May 24 in History

Franconia is a geographical region of Germany, characterised by its culture and East Franconian dialect. Franconia is made up of the three Regierungsbezirke of Lower, Middle and Upper Franconia in Bavaria, the adjacent, Franconian-speaking South Thuringia, south of the Thuringian Forest—which constitutes the language boundary between Franconian and Thuringian—and the eastern parts of Heilbronn-Franconia in Baden-Württemberg.

The Fifth Crusade was a campaign in a series of Crusades by Western Europeans to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering the powerful Egyptian Ayyubid Sultanate, led by Sultan al-Adil, brother of Saladin.

Magnus Ladulås, also known as Magnus Birgersson, was King of Sweden from 1275 until his death in 1290.

Lambert Simnel (c. 1477 – after 1534) was a pretender to the throne of England. In 1487, his claim to be Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick, threatened the newly established reign of Henry VII (1485-1509). Simnel became the figurehead of a Yorkist rebellion organised by John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln. The rebellion was crushed in 1487. Simnel was pardoned because of his tender years, and was thereafter employed by the royal household as a scullion.

Erik XIV or Eric XIV (13 December 1533 – 26 February 1577) became King of Sweden following the death of his father, Gustav I, on 29 September 1560. During his reign, Erik sought to centralize royal authority and expand Swedish influence in the Baltic region, incorporating Reval (now Tallinn) and northern Estonia into the realm in 1561 to lay the foundations of the Swedish Baltic Empire. To consolidate control, he enacted the Articles of Arboga (1561), which restricted the political power of his half-brothers. His ambitions to control Baltic trade routes also led Sweden into the Northern Seven Years' War (1563–1570) against Denmark–Norway and Lübeck. While Erik was regarded as intelligent, artistically skilled, and a promoter of Renaissance court culture, early in his reign he showed signs of mental instability, a condition that eventually led to insanity. Some scholars claim that his illness began early during his reign, while others believe that it first manifested with the Sture murders. During a 1568 rebellion against him, Erik was incarcerated by his half-brother John III. He was formally deposed by the Riksdag on 26 January 1569. Erik, having been imprisoned and deposed, was most likely murdered. An examination of his remains in 1958 confirmed that he probably died of arsenic poisoning.

Leiden University Libraries is the set of libraries of Leiden University, founded in 1575 in Leiden, Netherlands. Holdings include some five million volumes, one million e-books, ninety thousand e-journals, two thousand current paper journals, and three thousand cuneiform tablets. The library manages large collections on Indonesia and the Caribbean, and curates seven entries in UNESCO's international and Dutch Memory of the World Register. Joseph Justus Scaliger, who was a languages and history professor at Leiden from 1593 up to 1609, commented in Latin on the library:Est hic magna commoditas bibliothecae ut studiosi possint studere. Here [at Leiden] is the great convenience of a library so that those who want to study [students], can study.

The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. It was located, in what later became James City County, on the northeast bank of the James River, about 2.5 mi (4 km) southwest of present-day Williamsburg. It was established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 4, 1607 O.S. (May 14, 1607 N.S.). It followed earlier, failed English colonization attempts, including the 1585 Roanoke Colony. A river island was selected to evade Spanish naval patrols; however, it was infested with mosquitoes, lacked potable water, and was used by the Paspahegh people. Despite supply missions, only 60 of the original 214 settlers survived the 1609–1610 winter known as Starving Time. In 1612, West Indies tobacco was successfully cultivated, leading to an economic boom for the colony and England. Jamestown served as the colonial capital from 1616 until 1699. The year 1619 had three seminal events: the first legislative assembly in the New World, a labor strike, and the first recorded African slaves in Virginia colony. The Africans most likely worked in the tobacco fields, under a system of race-based indentured servitude. The modern conception of slavery in the British colonies was formalized in 1640, and fully entrenched in Virginia by 1660. In 1622, a native uprising decimated the surrounding settlements, but the capital was warned before a decisive attack could occur. In 1676, Jamestown was deliberately burned during Bacon's Rebellion, though it was rebuilt. In 1699, the colonial capital was moved to present-day Williamsburg, Virginia. In the 18th century, Jamestown ceased to exist as a settlement and remains as an archaeological site, Jamestown Rediscovery, which houses museums and historical sites, including the Jamestown Settlement and the American Revolution Museum in Yorktown. Jamestown is one of three locations composing the Historic Triangle of Colonial Virginia, along with Williamsburg and Yorktown. Historic Jamestowne is the archaeological site on Jamestown Island and is a cooperative effort by Jamestown National Historic Site and Preservation Virginia. Jamestown Settlement, a living history interpretive site, is operated by the Jamestown Yorktown Foundation, a state agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The Protestant Union (German: Protestantische Union), also known as the Evangelical Union, Union of Auhausen, German Union or the Protestant Action Party, was a coalition of Protestant German states. It was formed on 14 May 1608 by Frederick IV, Elector Palatine in order to defend the rights, land and safety of each member. It included both Calvinist and Lutheran states, and dissolved in 1621.

Peter Minuit (French: Pierre Minuit, Dutch: Peter Minnewit; c. 1580 – August 5, 1638) was a Walloon merchant and politician who was the 3rd director of the Dutch North American colony of New Netherland from 1626 until 1631, and 3rd Governor of New Netherland. He founded the Swedish colony of New Sweden on the Delaware Peninsula in 1638. Minuit was born in Wesel, in modern northwestern Germany. He is generally credited with orchestrating the purchase of Manhattan Island for the Dutch West India Company from representatives of the Lenape, the area's indigenous people. Manhattan later became the site of the Dutch city of New Amsterdam, and the borough of Manhattan of modern New York City. A letter written by Dutch merchant Peter Schaghen to directors of the Dutch East India Company stated that Manhattan was purchased for "60 guilders worth of trade", an amount worth ~$1,143 U.S. dollars as of 2020.

The French Royal Army was the principal land force of the Kingdom of France. It served the Bourbon dynasty from the reign of Louis XIV in the mid-17th century to that of Charles X in the 19th, with an interlude from 1792 to 1814 and another during the Hundred Days in 1815. It was permanently dissolved following the July Revolution in 1830. The French Royal Army became a model for the new regimental system that was to be imitated throughout Europe from the mid-17th century onward. It was regarded as Europe's greatest military force for much of its existence.

The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street in Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of Oxford in 1677. It is also the world's second university museum, after the establishment of the Kunstmuseum Basel in 1661 by the University of Basel. The present building was built between 1841 and 1845. The museum reopened in 2009 after a major redevelopment, and in November 2011, new galleries focusing on Egypt and Nubia were unveiled. In May 2016, the museum redisplayed galleries of 19th-century art.

The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England from the 13th century until 1707 when it was replaced by the Parliament of Great Britain as a result of the Treaty of Union 1707 which merged the parliament with the Parliament of Scotland. Parliament evolved from the great council of bishops and peers that advised the English monarch. Great councils were first called Parliaments during the reign of Henry III. By this time, the king required Parliament's consent to levy taxation.

John Wesley (; 28 June [O.S. 17 June] 1703 – 2 March 1791) was an English cleric, theologian, and evangelist who was a principal leader of a revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The societies he founded became the dominant form of the ongoing independent Methodist movement. Educated at Charterhouse and Christ Church, Oxford, Wesley was elected a fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1726 and ordained as an Anglican priest two years later. At Oxford, he led the "Holy Club", a society formed for the purpose of the study and the pursuit of a devout Christian life. After an unsuccessful two-year ministry in Savannah, Georgia, he returned to London and joined a religious society led by Moravian Christians. On 24 May 1738, he experienced what has come to be called his evangelical conversion. He left the Moravians and began his own ministry. A key step in the development of Wesley's ministry was to travel widely and preach outdoors, embracing Arminian doctrines. Moving across Great Britain and Ireland, he helped form and organise small Christian groups that developed intensive and personal accountability, discipleship, and religious instruction. He appointed itinerant, unordained evangelists—both women and men—to care for these groups of people. Under Wesley's direction, Methodists became leaders in many social issues of the day, including the abolition of slavery and support for women preachers. Although he was not a systematic theologian, Wesley argued against Calvinism and for the notion of Christian perfection, which he cited as the reason that he felt God "raised up" Methodists into existence. His evangelicalism, firmly grounded in sacramental theology, maintained that means of grace played a role in sanctification of the believer; however, he taught that it was by faith a believer was transformed into the likeness of Christ. He held that, in this life, Christians could achieve a state where the love of God "reigned supreme in their hearts", giving them not only outward but inward holiness. Wesley's teachings, collectively known as Wesleyan theology, continue to inform the doctrine of Methodist churches. In his early ministry years, Wesley was barred from preaching in many parish churches and the Methodists were persecuted; he later became widely respected, and by the end of his life, was described as "the best-loved man in England".

The Irish Rebellion of 1798 (Irish: Éirí Amach 1798; Ulster Scots: "The Turn Out"/"The Hurries") was a popular insurrection against the British Crown in what was then the separate, but subordinate, Kingdom of Ireland. The main organising force was the Society of United Irishmen. First formed in Belfast by Presbyterians opposed to the landed Anglican establishment, the Society, despairing of reform, sought to secure a republic through a revolutionary union with the country's Catholic majority. The grievances of a rack-rented tenantry, and of market-town traders, journeymen and weavers drove recruitment. While assistance was being sought from the French Republic and from democratic militants in Britain, martial-law seizures and arrests forced the conspirators into the open. Beginning in late May 1798, there were a series of uncoordinated risings: in the counties of Carlow and Wexford in the southeast where the rebels met with some success; in the north around Belfast in counties Antrim and Down; and closer to the capital, Dublin, in counties Meath and Kildare. In late August, after the rebels had been reduced to pockets of guerrilla resistance, the French landed an expeditionary force in the west, in County Mayo. Unable to effect a conjunction with a significant rebel force, they surrendered on 9 September. In the last open-field engagement of the rebellion, the local men they had rallied on their arrival were routed at Killala on 23 September. On 12 October, a second French expedition was defeated in a naval action off the coast of County Donegal leading to the capture of the United Irish leader Wolfe Tone. In the wake of the rebellion, Acts of Union 1800 abolished the Irish legislature and brought Ireland under the crown of a United Kingdom through the Parliament at Westminster. The centenary of the rebellion in 1898 saw its legacy disputed by nationalists who wished to restore a legislature in Dublin, by republicans who invoked the name of Tone in the cause of complete separation and independence, and by unionists opposed to all measures of Irish self-government. Renewed in a bicentenary year that coincided with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, the debate over the interpretation and significance of 1798 continues.

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios Ponte y Blanco was a Venezuelan military officer and statesman who led what are currently the countries of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela to independence from the Spanish Empire. He is known colloquially as El Libertador, "the Liberator," of America.

The Kingdom of Greece (Greek: Βασίλειον τῆς Ἑλλάδος, romanised: Vasíleion tis Elládos, pronounced [vaˈsili.on tis eˈlaðos]) was the Greek state established in 1832 by the Treaty of Constantinople, which formally recognised Greece as an independent state and established it as a monarchy, following the Greek War of Independence. It succeeded the First Hellenic Republic and was internationally recognised by the Treaty of Constantinople, through which Greece secured full independence from the Ottoman Empire after nearly four centuries. The country remained a kingdom until 1924, when the Second Hellenic Republic was proclaimed. The monarchy was restored in 1935, after a referendum, and continued until its final abolition by the Regime of the Colonels in 1973. The referendum of the colonels, however, was widely regarded as rigged, so a second definitive referendum was held after the regime's fall in 1974 and confirmed the abolition of the monarchy, establishing the Third Hellenic Republic. For much of its existence, the Kingdom's main ideological goal was the Megali Idea, which sought to annex lands with predominantly Greek populations. King Otto ruled as an absolute monarch from 1835 until the 3 September 1843 Revolution, which transformed Greece into a constitutional monarchy, with the creation of the Prime Minister as head of government, universal male suffrage and a constitution. A popular insurrection deposed Otto in 1862, precipitating the gradual collapse of the early Greek parties (English, French, Russian), which had dominated Greek politics. The Greek National Assembly's election of George I in 1863 brought the transfer of the Ionian Islands from British rule in 1864. In his fifty–year reign, George presided over long periods of political instability, and wielded considerable power despite his role as a constitutional monarch. Prime Ministers, such as Alexandros Koumoundouros and Charilaos Trikoupis, shaped the politics and identity of the kingdom (including the annexation of Thessaly in 1881) before an economic depression and a catastrophic defeat in the Thirty Days' War weakened the Greek state. The Goudi coup in 1909 brought Eleftherios Venizelos to power and brought sweeping reforms, culminating in the Hellenic Army's victory in the Balkan Wars, led militarily by Crown Prince Constantine, who became King following George I's assassination during the First Balkan War. The dispute and deep political rift of Monarchist and Venizelist forces regarding Greece's initial neutrality in World War I led to the National Schism, which, with Allied intervention, culminated in Constantine's exile, Venizelos' reinstatement as Prime Minister and Greece's entry into World War I. After victory in the Macedonian Front and success in the Asia Minor Campaign against the Ottomans, King Alexander, Constantine's second son, died in 1920, which triggered a constitutional crisis, culminating in anti-Venizelist candidate Dimitrios Gounaris' victory in the 1920 elections and a plebiscite confirming Constantine's return to the throne. Greece's disastrous defeat in Asia Minor two years later triggered the 11 September 1922 Revolution, which brought the abdication of Constantine in favour of his first son George II and the execution of Monarchist leaders in the Trial of the Six. The Treaty of Lausanne and the population exchange, along with a failed Monarchist coup in 1923, brought the proclamation of the Second Hellenic Republic in 1924. A failed Venizelist coup in 1935 rapidly accelerated the Second Republic's collapse, with the Monarchy restored following a sham referendum in November 1935. Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas initiated a self-coup with the support of King George on 4 August 1936 and established the 4th of August Regime, a Metaxist and ultranationalist dictatorship with Metaxas wielding absolute power. Following Greece's entry into World War II and the Greco-Italian War, the German invasion of Greece toppled the Monarchy and conquered Greece, resulting in a triple occupation by the Axis powers. After the withdrawal of German forces in late 1944, the Monarchy was reaffirmed by victory in the three-year Greek Civil War. Spearheaded by Prime Ministers Alexandros Papagos and Konstantinos Karamanlis, Greece entered an economic miracle, but a successful coup on 21 April 1967 established the Regime of the Colonels, a military dictatorship. A failed counter-coup by King Constantine II on 13 December 1967 forced him into exile, and the Monarchy was dissolved in 1973, a decision that was reaffirmed by a democratic referendum in 1974.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After establishing his reputation as a portrait painter, Morse, in his middle age, contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs. He was a co-developer and the namesake of Morse code in 1837 and helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy.

John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was an American abolitionist in the decades preceding the American Civil War. An evangelical Christian of strong religious convictions, Brown was profoundly influenced by the Puritan faith of his upbringing. He believed that he was "an instrument of God", raised to strike the "death blow" to slavery in the United States, a "sacred obligation". Brown was the leading exponent of violence in the American abolitionist movement, believing it was necessary to end slavery after decades of peaceful efforts had failed. Brown said that in working to free the enslaved, he was following Christian ethics, including the Golden Rule, and the Declaration of Independence, which states that "all men are created equal". He stated that in his view, these two principles "meant the same thing". Brown first gained national attention when he led anti-slavery volunteers and his sons during the Bleeding Kansas crisis of the late 1850s, a state-level civil war over whether Kansas would enter the Union as a slave state or a free state. He was dissatisfied with abolitionist pacifism, saying of pacifists, "These men are all talk. What we need is action—action!" In May 1856, Brown and his sons killed five supporters of slavery in the Pottawatomie massacre, a response to the sacking of Lawrence by pro-slavery forces. Brown then commanded anti-slavery forces at the Battle of Black Jack and the Battle of Osawatomie. In October 1859, Brown led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (which later became part of West Virginia), intending to start a slave liberation movement that would spread south; he had prepared a Provisional Constitution for the revised, slavery-free United States that he hoped to bring about. He seized the armory, but seven people were killed and ten or more were injured. Brown intended to arm slaves with weapons from the armory, but only a few slaves joined his revolt. Those of Brown's men who had not fled were killed or captured by local militia and U.S. Marines, the latter led by Robert E. Lee. Brown was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five men, and inciting a slave insurrection. He was found guilty of all charges and was hanged on December 2, 1859, the first person executed for treason in the history of the United States. The Harpers Ferry raid and Brown's trial, both covered extensively in national newspapers, escalated tensions that in the next year led to the South's long-threatened secession from the United States and the American Civil War. Southerners feared that others would soon follow in Brown's footsteps, encouraging and arming slave rebellions. He was widely viewed as a hero and icon in the North. Union soldiers marched to the new song "John Brown's Body" that portrayed him as a heroic martyr. Brown has been variously described as a heroic martyr and visionary, and as a madman and terrorist.

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans. Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven slave states in the South responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy seized US forts and other federal assets in the South. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after the war began and, led by its president, Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy comprised eleven states, containing a third of the US population. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued. During 1861–1862 in the western theater, the Union made permanent gains, though in the eastern theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, applying to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederacy's river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River, while Confederate general Robert E. Lee's incursion north failed at the Battle of Gettysburg. General Ulysses S. Grant's western successes led Lincoln to promote him to command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, followed by his March to the Sea, which culminated in his taking Savannah. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House, setting in motion the end of the war. Lincoln lived to see this victory but was shot by an assassin on April 14, dying the next day. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure had been destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed slaves. The war is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in the history of the United States. It remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Of continuing interest is the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The war was among the first to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the electrical telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were widely used. The war left an estimated 700,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian deaths, making it the deadliest in American history. The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming world wars.

Patrick Francis Healy (February 27, 1834 – January 10, 1910) was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who was an influential president of Georgetown University, becoming known as its "second founder". The university's flagship building, Healy Hall, bears his name. Though he considered himself and was widely accepted as White, Healy was posthumously recognized as the first Black American to earn a PhD, as well as the first to enter the Jesuit order and to become the president of a predominantly White university. Healy was born in Georgia to a family that produced many Catholic leaders. His mother was one-eighth Black and his father was a White Irish emigrant. Under Georgia law, Healy's father technically owned his wife and children as slaves. Healy and his siblings were sent north by their father to be educated at the College of the Holy Cross, and Healy continued his higher education in Belgium at the Catholic University of Louvain, where he received his doctorate in philosophy in 1864. He returned to America and started as the chair of philosophy at Georgetown University. Healy was elected president of Georgetown University in 1873 and appointed rector the following year. Seeking to transform the institution into a modern university, he oversaw a period of extensive growth. He increased the prominence of the sciences, raised the standards of the School of Medicine, and oversaw a rapid expansion of the Law School. He also constructed a grand building that became known as Healy Hall, which left the university in substantial debt. In 1882, he went to live with his brother, James, the Bishop of Portland, Maine, and the two traveled extensively throughout Europe. Afterwards, Healy returned to pastoral work in Rhode Island and New York City, before returning to Georgetown, where he died.

The Brooklyn Bridge is a cable-stayed suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River. It was also the longest suspension bridge in the world when opened, with a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m) and a deck 127 ft (38.7 m) above mean high water. The span was originally called the New York and Brooklyn Bridge or the East River Bridge but was officially renamed the Brooklyn Bridge in 1915. Proposals for a bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn were first made in the early 19th century; these plans evolved into what is now the Brooklyn Bridge, designed by John A. Roebling. The project's chief engineer, his son Washington Roebling, contributed further design work, assisted by the latter's wife, the engineer Emily Warren Roebling. Construction started in 1870 and was overseen by the New York Bridge Company, which in turn was controlled by the Tammany Hall political machine. Numerous controversies and the novelty of the design prolonged the project over thirteen years. After opening, the Brooklyn Bridge underwent several reconfigurations, having carried horse-drawn vehicles and elevated railway lines until 1950. To alleviate increasing traffic flows, additional bridges and tunnels were built across the East River. Due to gradual deterioration, the Brooklyn Bridge was renovated several times, including in the 1950s, 1980s, and 2010s. The Brooklyn Bridge is the southernmost of five vehicular bridges connecting Manhattan Island and Long Island, with the Manhattan Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, the Queensboro Bridge, and the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge (formerly known as the Triborough Bridge) to the north. Only passenger vehicles and pedestrian and bicycle traffic are permitted. A major tourist attraction since it opened, the Brooklyn Bridge has become an icon of New York City. Over the years, the bridge has been used for stunts and performances, as well as several crimes, attacks and vandalism. The Brooklyn Bridge is designated a National Historic Landmark, a New York City landmark, and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

The Second Boer War was a conflict fought between 1899 and 1902 between the British Empire and the Boer republics, triggered by the discovery of gold in the Transvaal, specifically the Witwatersrand gold fields, and the ensuing political dispute over the voting rights of British expatriates (Uitlanders).

Amy Johnson (born 1 July 1903 – disappeared 5 January 1941) was a pioneering English pilot who was the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia. Flying solo or with her husband, Jim Mollison, she set many long-distance records during the 1930s. In 1933, Katharine Hepburn's character in the film Christopher Strong was inspired by Johnson. She flew in the Second World War as a part of the Air Transport Auxiliary. Her aircraft crashed into the Thames Estuary: she died after bailing out. Because her body was never recovered, the precise cause of her death—drowning, hypothermia or being pulled into a warship's moving propellers, is unknown and has been a subject of discussion since the possibility of friendly fire was raised in 1999.

Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky was a Russian-American aviation pioneer in both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. His first success came with the Sikorsky S-2, the second aircraft of his design and construction. His fifth airplane, the S-5, won him national recognition in Russia and secured F.A.I. pilot's license number 64. His S-6-A received the highest award at the 1912 Moscow Aviation Exhibition, and in the fall of that year the aircraft won first prize for its young designer, builder and pilot in the military competition at Saint Petersburg. In 1913, the Sikorsky-designed Russky Vityaz (S-21) became the first successful four-engine aircraft to take flight. He also designed and built the Ilya Muromets family of four-engine aircraft, an airliner which he redesigned to be the world's first four-engine bomber when World War I broke out.

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from its formation in 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, the largest by area, and bordered twelve other countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, with the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR). The world's flagship communist state, it was governed by the Communist Party under Marxism–Leninism, through soviet councils. The Soviet economy was also centrally planned. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

Börse Berlin AG, also known as the Berlin Stock Exchange, is a stock exchange based in Berlin, Germany, in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf borough. Founded in 1685 by an edict of Elector Friedrich Wilhelm, it is one of the oldest stock exchanges in Germany.

The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war became a war of separate states with the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight, and the entry of a military coalition of Arab states into the territory of Mandatory Palestine the following morning. The war formally ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements which established the Green Line.

The Eurovision Song Contest, often known simply as Eurovision, is an international song competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1956. Each participating broadcaster submits an original song representing its country to be performed live via the Eurovision and Euroradio networks, and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine a winner.

United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th century until its eventual decline beginning in the early 1980s. At its peak, it had more than 6,000 media subscribers. Since the first of several sales and staff cutbacks in 1982, and the 1999 sale of its broadcast client list to its main U.S. rival, the Associated Press, UPI has concentrated on smaller information-market niches.

On 22 May 1960, an earthquake and tsunami occurred in Chile, devastating the city of Valdivia. Most studies have placed it at 9.4–9.6 on the moment magnitude scale, making it the strongest earthquake ever recorded, while some studies have placed the magnitude lower than 9.4. It occurred in the afternoon, and lasted 10 minutes. The resulting tsunamis affected southern Chile, Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, eastern New Zealand, southeast Australia, and the Aleutian Islands.

Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Union. Taken over from the US Air Force by the newly created civilian space agency NASA, it conducted 20 uncrewed developmental flights, and six successful flights by astronauts. The program, which took its name from Roman mythology, cost $2.83 billion. The astronauts were collectively known as the "Mercury Seven", and each spacecraft was given a name ending with a "7" by its pilot.

Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Palestine and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan and the Sahara to the south, and Libya to the west. The Gulf of Aqaba in the northeast separates Egypt from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Cairo is the capital, largest city, and leading cultural centre, while Alexandria is the second-largest city and an important hub of industry and tourism. With over 107 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in the Arab world, third-most populous country in Africa, and 15th-most populated in the world.

Belle de Jour is a 1967 surrealist erotic psychological drama film directed by Luis Buñuel, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jean-Claude Carrière. Based on the 1928 novel by Joseph Kessel, the film stars Catherine Deneuve in the leading role as Séverine, a young housewife who spends her midweek afternoons as a high-class prostitute, while her husband is at work. It co-stars Jean Sorel, and Michel Piccoli, and features Geneviève Page, Francisco Rabal, Pierre Clémenti, Francis Blanche and Georges Marchal in supporting roles.

Jaime Roldós Aguilera was an Ecuadorian politician who was the 33rd President of Ecuador from August 10, 1979 until his death on May 24, 1981. In his short tenure, he became known for his firm stance on human rights, which led to clashes with other Latin American governments and poor relations with Ronald Reagan's United States administration.

The Second Battle of Khorramshahr, also known in Iran as the Liberation of Khorramshahr was the Iranian recapture of the city of Khorramshahr on 24 May 1982, during the Iran–Iraq War. The city had been captured by the Iraqis earlier in the war, on 26 October 1980, shortly after the Iraqi invasion of Iran. The successful retaking of the city was part of Iran's Operation Beit ol-Moqaddas. It is perceived as a turning point in the war; and the liberation of the city is annually celebrated in Iran on 24 May.

Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 provided that local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales should "not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship". While the bill was in progress, the relevant portion was Clause 28. The prohibition was technically effected by Section 2A of the Local Government Act 1986; all Section 28 of the 1988 act did was to insert Section 2A into the earlier act. When repeal of the provision was discussed in Scotland in 2000, it was often "Section 2A" rather than "Section 28" that was referenced.

Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. It is bordered by Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan to the east, and Egypt to the southwest. Israel's western coast lies on the Mediterranean Sea, its southern tip reaches the Red Sea, and to the east is Earth's lowest point near the Dead Sea. Jerusalem is the government seat and proclaimed capital, while Tel Aviv is Israel's largest urban area and economic centre.

Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand, and formerly known as Siam, is a country located in Mainland Southeast Asia. It shares land borders with Myanmar to the west and northwest, Laos to the east and northeast, Cambodia to the southeast, and Malaysia to the south. Its maritime boundaries include the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea, and it shares maritime borders with Vietnam, Indonesia, and India. Thailand has a population of nearly 66 million people and covers an area of approximately 513,115 km2. The capital and largest city is Bangkok.

Kozarac is a town in north-western Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina, located near the city of Prijedor. It is located 45 kilometres (28 mi) west of Banja Luka. Kozarac is also famous because of the Kozara National Park.

Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. Its capital and largest city is Asmara. The country is bordered by Ethiopia to the south, Sudan to the west, and Djibouti to the southeast. The northeastern and eastern parts of Eritrea have an extensive coastline along the Red Sea. The country has a total area of approximately 117,600 km2 (45,406 sq mi), and includes the Dahlak Archipelago and several of the Hanish Islands.

Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo was an archbishop of the Catholic Church in Mexico who served as the eighth archbishop of the see of Guadalajara and as a cardinal of the Catholic Church.

On February 26, 1993, Ramzi Yousef and associates carried out a van bomb terrorist attack below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The approximately 1,500-pound (680 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to make the North Tower collapse onto the South Tower, taking down both skyscrapers and killing tens of thousands of people. While it failed to do so, it was successful in killing six people, including a pregnant mother, and caused over a thousand injuries. About 50,000 people were evacuated from the buildings that day.

Leeds Bradford Airport is located in Yeadon, West Yorkshire, England, about 7 miles (11 km) northwest of Leeds city centre, and about 9 miles (14 km) northeast from Bradford city centre. It serves Leeds and Bradford and the wider Yorkshire region including York, Wakefield and Harrogate, and is the largest airport in Yorkshire. The airport was in public ownership until May 2007, when it was bought by Bridgepoint Capital for £145.5 million. Bridgepoint sold it in 2017 to AMP Capital. In December 2025, Spanish national airport company AENA acquired a majority stake in the airport.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was an ad hoc court of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to try their perpetrators. The tribunal was located in The Hague, Netherlands, and operated between 1993 and 2017.

Southern Lebanon is the area of Lebanon comprising the South Governorate and the Nabatiye Governorate. The two entities were divided from the same province in the early 1990s. The term may also comprise Rashaya and Western Beqaa districts, the southernmost districts of the Beqaa Governorate.

The Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Strategic Offensive Reductions (SORT), also known as the Treaty of Moscow, was a strategic arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia that was in force from June 2003 until February 2011 when it was superseded by the New START treaty.

An earthquake occurred in the northern Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey on May 24, 2014. It had a moment magnitude of 6.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). Serious damage was reported on the Turkish island of Imbros and the cities of Edirne and Çanakkale, as well as on the Greek island of Lemnos. The earthquake was felt in Bulgaria and southern Romania. Several aftershocks followed the main shock, the strongest measuring 5.3 ML. This aftershock struck the Gulf of Saros at 12:31 local time.

On the afternoon of 24 May 2014, a gunman opened fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing four people in an antisemitic Islamist terrorist attack. Three of them, an Israeli couple on holiday and a French woman, died at the scene. The fourth victim, a Belgian employee of the museum, later died of his injuries in hospital. Six days after the attack, on 30 May 2014, Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-year-old French national of Algerian origin, was arrested during a routine drugs check in Marseille, France, when he was found to be carrying weapons identical to those used in the shooting. A second suspect, Nacer Bendrer, was later identified and arrested.

Brexit was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU).

On May 24, 2022, a mass shooting occurred at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, United States. Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old former student of the school, fatally shot 19 students and 2 teachers, while injuring 18 others. Ramos was killed 77 minutes after entering the classroom by law enforcement officers.