What happened on August 24 ?

79 - Pliny the Elder, Roman writer and naturalist (b. 23)

1042 - Michael V, Byzantine Emperor) (b. 1015)

1103 - King Magnus III of Norway (b. 1073)

1217 - Eustace the Monk, French mercenary and pirate

1540 - Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, Italian painter (b. 1503)

1542 - Gasparo Contarini, Italian diplomat and cardinal (b. 1483)

1572 - Victims of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre:

1572 - Gaspard de Coligny, French Huguenot leader (b. 1519)

1572 - Pierre de la Ramée, French humanist (b. 1515)

1572 - Charles de Téligny, French Huguenot soldier

1595 - Thomas Digges, English astronomer (b. 1546)

1647 - Nicholas Stone, English sculptor and architect (b. 1586)

1664 - Maria Cunitz, Silesian astronomer

1679 - Jean François Paul de Gondi, cardinal de Retz, French churchman and agitator (b. 1614)

1680 - Thomas Blood, Irish-born thief of the British crown jewels (b. 1618)

1683 - John Owen, English non-conformist theologian (b. 1616)

1759 - Ewald Christian von Kleist, German poet (b. 1715)

1779 - Kosmas Aitolos, Greek Orthodox martyr (b. 1714)

1831 - August von Gneisenau, Prussian field marshal (b. 1760)

1832 - Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot, French mathematician (b. 1796)

1841 - Theodore Edward Hook, English author (b. 1788)

1888 - Rudolf Clausius, German physicist (b. 1822)

1921 - Nikolay Gumilyov, Russian poet (b. 1886)

1940 - Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, German television pioneer (b. 1860)

1946 - James Clark McReynolds, U.S. Supreme Court justice (b. 1862)

1954 - Getúlio Vargas, President of Brazil (b. 1882)

1956 - Kenji Mizoguchi, Japanese film director (b. 1898)

1958 - Paul Henry, Northern Irish artist (b. 1876)

1967 - Henry J. Kaiser, American industrialist (b. 1882)

1975 - Eamon de Valera, President of Ireland (b. 1882)

1978 - Louis Prima, American band leader (b. 1910)

1979 - Hanna Reitsch, German pilot (b. 1912)

1985 - Paul Creston, American composer (b. 1906)

1990 - Sergei Dovlatov, Russian writer (b. 1941)

1991 - Bernard Castro, Italian inventor (b. 1904)

1995 - Alfred Eisenstaedt, German-born photographer (b. 1898)

1998 - E.G. Marshall, American actor (b. 1910)

2003 - Sir Wilfred Thesiger, British explorer (b. 1910)

2004 - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Swiss-born psychiatrist (b. 1926)