Monday, August 24th
The 236th day of 2009.
There are 129 days left in the year.
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Today's Highlights in History
On Aug. 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew smashed into Florida, causing record damage; 55 deaths in Florida, Louisiana and the Bahamas were blamed on the storm. (Go to article.)
On Aug. 24, 1899, Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentinian writer of poems, essays and short stories, was born. Following his death on June 14, 1986, his obituary appeared in The Times. (Go to obit. | Other Birthdays)
Editorial Cartoon of the Day
On August 24, 1872, Harper's Weekly featured a cartoon about the presidential election of 1872. (See the cartoon and read an explanation.)
On this date in:
79 Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic ash. An estimated 20,000 people died.
1572 The slaughter of French Protestants at the hands of Catholics began in Paris.
1814 British forces invaded Washington, D.C., and set fire to the Capitol and the White House.
1857 The New York branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Co. failed, sparking the Panic of 1857.
1932 Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly nonstop across the United States, traveling from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in just over 19 hours.
1949 The North Atlantic Treaty went into effect.
1954 The Communist Control Act went into effect, virtually outlawing the Communist Party in the United States.
1959 Three days after Hawaiian statehood, Hiram L. Fong was sworn in as the first Chinese-American U.S. senator, while Daniel K. Inouye was sworn in as the first Japanese-American U.S. representative.
1968 France became the world's fifth thermonuclear power as it exploded a hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific.
1970 A bomb planted by anti-war extremists exploded at the University of Wisconsin's Army Math Research Center in Madison, killing a researcher.
1981 Mark David Chapman was sentenced in New York to 20 years to life in prison for the murder of rock musician John Lennon.
1989 Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti banned Pete Rose from the game for gambling.
2006 The International Astronomical Union declared that Pluto was no longer a planet, demoting it to the status of a "dwarf planet."
2007 A judge in Inverness, Fla., sentenced John Evander Couey to death for kidnapping 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, raping her and burying her alive.
2007 James Ford Seale, a reputed Ku Klux Klansman, was sentenced to three life terms for his role in the 1964 abduction and murder of two black teenagers in Mississippi.
2007 The NFL indefinitely suspended Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick without pay for his involvement in dogfighting. (He was reinstated with conditions in July 2009 after serving 18 months in prison.)
Current Birthdays
Rupert Grint turns 21 years old today.
AP Photo/Peter Kramer Actor Rupert Grint ("Harry Potter" movies) turns 21 years old today.
75 Kenny Baker
Actor (R2D2 in "Star Wars")
71 Mason Williams
Rock musician
67 Max Cleland
Former U.S. senator, D-Ga.
67 Marshall Thompson
R&B singer (The Chi-Lites)
64 Ken Hensley
Rock musician (Uriah Heep)
62 Anne Archer
Actress
62 Joe Manchin
Governor of West Virginia
60 Joe Regalbuto
Actor ("Murphy Brown")
57 Bob Corker
U.S. senator, R-Tenn.
57 Mike Shanahan
Football coach
54 Kevin Dunn
Actor
54 Mike Huckabee
Former governor of Arkansas
53 Gerry Cooney
Boxer
52 Stephen Fry
Actor
51 Steve Guttenberg
Actor
49 Cal Ripken Jr.
Baseball Hall of Famer
47 Craig Kilborn
Talk show host
46 John Bush
Rock singer
44 Marlee Matlin
Actress
44 Reggie Miller
Basketball player
39 David Gregory
Broadcast journalist ("Meet the Press")
39 Kristyn Osborn
Country singer (SHeDAISY)
36 Dave Chappelle
Actor, comedian ("Chappelle's Show")
36 Carmine Giovinazzo
Actor ("CSI: NY")
31 Beth Riesgraf
Actress
28 Chad Michael Murray
Actor ("One Tree Hill")
26 Mika
Rock singer
Historic Birthdays
Jorge Luis Borges
8/24/1899 - 6/14/1986
Argentine poet, essayist and short story writer
(Go to obit.)
82 George Stubbs
8/24/1724 - 9/10/1806
English painter and draftsman
73 William Wilberforce
8/24/1759 - 7/29/1833
English politician and philanthropist
73 Sir Daniel Gooch
8/24/1816 - 10/15/1889
English railway pioneer and mechanical engineer
62 Charles Follen McKim
8/24/1847 - 9/14/1909
American architect
83 Sir Max Beerbohm
8/24/1872 - 5/20/1956
English caricaturist and writer
80 William Gibbs
8/24/1886 - 9/6/1967
American naval architect; designed the World War ll Liberty ships
90 Malcolm Cowley
8/24/1898 - 3/27/1989
American literary editor of The New Republic (1929-44)
76 Graham Sutherland
8/24/1903 - 2/17/1980
English Surrealistic painter
65 Rene Levesque
8/24/1922 - 11/1/1987
Canadian pro-independence premier of Quebec (1976-85)
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SOURCE: The Associated Press
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