Today in history

On May 24,1844,

Samuel F.B. Morse transmitted the message, “What hath God wrought!” from Washington to Baltimore as he opened America’s first telegraph line.

In 1881 about

200 people died when the Canadian ferry Princess Victoria sank near London, Ontario.

In1883

the Brooklyn Bridge, linking Brooklyn and Manhattan, was opened to traffic.

In1935

Major League Baseball’s first night gamewas played in Cincinnati. (The Reds defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1.)

In1941,

in WorldWar II, the German battleship Bismarck sank the British battle cruiser Hood in the North Atlantic.

In 1958 United

Press International was formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service.

In 1962 astronaut

Scott Carpenter becamethe second American to orbit the Earth as he flew aboard Aurora 7.

In 1976 Britain

and France opened trans-Atlantic Concorde service to Washington.

In1977,

in a surprise move, the Kremlin ousted Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny fromthe Communist Party’s ruling Politburo.

In 1980 Iran

rejected a call by the World Court in The Hague to release the American hostages.

In 1986 the

Union Jack was flown in Israel for the first time in 38 years as Margaret Thatcher becamethe first British prime minister to visit the Jewish state.

In1992

Al Unser Jr. became the first second-generation winner of the Indianapolis 500.