On May 24th...

Aldersgate Day
Independence Day (Eritrea)

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1153 Malcolm IV became King of Scotland.

1276 Magnus Ladulas was crowned King of Sweden.

1543 Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus died.

1621 The Protestant Union was formally dissolved.

1686 Physicist Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit was born.

1689 The English Parliament guaranteed freedom of religion for Protestants.

1738 John Wesley was converted.

1743 French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat was born.

1795 American politician Silas Wright was born.

1819 The SS Savannah departed from Savannah, Georgia, for Liverpool, England.
1819 Queen Victoria of England was born.

1825 Biologist Thomas Henry Huxley was born.

1830 "Mary Had A Little Lamb" was published.
1830 The first passenger rail service in the United States was launched, between Baltimore and Elliots Mill, Maryland.

1832 The First Kingdom of Greece was declared.

1833 American politician John Randolph died.

1844 Samuel F.B. Morse sent the world's first telegraph message.

1846 General Zachary Taylor captured Monterey, Mexico.

1854 Lincoln University, the first black college in the United States, was founded by John Miller Dickey and Sarah Emlen Cresson.

1856 A group of men led by abolitionist John Brown killed five people in Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas.

1862 Westminster Bridge, across the Thames in London, England, opened.

1870 Jan Christiaan Smuts, South African statesman, was born.

1876 The H.M.S. Challenger completed the first ever voyage to be undertaken for the purpose of studying the world's oceans.

1877 C. Holloway rode Cloverbrook to victory in the Preakness.

1879 L. Hughes rode Harold to victory in the Preakness.
1879 Journalist and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison died.

1881 The Canadian ferry Princess Victoria sank near London, Ontario, killing 200 people.

1883 The Brooklyn Bridge, linking Manhattan and Brooklyn, New York, opened to traffic.

1900 Nash Turner rode Ildrim to victory in the Belmont Stakes.

1901 Three explosions in the Senghrnydd coal miner near Caerphilly, Wales, killed 81 miners.

1905 Eugene Hildebrand rode Tanya to victory in the Belmont Stakes.

1908 Mafia boss Sam Giancona was born.

1918 American politician Coleman Young was born.

1921 Northern Ireland elected its first Parliament.
1921 Police Commissioner Colonel Theodore Truter led 6 squadrons and an artillery detachment against an Israeli religious gathering at Ntabalanga, Cape Colony.

1924 Cartoonist Brad Anderson was born.
1924 Composer/conductor/cellist Victor Herbert died.

1930 British aviator Amy Johnson became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.

1931 The first air conditioned passenger train went into service, on the B&O Railroad.

1938 Actor/comedian Tommy Chong was born.

1941 The German battleship Bismarck sank the British battle cruiser HMS Hood, killing 1,416 of her 1,419 crewmen.
1941 Singer Bob Dylan was born.

1943 Actor Gary Burghoff was born.

1944 Icelanders voted to severe all ties with Denmark.
1944 Singer Patti LaBelle was born.

1945 Actress Priscilla Presley was born.

1951 Racial segregation in Washington, D.C., restaurants was ruled illegal.

1954 IBM announced a vacuum tube "electronic" brain that could perform 10 million operations an hour.
1954 The German airline Lufthansa was formed.

1955 Country singer Rosanne Cash was born.

1958 A flash food killed 18 persons in Çhankiri, Turkey.
1958 United Press and International News Service merged into United Press International.

1959 The first house with a built-in bomb shelter was exhibited, in Pleasant Hills, Pennsylvania.
1959 Empire Day was renamed Commonwealth Day in Great Britain.
1959 U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles died.

1961 A U. S. Air Force C-124 transport crashed and burned near McChord Air Force Base, Washington; 18 persons were killed and 4 others injured.

1962 Scott Carpenter became the second U. S. astronaut to orbit the Earth.

1964 A riot at a soccer game in Lima, Peru, left 318 persons dead.

1965 The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that a federal law allowing the Post Office to intercept communist propaganda was unconstitutional.

1969 Author Willy Ley died.

1971 A commuter bus plunged into the Panama Canal, killing 38 of the 43 persons aboard.

1974 Jazz musician Duke Ellington died.

1976 Air France and British Airways simultaneously began Concorde service to Dulles Airport, Washington, D.C.

1978 Princess Margaret of Great Britain divorced her husband, the Earl of Snowdon.
1978 A passenger launch capsized on the Jamuna River in Bangladesh during a storm, killing 30 of the 200 persons aboard.
1978 Actor Barry Atwater died.

1980 The New York Islanders defeated the Philadelphia Flyers to win the Stanley Cup.

1981 Bobby Unser won the Indianapolis 500.

1983 The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the government can deny tax breaks to schools that racially discriminate against students.

1984 Vince McMahon, Sr., founder of World Wrestling Entertainment, died.

1986 The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Calgary Flames to win the Stanley Cup.

1987 Jane Geddes won the LPGA Championship.
1987 Al Unser won the Indianapolis 500.

1988 Porntip Nakhirunkanok (Miss Thailand) was crowned Miss Universe.

1990 The Edmonton Oilers defeated the Boston Bruins to win the Stanley Cup.

1992 Al Unser, Jr., won the Indianapolis 500.

1993 Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia.

1995 James Harold Wilson, Prime Minister of Great Britain, died.

1998 Eddie Cheever, Jr., won the Indianapolis 500.

2011 The third floor of the Versailles Wedding Hall in Jerusalem, Israel, collapsed during a wedding dance, killing 23 persons and injuring over 200 others.

2008 Comedian Dick Martin died.

2009 Helio Castroneves won the Indianapolis 500.

2015 Juan Pablo Montoya won the Indianapolis 500.

2016 Actor Burt Kwouk died.

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This page was last updated on May 23, 2018.