On This Day: Wednesday August 24, 2005 This is the 236th day of the year, with 129 days remaining in 2005. Fact of the Day: Wizard of Oz The Wizard of Oz was released in 1939, a classic motion picture directed by Victor Fleming. It was a musical adaptation of the L. Frank Baum children's book and it had both black-and-white and color sequences. It starred Judy Garland as Dorothy, Frank Morgan as the Wizard, Roy Bolger as Scarecrow, Bert Lahr as Lion, Jack Haley as Tin Man, and Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch. It was nominated for six Academy Awards and won for best original music score and best song, "Over the Rainbow." Holidays Feast day of St. Bartholomew, the Martyrs of Utica, and St Audenoeus or Ouen. Liberia: Flag Day. Ukraine: Independence Day. Events 79 - Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic ash and killing an estimated 20,000. 410 - The Visigoths (German barbarians), led by Alaric, sacked Rome. 1542 - In South America, Gonzalo Pizarro returned to the mouth of the Amazon River after having sailed as far as the Andes Mountains. 1682 - The Duke of York awarded Englishman William Penn the three "lower counties" in the American colonies which later became the state of Delaware. 1814 - British forces invaded Washington, D.C., setting fire to the Capitol and the White House. 1821 - Eleven years after the outbreak of the Mexican War of Independence, Spanish Viceroy Juan de O'Donojú signed the Treaty of Córdoba, which made Mexico an independent constitutional monarchy. 1857 - The catalyst for the Panic of 1857 was this day's failure of the New York branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company. 1891 - Thomas Edison filed a patent for the motion picture camera. 1932 - Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly non-stop across the United States, traveling from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey, in just over 19 hours. 1949 - The North Atlantic Treaty went into effect. 1989 - Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti banned Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose from the game for gambling. 1991 - Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as First Secretary of the USSR Communist Party. Births 1899 - Jorge Luis Borges, Argentinian writer of poems, essays, short stories. 1912 - Durward Kirby, American TV announcer. Deaths 1680 - Thomas Blood, Irish adventurer.