WHAT HAPPENED ON 24. MAY
Want to find out what all happened on 24. May

The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction. (24. May 1883)

Henry Irving becomes the first person from the theatre to be knighted. (24. May 1895)

Second Boer War: The United Kingdom annexes the Orange Free State. (24. May 1900)

Seventy-eight miners die in the Caerphilly pit disaster in South Wales. (24. May 1901)

World War I: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary. (24. May 1915)

The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti opens. (24. May 1921)

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). (24. May 1930)

The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the Cincinnati Reds beating the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1 at Crosley Field. (24. May 1935)

Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight. (24. May 1940)

Acting on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, NKVD agent Iosif Grigulevich orchestrates an unsuccessful assassination attempt on exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Coyoacán, Mexico. (24. May 1940)

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. (24. May 1941)

The Holocaust: Josef Mengele becomes chief medical officer of the Auschwitz concentration camp. (24. May 1943)

Arab–Israeli War: Egypt captures the Israeli kibbutz of Yad Mordechai, but the five-day effort gives Israeli forces time to prepare enough to stop the Egyptian advance a week later. (24. May 1948)

Conclusion of the Sixth Buddhist Council on Vesak Day, marking the 2,500 year anniversary after the Lord Buddha's Parinibbāna. (24. May 1956)

The first Eurovision Song Contest is held in Lugano, Switzerland. (24. May 1956)

United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service. (24. May 1958)

Following the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, the largest ever recorded earthquake, Cordón Caulle begins to erupt. (24. May 1960)

American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus. (24. May 1961)

Cyprus joins the Council of Europe. (24. May 1961)

Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule. (24. May 1962)