Today in History: Microsoft releases Windows 95 operating system

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on Aug. 24:

1922 – Arab states meeting at Nablus rejected the British mandate for Palestine given by the League of Nations.

1995 – Microsoft releases Windows 95 operating system.

1997 – Kenyan-born Wilson Kipketer of Denmark breaks men’s 800m world record.

1999 – Australia’s Ian Thorpe sets new world record time in 200m freestyle event.

2003 – Pakistani batsman Yasir Hameed makes cricket history when he scores his second hundred, on his test debut.

2004 – Russia’s Yelena Isinbayeva sets new women’s pole vault record.

2006 – Scientists from around the world approved a new definition of a planet, downgrading Pluto to a “dwarf planet”.

2008 – Beijing Olympics concluded. China topped the medal tally with 51 gold medals, 15 more than the second-placed United States.

2010 – Singer George Michael please guilty to driving under the influence of drugs and possessing cannabis.

2015 – French President Francois Hollande awards the country’s highest honour, the Legion d’honneur, to three U.S. Citizens and a Briton who helped disarm a machine gun-toting attacker on a train.

2016 – Earthquake strikes central Italy.

(Reuters)