May 24
• 1900 – Second Boer War: The United Kingdom annexes the Orange Free State.
• 1915 – World War I: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary, joining the conflict on the side of the Allies.
• 1921 – The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti opens.
• 1930 – 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).
• 1935 – The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the Cincinnati Reds beating the Philadelphia Phillies 2–1 atCrosley Field.
• 1939 – First issue of Fashizmi is published in Tirana.
• 1940 – Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight.
• 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.
• 1941 – 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.
• 1948 – 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.
• 1950 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 81 is adopted.
• 1956 – Conclusion of the Sixth Buddhist Council on Vesak Day, marking the 2,500 year anniversary after the Lord Buddha's Parinibbāna.
• 1956 – The first Eurovision Song Contest is held in Lugano, Switzerland.
• 1958 – United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service.
• 1960 – Following the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, the largest ever recorded earthquake, Cordón Caulle begins to erupt.
• 1961 – American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus.
• 1961 – Cyprus joins the Council of Europe.
• 1962 – Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule.
• 1963 – Baldwin–Kennedy meeting on race relations in the US
• 1967 – Egypt imposes a blockade and siege of the Red Sea coast of Israel.
• 1968 – FLQ separatists bomb the U.S. consulate in Quebec City.
• 1970 – The drilling of the Kola Superdeep Borehole begins in the Soviet Union.
• 1976 – The London to Washington, D.C., Concorde service begins.
• 1976 – The Judgment of Paris takes place in France, launching California as a worldwide force in the production of quality wine.
• 1981 – Ecuadorian president Jaime Roldós Aguilera, his wife, and his presidential committee die in an aircraft accident while travelling from Quito to Zapotillo minutes after the president gave a famous speech regarding the 24 de mayo anniversary of the Battle of Pichincha.
• 1982 – Liberation of Khorramshahr: Iranians recapture of the port city of Khorramshahr from the Iraqis during the Iran–Iraq War.
• 1988 – Section 28 of the United Kingdom's Local Government Act 1988, a controversial amendment stating that a local authority cannot intentionally promotehomosexuality, is enacted.
• 1991 – Israel conducts Operation Solomon, evacuating Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
• 1992 – The last Thai dictator, General Suchinda Kraprayoon, resigns following pro-democracy protests.
• 1992 – The ethnic cleansing in Kozarac, Bosnia and Herzegovina begins when Serbian militia and police forces enter the town.
• 1993 – Eritrea gains its independence from Ethiopia.
• 1994 – Four men convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 are each sentenced to 240 years in prison.
• 1999 – The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes andcrimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.
• 2000 – Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.
• 2001 – Mountaineering: Temba Tsheri, a 16-year-old Sherpa, 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.
• 2002 – Russia and the United States sign the Moscow Treaty.
• 2014 – A 6.4 magnitude earthquake occurs in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey, injuring 324 people.
• 2014 – At least three people are killed in a shooting at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, Belgium.