Today in History

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YEARDAYEVENT
15CEMay 24Julius Caesar Germanicus, Roman commandant, was born.
1153May 24Malcolm IV became king of Scotland.
1543May 24The city of Valladolid, Mexico, was founded in the Yucatan peninsula.
1544May 24William Gilbert, English physicist, was born. He coined the terms “electric” and “magnetic” poles.
1607May 24Captain Christopher Newport and 105 followers founded Jamestown on the mouth of the James River in Virginia. They had left England with 144 members, 39 died on the way over. The colony was near the large Indian village of Werowocomoco, home of Pocahontas, the daughter Powhatan, an Algonquin chief. In 2003 archeologists believed that they had found the site of Werowocomoco, where Powhatan resided from 1607-1609.
1610May 24Sir Thomas Gates instituted “laws divine moral and marshal,” a harsh civil code for Jamestown.
1624May 24James I revoked Virginia’s charter after years of unprofitable operation and it became a royal colony.
1650May 24John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough, English general strategist, was born.
1686May 24Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit (d.1736), German physicist, was born. He devised a temperature scale and introduced the use of mercury in thermometers. He assigned the number 32 for the melting point of ice, 96 to the temperature of blood and 212 to the steam point.
1689May 24English Parliament passed the Act of Toleration, protecting Protestants. Roman Catholics were specifically excluded from exemption.
1738May 24The Methodist Church was established.
1743May 24Jean-Paul Marat, French revolutionist, was born. He advocated extreme violence and was assassinated in his own bath.
1764May 24Bostonian lawyer James Otis denounced “taxation without representation” and called for the colonies to unite in demonstrating their opposition to Britain’s new tax measures.
1798May 24Believing that a French invasion of Ireland was imminent, Irish nationalists rose up against the British occupation. It was put down by the Orange yeomanry who were enlisted by the government to restore peace. The slogan “Croppies lie down” originated here after some of the rebel Catholics had their hair cropped in the French revolutionary manner.
1803May 24Charles LJL Bonaparte, Corsican, French prince of Canino, Musignano, was born.
1809May 24Dartmoor Prison opened to house French prisoners of war.
1816May 24Emanuel Leutze, US painter, was born. His work included “Washington Crossing the Delaware” (1851).
1818May 24Gen. Andrew Jackson captured Pensacola, Florida.
1819May 24Victoria Alexandrine, Queen Victoria (d.1901) was born in London. Her reign (1836-1901) restored dignity to the British crown. She had nine children. “Great events make me quiet and calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves.”
1822May 24At Battle of Pichincha (Ecuador) General Sucre (1795-1830) won a decisive victory against Spanish forces. Shortly after the battle, Sucre and Bolivar entered the newly-liberated Quito and Sucre was named President of the Province of Quito, which formed Gran Colombia with Venezuela and Colombia.
1830May 24The first passenger railroad in the United States began service between Baltimore and Elliott’s Mills, Md.
1846May 24General Zachary Taylor captured Monterey in the Mexican War.
1854May 24Louis Mountbatten, admiral (WW I), was born.
1856May 24The Potawatomi Massacre took place in Kansas. John Brown, American abolitionist and horse thief, presided over the hacking to death with machetes of five unarmed pro-slavery Border Ruffians in Potawatomi, Kansas.
1861May 24General Benjamin Butler, Union commander of Fort Monroe, Va., declared slaves to be the contraband of war in order to avoid returning them to their owners under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.
1862May 24Westminster Bridge opened across the Thames.
1863May 24Bushwackers led by Captain William Marchbanks attacked a Federal militia party in Nevada, Missouri.
1866May 24Founders of UC Berkeley named their town after Bishop George Berkeley due to a line Berkeley’s poem: On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America: “Westward the course of empire takes its way.”
   
1873May 24Leo Delibes’ opera “Le Roi l’a Dit,” premiered in Paris.
1878May 24Lillian Moller Gilbreth, pioneer in time-motion studies, was born.
1879May 24William Lloyd Garrison (73), abolitionist (Liberator), died.
1881May 24Some 200 people died when the Canadian ferry Princess Victoria sank near London, Ontario.
1889May 24George Henry Calvert (b.1803), American author and great grandson of Lord Baltimore, died. His writing covered historical subjects. In 1854 Calvert was sworn in as mayor of Newport, Rhode Island.
1895May 24Samuel I. Newhouse, US millionaire publisher (Parade, Vogue, Glamour), was born.
1899May 24The 1st US auto repair shop opened in Boston.
1903May 24Arthur Vineberg, Canadian heart surgeon, was born.
1905May 24Mikhail Sholokhov, Russian novelist (And Quiet Flows the Don), was born. He won a Nobel Prize in 1965.
1915May 24Thomas Edison invented the telescribe to record telephone conversations.
1916May 24US pilot William Thaw shot down a German Fokker
1918May 24Coleman A. Young, civil rights leader (Mayor-D-Detroit), was born.
1926May 24Paavo Nurmi ran world record 3000 meters in 8:25.4.
1928May 24William Trevor, Irish short story writer and novelist (The Old Boys, The Boarding House), was born.
1930May 24Amy Johnson became the first woman to fly from England to Australia.
1933May 24Dmitri Shostakovitch’s Preludes premiered in Moscow.
1935May 24The first major-league baseball game played at night took place at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field as the Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1.
1940May 24Joseph Brodsky, author (Less than 1, Nobel 1987), was born in the USSR.
1941May 24Bob Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman), singer and songwriter, was born in Minnesota. He is famous for his songs “Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall,” and “Blowin’ in the Wind.”
1944May 24Icelandic voters severed all ties with Denmark.
1948May 24Ariel Sharon, then called Arik Scheinerman, was wounded at the battle of Latrun while securing Jerusalem for Jews in the 1st Arab-Israeli War.
1951May 24Willie Mays began playing for the New York Giants.
1957May 24Anti-American rioting broke out in Taipei, Taiwan.
1958May 24United Press International (UPI) was formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service.
1961May 24The 27 Freedom Riders, civil rights activists, were arrested in Jackson, Mississippi.
1962May 24Astronaut Scott Carpenter became the second American to orbit the Earth as he flew aboard Aurora 7.
1965May 24Supreme Court declared a federal law allowing the post office to intercept communist propaganda as unconstitutional.
1966May 24The Broadway musical “Mame” opened with Angel Lansbury and Bea Arthur at Winter Garden Theater in NYC for 1508 performances. It was directed by Gene Saks and was based on the novel “Auntie Mame” by Patrick Dennis.
1968May 24In Britain Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones released their song “Jumping Jack Flash.” The US release was on June 1.
1976May 24The SF Chronicle published the 1st installment of “Tales of the City” by Armistead Maupin (b.1944). The series continued in the Chronicle until 1983 and was serialized in the Examiner in 1986.
   
1977		May 24In a surprise move, the Kremlin ousted Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny from the Communist Party’s ruling Politburo.
1980May 24Iran rejected a call by the World Court in The Hague to release the American hostages.
1982May 24Iranian troops reconquered Khorramshahr.
1983May 24The US Supreme Court ruled, in Bob Jones University v. United States, that the government can deny tax breaks to schools that racially discriminate against students. This upheld a 1970 ruling.
1986May 24The Union Jack was flown in Israel for the first time in 38 years as Margaret Thatcher became the first British prime minister to visit the Jewish state.
1987May 24An estimated quarter-million people crowded onto San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge to celebrate the structure’s 50th birthday a few days before the actual anniversary.
1988May 24President Reagan vetoed legislation that would have strengthened the nation’s ability to defend itself and its industries against trading practices of other nations that were deemed unfair.
1989May 24The US film “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” premiered nationwide.
1990May 24The Edmonton Oilers won their fifth Stanley Cup as they defeated the Boston Bruins, four games to one.
1991May 24The remains of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, assassinated by a suicide bomber, were cremated.
1992May 24Kosovo Albanians held unofficial elections for an assembly and president. Ibrahim Rugova won an overwhelming majority and was elected President of Kosovo.
   
1993May 24“Farewell My Concubine” and “The Piano” jointly won the Golden Palm award at the Cannes Film Festival.
1994May 24Four men convicted of bombing New York’s World Trade Center were each sentenced to 240 years in prison.
1995May 24Harold Wilson (79), former British Prime Minister (1964-70, 74-76), died in London.
1996May 24The Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Lumberton, N.C., burned down. Arson was suspected and investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
1997May 24The space shuttle Atlantis returned to Earth, bringing with it NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger, who had spent four months aboard the Russian Mir space station.
1998May 24In Danville, Ill, an explosion occurred at the First Assembly of God Church and injured 33 members, mostly teenagers. The cause was not yet immediately known. The cause was determined the next day to have been a bomb.
1999May 24Mike Tyson walked out of a Rockville, Md., jail after serving 3 1/2 months behind bars for assaulting two motorists over a fender-bender.
2000May 24Isiah Thomas, Bob McAdoo and Tennessee women’s coach Pat Summitt were elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
2001May 24US Sec. of State Colin Powell traveled to South Africa as part of his 4-nation African tour to promote the fight against AIDS.
2002May 24Presidents Bush and Putin signed the Treaty of Moscow, an agreement to reduce nuclear stockpiles by two-thirds over the next 10 years.
2003May 24The $16 million Nevada Museum of Art opened in Reno.
2005May 24Breaking years of gridlock, the Senate cleared the way for confirmation of Priscilla Owen to the US appeals court following a compromise on President Bush’s current and future judicial nominees.
2006May 24In Alabama Regions Financial Corp. and rival AmSouth Bancorp struck a $10 billion deal to merge.
2007May 24The US Congress passed a spending bill, providing $95 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pres. Bush signed the bill the next day.
2008May 24In California a tour helicopter crashed on Santa Catalina Island killing 3 people and injuring 3 others.
2009May 24San Francisco celebrated its 31st annual Carnaval in the Mission district.
2010May 24Pres. Obama signed into law the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act.
2011May 24President Barack Obama and wife Michelle Obama were welcomed to Buckingham Palace in grand royal style by Queen Elizabeth II as they began their official state visit to Britain.
2012May 24Kathi Kamen Goldmark (b.1948), San Francisco-based literary impresario and country-rock singer, died of breast cancer.
2013May 24Pres. Obama signed legislation awarding the Congressional Medal fo Honor posthumously to the 4 girls killed in the Sep 15, 1963, Alabama church bombing.
2014May 24President Barack Obama made a surprise trip to Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan.
Timelines of History 

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