24 August 1572: Catholic mobs in France begin attacks on Protestants in what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. This wave of mob violence against the Huguenots was said to have been instigated by the King's mother, Catherine de' Medici. On August 23, the king ordered the killing of a group of Huguenot leaders, and the slaughter spread throughout Paris, as people began to hunt Protestants throughout the city, including women and children. Lasting several weeks, the massacre expanded outward to other urban centres and the countryside, claiming thousands of victims.
24 August 1939: Soviet dictator Stalin shakes hands with Nazi foreign minister Ribbentrop at the time of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between the Nazis and Soviets, which agreed to the joint German/Russian invasion and split of Poland. This agreement came shortly after the signing of the German-Soviet commercial agreement. They would go on to sign further trade agreements in 1940. Ribbentrop told Stalin “in the opinion of the Fuhrer…it appears to be the historical mission of the Four Powers - the Soviet Union, Italy, Japan, and Germany - to adopt a long range policy and to direct the future development of their peoples into the right channels by delimitation of their interests in a worldwide scale.”
Hamad bin Muhammad bin Juma bin Rajab el Murjebi (known as Tippu Tip), a prominent Afro-Arab slave trader, ivory trader, explorer, plantation owner and governor in Zanzibar. In 1895, he boasted of personally owning 10,000 slaves. As part of the large and lucrative trade, he led many trading expeditions into Central Africa, constructing profitable trading posts deep into the Congo Basin region and thus becoming the most well-known slave trader in Africa during his time, supplying much of the world with black slaves.
Jewish people waiting outside the Glass House, a building used by the Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz to help Jews in Budapest during the Holocaust, Hungary, 1944. Appointed in 1942 as Swiss vice-consul in Budapest, Lutz soon began issuing Swiss safe-conduct documents that saved the lives of over 62,000 Jews.
27 August 1816: Algiers is bombarded by the Anglo-Dutch fleet in support of an ultimatum to release Europeans kidnapped and forced into slavery by the Muslim Barbary pirates. The bombardment was a decisive victory, and led to the release of over 1,200 slaves and the cessation of European enslavement.