Today in History: May 24, Brooklyn Bridge opens to traffic
Today is Saturday, May 24, the 144th day of 2025. There are 221 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On May 24,1883, New York’s Brooklyn Bridge, at the time the world’s longest suspension bridge, opened to traffic.
Also on this date:
In 1844, Samuel F.B. Morse transmitted the message “What hath God wrought” from Washington to Baltimore as he formally opened America’s first telegraph line.
In 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.
In 1937, in a pair of rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Social Security Act of 1935.
In 1941, during World War II, the German battleship Bismarck sank the British battle cruiser HMS Hood in the North Atlantic, killing all but three of the 1,418 men on board. (The Bismarck would be sunk by British battleships three days later.)
In 1962, astronaut Scott Carpenter became the second American to orbit the Earth as he flew aboard the Aurora 7 spacecraft.
In 1974, American jazz composer and bandleader Duke Ellington, 75, died in New York.
In 1994, four Islamic extremists convicted of bombing New York’s World Trade Center in 1993 were each sentenced to 240 years in prison.
In 2022, an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 children and two teachers. The gunman, Salvador Ramos, a former student at the school, was also killed. It was the deadliest shooting at a U.S. elementary school since the 2012 attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
Today’s Birthdays:
- Comedian Tommy Chong is 87.
- Musician Bob Dylan is 84.
- Actor Gary Burghoff (M*A*S*H) is 82.
- Singer Patti LaBelle is 81.
- Actor Priscilla Presley is 80.
- Actor Jim Broadbent is 76.
- Cinematographer Roger Deakins is 76.
- Actor Alfred Molina is 72.
- Musician Rosanne Cash is 70.
- Actor Kristin Scott Thomas is 65.
- Author Michael Chabon is 62.
- Basketball Hall of Famer Joe Dumars is 62.
- Actor John C. Reilly is 60.
- Basketball Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady is 46.
- Dancer-choreographer Mark Ballas is 39.
- Country singer Billy Gilman is 37.
- Rapper G-Eazy is 36.
- Actor Brianne Howey is 36.
- Actor Daisy Edgar-Jones is 27.