Today In History

Today is Tuesday, May 24, the 144th day of 2011. There are 221 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

1612 - Denmark takes the Swedish port of Elfsborg in the Kalmar War, and keeps it for five years while waiting for tribute from Sweden.

1822 - South American rebels commanded by Antonio Jose de Sucre defeat Spanish royalists on the slopes of volcano Cerro Pichincha in Ecuador. The rebels occupy nearby Quito the following day.

1830 - The first passenger railroad in the United States begins service between Baltimore and Elliott's Mills, Maryland.

1844 - Samuel F.B. Morse transmits the message, "What hath God wrought!" from Washington to Baltimore as he formally opens America's first telegraph line.

1881 - Some 200 people die when the Canadian ferry Princess Victoria sinks near London, Ontario.

1890 - Italy reorganizes her Red Sea territories as colony of Eritrea.

1900 - Britain annexes Orange Free State in Africa.

1949 - The Federal Republic of Germany comes into being in the parts of Germany occupied by the Western allies with the proclamation of its constitution.

1958 - United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service.

1962 - London conference of Barbados, Windward and Leeward Islands ends with proposals of "Little Eight" to form new West Indies federation.

1964 - Riot erupts at football match in Lima, Peru, and 300 spectators are killed.

1972 - United States and Soviet Union agree to put U.S. and Soviet spacemen in orbit together by 1975.

1975 - U.S. President Gerald Ford approves two bills providing more than $400 million for resettlement of refugees from South Vietnam and Cambodia.

1976 - Britain and France open trans-Atlantic Concorde service to Washington.

1981 - Ecuador's President Jaime Roldos Aguilera is killed in plane crash in Andes Mountains near Peru border.

1984 - Israel and the United States reject a United Nations proposal for an international peace conference on the Middle East.

1989 - Ethnic Turks demanding more rights clash with security forces in Bulgaria.

1990 - U.S. President George Bush unconditionally renews China's most-favored-nation trade status with the United States for one year.

1991 - Armored personnel carrier rolls over and kills an anti-army demonstrator in Slovenia.

1992 - U.S. President George Bush orders the Coast Guard to intercept Haitian refugees at sea and return them to Haiti; Al Unser Jr. becomes the first second-generation winner of the Indianapolis 500; his father, four-time winner Al Unser, finished third.

1993 - Kurdish rebels kill 33 Turkish soldiers in bus ambush.

1994 - Stampede kills 270 pilgrims at shrine in Mecca, Saudi Arabia; four men convicted of bombing New York's World Trade Center in 1993 are each sentenced to 240 years in prison.

1998 - First multiparty vote in a region ruled by China's Communists is held in Hong Kong. Pro-democracy parties win most of the legislature seats that were up for vote.

1999 - Sonia Gandhi agrees to take back the presidency of India's main opposition Congress Party, ending a leadership crisis.

2000 - The Santiago Court of Appeals strips Gen. Augusto Pinochet of immunity from prosecution, clearing the way for the ailing former dictator's prosecution on human rights violations

2002 - U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin sign a nuclear arms reduction treaty that calls for both nations to slash their nuclear stockpiles by two-thirds over the next decade.

2005 - Making his first trip abroad since a bloody crackdown on protesters, Uzbek President Islam Karimov leaves on a visit to China, which has provided a rare note of support for the authoritarian Central Asian leader.

2006 - Thousands of Hindus rallied in the southern Nepalese town of Birgunja to protest Parliament's move to declare Nepal a secular state when it scaled back the king's powers.

2007 - The U.S. government stops all imports of Chinese toothpaste to test for diethylene glycol, a deadly chemical reportedly found in tubes sold elsewhere in the world.

2008 - Myanmar's ruling junta says it will let foreign aid workers and commercial ships help survivors in the cyclone-ravaged Irrawaddy Delta, but refuses to accept aid from U.S., French and British military ships, which have been waiting off the coast for more than a week.

2009 - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel willl continue to build homes in existing West Bank settlements, defying US calls to halt settlement growth.

2010 - The doctor whose research linking autism and the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella influenced millions of parents to refuse the shot for their children is banned from practicing medicine in his native Britain.

Today's Birthdays:

Jean-Paul Marat, French revolutionary (1743-1793); England's Queen Victoria (1819-1901); Jan Smuts, South African prime minister and general (1870-1950); U Ne Win, military dictator of Burma (1911-2002); Joseph Brodsky, Russian-American poet and Nobel laureate (1940-1996); Bob Dylan, U.S. singer (1941--); Tommy Chong, U.S. comedian (1938--); Patti LaBelle, U.S. singer (1944--); Jim Broadbent, British actor (1949--); Rosanne Cash, country singer (1955--); Kristin Scott Thomas, actress (1960--).

Thought For Today:

Man is what he believes — Anton Chekhov, Russian author-dramatist (1860-1904).