 _ Gorbachev resigns as head of USSR Communist Party

1991 _ Ukraine declares independence from the USSR