August 24

367 – Gratian, son of Roman Emperor Valentinian I, is named co-Augustus at the age of eight by his father. 394 – The Graffito of Esmet-Akhom, the latest known inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphs, is written. 410 – The Visigoths under king Alaric I begin to pillage Rome. 1185 – Sack of Thessalonica by the Normans. 1200 – King John of England, signer of the first Magna Carta, marries Isabella of Angoulême in Angoulême Cathedral. 1215 – Pope Innocent III issues a bull declaring Magna Carta invalid. 1349 – Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for the bubonic plague. 1482 – The town and castle of Berwick-upon-Tweed is captured from Scotland by an English army. 1516 – The Ottoman Empire under Selim I defeats the Mamluk Sultanate and captures present-day Syria at the Battle of Marj Dabiq. 1561 – Willem of Orange marries duchess Anna of Saxony. 1608 – The first official English representative to India lands in Surat. 1643 – A Dutch fleet establishes a new colony in the ruins of Valdivia in southern Chile. 1662 – The 1662 Book of Common Prayer is legally enforced as the liturgy of the Church of England, precipitating the Great Ejection of Dissenter ministers from their benefices. 1682 – William Penn receives the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania. 1690 – 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). 1743 – The War of the Hats: The Swedish army surrenders to the Russians in Helsinki, ending the war and starting Lesser Wrath. 1781 – American Revolutionary War: A small force of Pennsylvania militia is ambushed and overwhelmed by an American Indian group, which forces George Rogers Clark to abandon his attempt to attack Detroit. 1789 – The first naval battle of the Svensksund began in the Gulf of Finland. 1812 – Peninsular War: A coalition of Spanish, British, and Portuguese forces succeed in lifting the two-and-a-half-year-long Siege of Cádiz.