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