On this day: 24 August

Caesar's Civil War: Forces loyal to Julius Caesar led by Gaius Scribonius Curio were defeated by Pompeian Republicans under Publius Attius Varus and King Juba I of Numidia.

Gratian, son of Roman Emperor Valentinian I, is named co-Augustus at the age of eight by his father.

The Graffito of Esmet-Akhom, the latest known inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphs, is written.

The oldest known version of the Gutenberg Bible, the first major book produced on a printing press, was completed.

The Ottoman Empire under Selim I defeats the Mamluk Sultanate and captures present-day Syria at the Battle of Marj Dabiq.

Willem of Orange marries duchess Anna of Saxony.

A Dutch expedition (depicted) arrived at the mouth of the Valdivia River, in present-day Chile, to establish a new colony in the ruins of the abandoned Spanish settlement of Valdivia.

A Polish-Lithuanian army under John III Sobieski defeats an Ottoman-Tartar army in the battle of Lwow.

Job Charnock of the East India Company establishes a factory in Calcutta, an event formerly considered the founding of the city (in 2003 the Calcutta High Court ruled that the city's foundation date is unknown).

War of the Spanish Succession: An Anglo-Dutch fleet engaged a French naval force at the Battle of Málaga in the Mediterranean Sea.

The War of the Hats: The Swedish army surrenders to the Russians in Helsinki, ending the war and starting Lesser Wrath.

The first naval battle of the Svensksund begins in the Gulf of Finland.

The modern Constitution of the Netherlands is signed.

The Treaty of St. Louis is signed in St. Louis, Missouri.

Constitutionalist insurrection at Oporto, Portugal.

The Treaty of Córdoba is signed in Córdoba, now in Veracruz, Mexico, concluding the Mexican War of Independence from Spain.

The New York City branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Co. collapsed following widespread embezzlement, leading to a severe recession that caused about 5,000 businesses to fail.

The Wolseley expedition reaches Manitoba to end the Red River Rebellion.

89 New Zealand Native football team

The New Zealand Native football team, predominantly comprising Māori players, concluded their 107-game tour, the longest in rugby union history.

Count Muravyov, Foreign Minister of Russia presents a rescript that convoked the First Hague Peace Conference.

Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.

Manuel de Arriaga is elected and sworn in as the first President of Portugal.

The Battle of Cer ended with the first Allied victory of World War I.

World War I: German troops capture Namur.

The Crescent Limited train derails in Washington, D.C., after the bridge it is crossing is washed out by the 1933 Chesapeake–Potomac hurricane.

The Australian Antarctic Territory is created.

Spanish Civil War: the Basque Army surrenders to the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie following the Santoña Agreement.

Spanish Civil War: Sovereign Council of Asturias and León is proclaimed in Gijón.

World War II: Allied troops begin the attack on Paris.

The treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization goes into effect.

Edith Sampson becomes the first black U.S. delegate to the United Nations.

The Communist Control Act goes into effect, outlawing the Communist Party in the United States.

Buddhist crisis: The U.S. State Department ordered Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (pictured) to encourage South Vietnamese Army officers to oust Ngo Dinh Diem if he did not willingly remove Ngo Dinh Nhu from his unofficial position of power.

Cultural Revolution: Red Guards vandalised the Jokhang (depicted), the holiest Buddhist temple in Tibet.

Led by Abbie Hoffman, the Youth International Party temporarily disrupts trading at the New York Stock Exchange by throwing dollar bills from the viewing gallery, causing trading to cease as brokers scramble to grab them.

Tadeusz Mazowiecki is chosen as the first non-communist prime minister in Central and Eastern Europe.

Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Ukraine declares itself independent from the Soviet Union.

Hurricane Andrew, the third-most intense Category 5 cyclone to impact the United States in the 20th century, made landfall in southern Florida.

Microsoft releases Windows 95 to the public in North America.

Air Transat Flight 236 loses all engine power over the Atlantic Ocean, forcing the pilots to conduct an emergency landing in the Azores.

The International Astronomical Union passed a resolution redefining the term planet and classifying Pluto as a dwarf planet.

A magnitude 6.0 earthquake strikes the San Francisco Bay Area; it is the largest in that area since 1989.

Proxima Centauri b, the closest exoplanet to Earth, is discovered by the European Southern Observatory.

The National Space Agency of Taiwan successfully launches the observation satellite Formosat-5 into space.

Erin O'Toole is elected leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Japan officially begins discharging treated radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean, sparking international concerns and condemnation.