History of the Day for:
May 24
- 1819: Queen Victoria was born in London.
- 1830: The first passenger train service in the U.S. began between Baltimore and Elliott's Mills, Md.
- 1844: Samuel Morse transmitted the world's first telegraph message ("What hath God wrought!") to his associate 40 miles away.
- 1881: Approximately 200 people died when the Canadian ferry "Princess Victoria" sank near London, Ontario.
- 1883: The Brooklyn Bridge was opened, linking Manhattan to Brooklyn.
- 1935: The first major league baseball game to be played at night took place at Cincinnati's Crosley Field as the Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1.
- 1941: The British cruiser HMS Hood was sunk by the German battleship Bismarck, killing over 1,300.
- 1958: United Press International was formed.
- 1976: The British and French Concordes made their first commercial flights from London and Paris respectively to Washington Dulles International Airport in just under four hours.
- 1984: Ralph Sampson of the Houston Rockets became the first unanimous choice for Rookie of the Year since Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabar) of the L.A. Lakers in 1970.
- 1986: The Montreal Canadiens skated past the Calgary Flames, 4-3, to capture its 23rd Stanley Cup.
- 1993: "Farewell My Concubine" and "The Piano" jointly won the Golden Palm award at the Cannes Film Festival.
- 1997: The space shuttle "Atlantis" returned to Earth, bringing with it NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger, who had spent four months aboard the "Mir" space station.
- 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.