August 24 carries no major modern observance, but stacks up three unrelated anniversaries worth knowing: a Roman-era natural disaster, the traditional founding date of a great Indian city, and a Cold War-ending declaration halfway around the world.
On this day
79Mount Vesuvius erupted on the Bay of Naples, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum under volcanic ash and pumice and killing thousands — the disaster preserved both cities in extraordinary detail for archaeologists working there today.Carsten Steger via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
1991Ukraine's parliament declared independence from the Soviet Union as the USSR neared collapse, one of the first republics to do so; the declaration was confirmed by a national referendum that December.Scanning Dmitry Makeev, scan date - 2020 year. via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
1690IndiaEnglish East India Company official Job Charnock established a trading settlement at Sutanuti on the Hooghly River, an event traditionally commemorated as the founding of the city that grew into Calcutta, today's Kolkata.AnonymousUnknown author via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
Did you know
On August 24, 1932, Amelia Earhart took off from Los Angeles in a Lockheed Vega 5B and landed in Newark 19 hours and 5 minutes later, becoming the first woman to fly nonstop across the United States and beating the existing women's record by more than ten hours — just three months after her solo Atlantic crossing.