May 24 - Events

Events

• 1218 – The Fifth Crusade leaves Acre for Egypt.
• 1276 – Magnus Ladulås is crowned King of Sweden in Uppsala Cathedral.
• 1487 – The ten-year-old Lambert Simnel is crowned in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland with the name of Edward VI in a bid to threaten King Henry VII's reign.
• 1595 – Nomenclator of Leiden University Library appears, the first printed catalog of an institutional library.
• 1621 – The Protestant Union is formally dissolved.
• 1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan.
• 1689 – The English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration protecting Protestants. Roman Catholics are intentionally excluded.
• 1738 – John Wesley is converted, essentially launching the Methodist movement; the day is celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day.
• 1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the United Irishmen against British rule begins.
• 1822 – Battle of Pichincha: Antonio José de Sucre secures the independence of the Presidency of Quito.
• 1830 – Mary Had a Little Lamb by Sarah Josepha Hale is published.
• 1830 – The first revenue trains in the United States begin service on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad betweenBaltimore, Maryland and Ellicott's Mills, Maryland.
• 1832 – The First Kingdom of Greece is declared in the London Conference.
• 1844 – Samuel Morse sends the message "What hath God wrought" (a Bible quotation, Numbers 23:23) from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland to inaugurate the first telegraph line.
• 1846 – Mexican-American War: General Zachary Taylor captures Monterrey.
• 1856 – John Brown and his men murder five slavery supporters at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas.
• 1861 – American Civil War: Union troops occupy Alexandria, Virginia.
• 1883 – The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction.
• 1895 – Henry Irving becomes the first person from the theatre to be knighted.
• 1900 – Second Boer War: The United Kingdom annexes the Orange Free State.
• 1901 – Seventy-eight miners die in the Caerphilly pit disaster in South Wales.
• 1915 – World War I: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary.
• 1921 – The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti opens.
• 1930 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5for the 11,000 mile flight).
• 1935 – The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the Cincinnati Reds beating thePhiladelphia Phillies 2-1 at Crosley Field.
• 1940 – Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight.
• 1941 – World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Battleship Bismarck sinks the then pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen.
• 1943 – Holocaust: Josef Mengele becomes chief medical officer of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
• 1956 – Conclusion of the Sixth Buddhist Council on Vesak Day, marking the 2,500 year anniversary after the Lord Buddha's Parinibbāna.
• 1956 – The first Eurovision Song Contest is held in Lugano, Switzerland
• 1958 – United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service.
• 1960 – Following the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, the largest ever recorded earthquake, Cordón Caulle begins to erupt.
• 1961 – American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus.
• 1961 – Cyprus enters the Council of Europe.
• 1962 – Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule.
• 1967 – Egypt imposes a blockade and siege of the Red Sea coast of Israel.
• 1968 – FLQ separatists bomb the U.S. consulate in Quebec City.
• 1970 – The drilling of the Kola Superdeep Borehole begins in the Soviet Union.
• 1973 – Earl Jellicoe resigns as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords.
• 1976 – The London to Washington, D.C. Concorde service begins.
• 1976 – The Judgement of Paris takes place in France, launching California as a worldwide force in the production of quality wine.
• 1980 – The International Court of Justice calls for the release of United States embassy hostages in Tehran, Iran. The hostages would not be freed until the following January.
• 1982 – Liberation of Khorramshahr: Iranians recapture of the port city of Khorramshahr from the Iraqis during the Iran–Iraq War.
• 1988 – Section 28 of the United Kingdom's Local Government Act 1988, a controversial amendment stating that a local authority cannot intentionally promote homosexuality, is enacted.
• 1989 – Sonia Sutcliffe, wife of the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, is awarded £600,000 in damages (later reduced to £60,000 on appeal) after winning a libel action against Private Eye.
• 1990 – A car carrying American Earth First! activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney explodes in Oakland, California, critically injuring both.
• 1991 – Eritrea gains its independence from Ethiopia.
• 1991 – Israel conducts Operation Solomon, evacuating Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
• 1992 – The last Thai dictator, General Suchinda Kraprayoon, resigns following pro-democracy protests.
• 1994 – Four men convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 are each sentenced to 240 years in prison.
• 2000 – Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.
• 2001 – Mountain climbing: 15-year-old Sherpa Temba Tsheri becomes the youngest person to climb to the top of Mount Everest.
• 2001 – The Versailles wedding hall disaster in Jerusalem, Israel, kills 23 and injures over 200 in Israel's worst-ever civil disaster.
• 2002 – Russia and the United States sign the Moscow Treaty.
• 2004 – Communications in North Korea: North Korea bans mobile phones.
• 2006 – An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary film about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming, is released.