1662: The second statute of the Act of Uniformity required England to accept the Book of Common Prayer in religious service. Upwards of 2000 clergy refused to comply with the act, and were forced to resign.
1814: The British Burn Down Washington
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British troops under the leadership of Major General Robert Ross occupied Washington D.C. and burnt down the city, including the Presidential Mansion and the Capitol building. President Madison and members of his government fled the city and took refuge in Brookeville, Maryland. The British had occupied the city for only 24 hours when a massive storm forced the troops to retreat, following which the Americans regained control of the capital.
1949: NATO is Established
The North Atlantic Treaty, which established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an intergovernmental military alliance, came into effect on this day. The Treaty, which was signed on April 4, 1949 in Washington DC, created a collective defense system, where an attack on one member is considered an attack on all the other signatories. Initially, the treaty was signed by 12 countries – Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, United Kingdom, and United States. Today, membership has increased from the original 12 to 28
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1981: John Lennon’s killer sentenced. On August 24, 1981, Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life for the murder of John Lennon, a founding member of The Beatles, one of the most successful bands in the history of popular music.
1991: Ukraine gains its independence
The Eastern European country gained independence from the Soviet Union after a failed coup to remove Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. The country’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed the Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine and put the decision out to the public as a referendum. August 24 is celebrated each year as Independence Day in Ukraine.
2006: The International Astronomical Union (IAU) declassified Pluto as a planet and classified it as a dwarf planet. According to the IAU definition, a dwarf planet is neither a planet or a natural satellite. It is ‘a celestial object orbiting a star that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity but has not cleared its orbit of space debris’. Discovered in 1930 by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto is the largest but second-most massive dwarf planet in our solar system. The most massive dwarf planet orbiting our sun is Eris.
2011: Amid health issues, Steve Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple, and he died less than two months later.
2014: The death, aged 90, of Richard Attenborough, who championed the British film business for more than 60 years as an actor, director and prolific movie-maker. He won two Academy Awards for directing and producing Gandhi in 1983.
BIRTHS ON THIS DAY: August 24
Yasser Arafat (24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004)
Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1969 to 2004 and President of the Palestinian National Authority from 1994 to 2004.
M.K.O Abiola (24 August 1937 – 7 July 1998)
Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola was born in Abeokuta, Ogun State on 24 August 1937. Also known as M. K. O. Abiola, he was a Nigerian business magnate, publisher, and politician. He was the honorary supreme military commander of the Oyo Empire and an aristocrat of the Egba clan. He is hailed as a figure of democratic change in Nigeria.
On June 12, 1993. Abiola ran as the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party in a two-party race. Observers declared the election to have been the freest and fairest in Nigerian history. Initial results indicated that Abiola, who had garnered votes across ethnic and religious divides, would be the clear winner of the election. Before the official results were announced, however, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, the military leader, annulled the election. This provoked a political crisis. Abiola rallied domestic and international support in claiming the presidency that he appeared to have won, which led to his 1994 arrest on a charge of treason by the military regime then led by Gen. Sani Abacha.
