| 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. |
| 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 suspended Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick for his involvement in dogfighting. |
| 2011 |
Steve Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple Inc. |
