May 24
1607 One hundred English settlers disembark in
Jamestown, the first English colony in America.
1626
Peter Minuit buys
Manhattan.
1798 The
Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the
United Irishmen against British rule begins.
1830
"Mary Had a Little Lamb" by
Sarah Josepha Hale is published.
1844
Samuel Morse sends the message "What hath God wrought" (a biblical 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.
1883 The
Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction.
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 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).
1935 The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio.
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 then-pride of the Royal Navy,
HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen.
1962 Project Mercury: American astronaut
Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the
Aurora 7 space capsule.
1970 The drilling of the
Kola Superdeep Borehole begins in the Soviet Union.
1976 The London to Washington, D.C.,
Concorde service begins.
2000 Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.
2001 The
Versailles wedding hall disaster in Jerusalem, Israel kills 23 and injures over 200. The disaster was
caught on a camcorder.
Births
1686 Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit; 1819 Queen Victoria; 1879 H. B. Reese (created
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups); 1938 Tommy Chong; 1941 Bob Dylan; 1943 Gary Burghoff ('Radar' on MASH); 1944 Patti LaBelle; 1945 Priscilla Presley; 1947 Waddy Wachtel; 1952 Sybil Danning; 1953 Alfred Molina; 1955 Rosanne Cash; 1958 Chip Ganassi; 1962 Hιctor Camacho; 1966 Ricky Craven; 1967 Eric Close, Heavy D; 1974 Will Sasso
Deaths
1543 Nicolaus Copernicus; 1963 Elmore James; 1965 Sonny Boy Williamson II; 1974 Duke Ellington; 2008 Dick Martin