Today in History - May 24
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15CE
May 24, Julius Caesar Germanicus, Roman commandant, was born.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1153 May 24, Malcolm IV became
king of Scotland.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1543 May 24, The city of
Valladolid, Mexico, was founded in the Yucatan peninsula.
(SSFC, 6/29/08,
p.E5)(www.valladolidyucatan.com/history.html)
1543 May 24, Nicolaus
Copernicus, astronomer, died in Poland. His book, "On the
Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs," (De Revolutionibus Orbium
Caelestium), proof of a sun-centered universe, was printed just
before he died. Although he did say that the earth rotated once a
day and did revolve around the sun once a year, he kept 2 features
of the old Aristotelian system: one involved uniform circular
motion, and the other was quintessential matter, for which such
motion was said to be natural. In 1916 the Catholic clergy placed
the book on its “Index of Prohibited Books.” In 2004 Owen Gingerich
authored "The Book Nobody Read," an examination of how the ideas of
Copernicus spread. In 2006 William T. Vollmann authored “Uncentering
the Earth: Copernicus and The Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres.”
In 2008 his remains, buried in a Roman Catholic Cathedral in
Frombork, Poland, were positively identified using DNA evidence. In
2011 Dava Sobel authored ”A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus
Revolutionized the cosmos.”
(WSJ, 3/5/04, p.W8)(NH, 4/1/04, p.66)(SSFC,
2/5/06, p.M1)(AP, 11/20/08)(Econ, 9/24/11, p.106)
1544 May 24, William Gilbert,
English physicist, was born. He coined the terms "electric" and
"magnetic" poles.
(HN, 5/24/99)
1607 May 24, Captain
Christopher Newport and 105 followers founded Jamestown on the mouth
of the James River in Virginia. They had left England with 144
members, 39 died on the way over. The colony was near the large
Indian village of Werowocomoco, home of Pocahontas, the daughter
Powhatan, an Algonquin chief. In 2003 archeologists believed that
they had found the site of Werowocomoco, where Powhatan resided from
1607-1609.
(HN, 5/24/99)(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A2)(Arch, 1/06,
p.27)
1610 May 24, Sir Thomas Gates
instituted "laws divine moral and marshal,” a harsh civil code for
Jamestown.
(HN, 5/24/99)
1624 May 24, James I revoked
Virginia's charter after years of unprofitable operation and it
became a royal colony.
(HN, 5/24/99)(AH, 6/07, p.27)
1650 May 24, John Churchill,
1st duke of Marlborough, English general strategist, was born.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1686 May 24, Gabriel Daniel
Fahrenheit (d.1736), German physicist, was born. He devised a
temperature scale and introduced the use of mercury in thermometers.
He assigned the number 32 for the melting point of ice, 96 to the
temperature of blood and 212 to the steam point. [see May 14]
(WUD, 1994, p.510)(SFEC, 3/22/98, Par. p.8)(HN,
5/24/98)
1689 May 24, English Parliament
passed the Act of Toleration, protecting Protestants. Roman
Catholics were specifically excluded from exemption.
(HN, 5/24/99)
1738 May 24, The Methodist
Church was established.
(HN, 5/24/98)
1743 May 24, Jean-Paul Marat,
French revolutionist, was born. He advocated extreme violence and
was assassinated in his own bath.
(HN, 5/24/99)
1764 May 24, Bostonian lawyer
James Otis denounced "taxation without representation" and called
for the colonies to unite in demonstrating their opposition to
Britain's new tax measures.
(HN, 5/24/99)
1798 May 24, Believing that a
French invasion of Ireland was imminent, Irish nationalists rose up
against the British occupation. It was put down by the Orange
yeomanry who were enlisted by the government to restore peace. The
slogan "Croppies lie down" originated here after some of the rebel
Catholics had their hair cropped in the French revolutionary manner.
(SFEC, 7/12/98, p.A15)(HN, 5/24/99)
1803 May 24, Charles LJL
Bonaparte, Corsican, French prince of Canino, Musignano, was born.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1809 May 24, Dartmoor Prison
opened to house French prisoners of war.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1816 May 24, Emanuel Leutze, US
painter, was born. His work included “Washington Crossing the
Delaware" (1851).
(MC, 5/24/02)
1818 May 24, Gen. Andrew
Jackson captured Pensacola, Florida.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1819 May 24, Victoria
Alexandrine, Queen Victoria (d.1901) was born in London. Her reign
(1836-1901) restored dignity to the British crown. She had nine
children. "Great events make me quiet and calm; it is only trifles
that irritate my nerves."
(AP, 5/24/97)(HN, 5/24/99)(AP, 2/24/99)
1822 May 24, At Battle of
Pichincha (Ecuador) General Sucre (1795-1830) won a decisive victory
against Spanish forces. Shortly after the battle, Sucre and Bolivar
entered the newly-liberated Quito and Sucre was named President of
the Province of Quito, which formed Gran Colombia with Venezuela and
Colombia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Jos%C3%A9_de_Sucre)(HN,
5/24/98)(AP, 11/24/02)
1829 May 24, Andres de Santa
Cruz (1792-1865), the president of Peru, began also serving as
president of Bolivia and continued to 1839.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9s_de_Santa_Cruz)(Econ,
2/20/15, p.29)
1830 May 24, "Mary Had a Little
Lamb," was written. Sarah Josepha Hale of Newport, N.H., published a
collection of poems "Poems for Our Children," that included "Mary
Had a Little Lamb." [see 1815]
(SFC, 8/24/98, p.B6)(MC, 5/24/02)
1830 May 24, The first
passenger railroad in the United States began service between
Baltimore and Elliott's Mills, Md.
(AP, 5/24/97)
1844 May 24, Samuel F.B. Morse,
before a crowd of dignitaries in the chambers of the Supreme Court,
tapped out the message, "What hath God wrought?" to his partner in
Baltimore, Alfred Vail. Congress had appropriated $30,000 for the
experimental line built by Ezra Cornell between Washington and
Baltimore. American portrait artist Samuel F.B. Morse developed the
technology for electrical telegraphy in the 1830s, the first
instantaneous form of communication. Using a key to hold open an
electrical circuit for longer or shorter periods, an operator would
tap out a message in a code composed of dots and dashes. Public
demonstrations of the equipment were made in February 1838, but it
was necessary for Morse to secure financial backing to build the
first telegraph line to carry the signal over distance. In 1843,
Congress appropriated the funds for a 37-mile line between Baltimore
and Washington, D.C. After underground telegraph wires proved
unsuccessful, Morse switched to pole wires.
(AP, 5/24/97)(HN, 5/24/98)(HNPD, 2/6/99)(HNQ,
5/27/00)
1846 May 24, General Zachary
Taylor captured Monterey in the Mexican War.
(HN, 5/24/98)
1854 May 24, Anthony Burns
(1834-1862), an escaped slave from Virginia, was arrested in
Massachusetts under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and returned to
bondage. He was eventually ransomed from slavery, with his freedom
purchased by Boston sympathizers.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Burns)(SSFC, 3/5/17, p.E6)
1854 May 24, Louis Mountbatten
(d.1921), British admiral (WW I), was born in Graz, Austria.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Louis_of_Battenberg)
1856 May 24, The Potawatomi
Massacre took place in Kansas. John Brown, American abolitionist and
horse thief, presided over the hacking to death with machetes of
five unarmed pro-slavery Border Ruffians in Potawatomi, Kansas.
(WSJ, 4/10/95, A-16)(WSJ, 3/16/98, p.A20)(MC,
5/24/02)
1861 May 24, General Benjamin
Butler, Union commander of Fort Monroe, Va., declared slaves to be
the contraband of war in order to avoid returning them to their
owners under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.
(ON, 2/12,
p.1)(www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Butler_Benjamin_F_1818-1893)
1861 May 24, Shortly after
Union troops quietly occupied Alexandria, Va., 24-year-old Colonel
Elmer E. Ellsworth and a handful of friends from the 11th New York
Regiment impulsively entered the Marshall Hotel to forcibly remove a
Confederate flag from the roof. Hotel proprietor James W. Jackson
shot and mortally wounded Ellsworth as he descended the stairs, flag
in hand. Jackson himself was then shot by a Union soldier. Only
weeks after the outbreak of the Civil War, both the North and the
South had received the first martyrs to their respective causes.
(HN, 5/24/99)
1862 May 24, Westminster Bridge
opened across the Thames.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1863 May 24, Bushwackers led by
Captain William Marchbanks attacked a Federal militia party in
Nevada, Missouri.
(HN, 5/24/99)
1866 May 24, Founders of UC
Berkeley named their town after Bishop George Berkeley due to a line
Berkeley’s poem: On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in
America: "Westward the course of empire takes its way."
(SFC, 3/28/03, p.A3)
1869 May 24, John Wesley Powell
departed Green River City, Wyoming, with 9 men on an expedition to
explore the canyons of the Green and Colorado River. Over 3 years he
led two expeditions to explore the Grand Canyon. Three members of
the first expedition were killed, reportedly by Indians. His written
account was suspected to be inflated if not fictitious. A 1997 novel
by Oakley Hall, "Separations," depicted the events.
(HFA, ‘96, p.127)(SFC, 4/23/97, p.D5)(ON, 5/02,
p.1)
1873 May 24, Leo Delibes' opera
"Le Roi l'a Dit," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1878 May 24, Lillian Moller
Gilbreth, pioneer in time-motion studies, was born.
(HN, 5/24/01)
1878 May 24, The first American
bicycle race was held in Boston.
(HN, 5/24/98)
1879 May 24, William Lloyd
Garrison (73), abolitionist (Liberator), died.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1881 May 24, Some 200 people
died when the Canadian ferry Princess Victoria sank near London,
Ontario. [see Apr 11]
(AP, 5/24/97)
1881 May 24, Samuel Palmer
(b.1805), English painter and printmaker, died. He was a leading
light in a brotherhood of painters called the “Ancients,” for their
preference of archaic Gothic architecture. In 2011 Rachel
Campbell-Johnston authored “Mysterious Wisdom: the Life and Work of
Samuel Palmer.”
(Econ, 6/25/11,
p.98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Palmer)
1883 May 24, The Brooklyn
Bridge, hailed as the "eighth wonder of the world," was dedicated by
President Chester Arthur and New York Gov. Grover Cleveland, and
officially opened to traffic. The suspension bridge linking the
boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn became a symbol of America's
progress and ingenuity. The bridge has a span of 1,595 feet with
16-inch steel wire suspension cables fastened to Gothic-style arches
276 feet tall. Civil engineer John Augustus Roebling, inventor of
the steel wire cable and designer of the bridge, was killed in a
construction accident at the outset of construction in 1869. His son
and partner, Washington A. Roebling, supervised the project to its
completion in spite of a debilitating illness. 20 men died during
construction and many suffered from caisson disease, later known as
the bends, while working in pressurized air chambers under the
river. In 2017 Erica Wagner authored “chief Engineer: Washington
Roebling, the Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge.”
(HNPD, 5/23/99)(ON, 4/01, p.9)(AP, 5/24/08)(Econ
7/1/17, p.75)
1889 May 24, George Henry
Calvert (b.1803), American author and great grandson of Lord
Baltimore, died. His writing covered historical subjects. In 1854
Calvert was sworn in as mayor of Newport, Rhode Island.
(www.lib.umd.edu/RARE/MarylandCollection/Riversdale/timeline.html)
1895 May 24, Samuel I.
Newhouse, US millionaire publisher (Parade, Vogue, Glamour), was
born.
(HN, 5/24/98)(MC, 5/24/02)
1899 May 24, The 1st US auto
repair shop opened in Boston.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1903 May 24, Arthur Vineberg,
Canadian heart surgeon, was born.
(HN, 5/24/01)
1905 May 24, Mikhail Sholokhov,
Russian novelist (And Quiet Flows the Don), was born. He won a Nobel
Prize in 1965.
(HN, 5/24/01)(MC, 5/24/02)
1915 May 24, Thomas Edison
invented the telescribe to record telephone conversations.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1916 May 24, US pilot William
Thaw shot down a German Fokker.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1918 May 24, Coleman A. Young,
civil rights leader (Mayor-D-Detroit), was born.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1926 May 24, Paavo Nurmi ran
world record 3000 meters in 8:25.4.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1926 May 24, José Ignacio Paua
(b.1872) died in Manila. He was a Chinese-Filipino general who
joined the Katipunan, a secret society that spearheaded the 1896
Philippine Revolution against the Spanish Empire. He later served in
the Philippine Revolutionary Army under General Emilio Aguinaldo,
the first Philippine president.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ignacio_Paua)
1927 May 24, The final levee
breach of the 1927 flood occurred at McCrea, Louisiana, on the east
bank of the Atchafalaya levee. The flood along the Mississippi
killed some 500 people and displaced thousands. The levee system
broke in 145 places and caused 27,000 square miles of flooding in
Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.
In 1997 the book "Rising Tide" by John M. Barry described the
catastrophe. It was also the subject of the Randy Newman song
"Louisiana 1927."
(www.rms.com/publications/1927_MississippiFlood.pdf)(WSJ, 2/6/97,
p.A12)(SFC, 11/28/03, p.C7)(SSFC, 9/4/05, p.A7)(WSJ, 11/2/05,
p.A2)(Econ, 5/21/11, p.30)
1928 May 24, William Trevor,
Irish short story writer and novelist (The Old Boys, The Boarding
House), was born.
(HN, 5/24/01)
1928 May 24, The dirigible
Italia crashed while attempting to reach Spitzbergen. Nine men
survived the initial crash. In 2000 Wilbur Cross authored "Disaster
at the Pole," a revised edition of the 1960 version of the disaster
led by Italian aviator Umberto Nobile. The Russian film "Krasnaya
palatka" (1969), starring Sean Connery, detailed the Nobile
expedition and attempted rescue. This movie was released in North
America under the title "The Red Tent."
(ON, 10/00, p.6)(SSFC, 1/7/01, Par
p.14)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0067315/)
1930 May 24, Amy Johnson became
the first woman to fly from England to Australia.
(HN, 5/24/98)
1933 May 24, Dmitri
Shostakovitch's Preludes premiered in Moscow.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1935 May 24, The first
major-league baseball game played at night took place at
Cincinnati's Crosley Field as the Reds beat the Philadelphia
Phillies, 2-1.
(AP, 5/24/97)
1940 May 24, Joseph Brodsky,
author (Less than 1, Nobel 1987), was born in the USSR.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1940 May 24, Hitler ordered a
halt to his forces converging on Dunkirk and the British, who were
backed to the sea. This event and the next 4 days were described in
the 1999 book: "Five Days in London, May 1940" by John Lukacs.
(WSJ, 11/8/99, p.A48)
1940 May 24, Hitler affirmed
Gen. von Rundstedt's "Stopbevel."
(MC, 5/24/02)
1940 May 24, German tanks
reached Atrecht, France.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1941 May 24, Bob Dylan (Robert
Allen Zimmerman), singer and songwriter, was born in Minnesota. He
is famous for his songs "Hard Rain's Gonna Fall," and "Blowin' in
the Wind."
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.E3)(HN, 5/24/99)
1941 May 24, The German
battleship Bismarck sank the British dreadnought HMS Hood in the
North Atlantic. 1416 died with only three survivors.
(AP, 5/24/97)(HN, 5/24/99)(ON, 10/09, p.2)
1944 May 24, Icelandic voters
severed all ties with Denmark.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1948 May 24, Ariel Sharon, then
called Arik Scheinerman, was wounded at the battle of Latrun while
securing Jerusalem for Jews in the 1st Arab-Israeli War.
(WSJ, 10/13/00, p.A15)(Econ, 12/16/06,
p.85)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrun)
1951 May 24, Willie Mays began
playing for the New York Giants.
(HN, 5/24/98)
1951 May 24, Racial segregation
in Washington D.C. restaurants was ruled illegal.
(HN, 5/24/98)
1957 May 24, Anti-American
rioting broke out in Taipei, Taiwan.
(AP, 5/24/07)
1958 May 24, United Press
International (UPI) was formed through a merger of the United Press
and the International News Service.
(AP, 5/24/97)
1958 May 24, Pres Batista
opened an offensive against Fidel Castro's rebellion.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1961 May 24, The 27 Freedom
Riders, civil rights activists, were arrested in Jackson,
Mississippi.
(HN, 5/24/98)(MC, 5/24/02)
1962 May 24, Astronaut Scott
Carpenter became the second American to orbit the Earth as he flew
aboard Aurora 7.
(AP, 5/24/97)
1965 May 24, Supreme Court
declared a federal law allowing the post office to intercept
communist propaganda as unconstitutional.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1966 May 24, The Broadway
musical "Mame" opened with Angel Lansbury and Bea Arthur at Winter
Garden Theater in NYC for 1508 performances. It was directed by Gene
Saks and was based on the novel "Auntie Mame" by Patrick Dennis.
(SFEC, 12/8/96, Par p.18)(SSFC, 12/24/00, Par
p.10)(SSFC, 4/26/09, p.B6)
1968 May 24, In Britain Mick
Jagger and the Rolling Stones released their song "Jumping Jack
Flash." The US release was on June 1.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumpin%27_Jack_Flash)
1968 May 24, France’s Pres.
Charles de Gaulle issued an ultimatum to striking students and
workers who have brought the country to a standstill during 3 weeks
of violent demonstrations.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/24/newsid_2988000/2988263.stm)
1974 May 24, Duke Ellington
(b.1899) died of cancer in NYC. A major influence in jazz,
especially the big band sound, Ellington orchestrated over 1,000
pieces of music during his prolific career. Although some tunes most
associated with Duke Ellington and ‘His Famous Orchestra‘ were
written by others (Billy Strayhorn wrote "Take the A Train"),
Ellington capitalized on his outstanding ensemble by writing pieces
emphasizing the talents of individual performers such as Johnny
Hodges and Jimmy Blanton. In addition to big band pieces, he also
wrote for film, ballet and opera. In 1991 Mark Tucker (d.2000)
authored "Ellington: The Early Years." In 1993 Tucker edited "The
Duke Ellington Reader." In 2013 Terry Teachout authored “Duke: A
Life of Duke Ellington.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Ellington)(SFEC, 2/21/99, DB
p.32)(SSFC, 12/10/00, p.C17)(SSFC, 11/3/13, p.F2)
1976 May 24, The SF Chronicle
published the 1st installment of "Tales of the City" by Armistead
Maupin (b.1944). The series continued in the Chronicle until 1983
and was serialized in the Examiner in 1986.
(SFC, 5/1/01, p.A1)(SSFC, 5/8/11, p.A13)
1976 May 24, Britain and France
opened trans-Atlantic Concorde service to Washington. This was the
1st commercial supersonic transport (SST).
(AP, 5/24/97)
1976 May 24, In France 2
California wines won a tasting event over several French classics
for the 1st time. Stephen Spurrier, English owner of a wine shop and
wine school in Paris, held a competition tasting of French and
American wines. The best white wine was a 1973 Napa Valley
Chardonnay from Chateau Montelena, owned by Jim Barrett (1926-2013).
The best red wine was a 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon from Stag’s Leap
Wine Cellars. Winemaker Miljenko Grgich created the Napa Chardonnay
that beat French wines in the legendary Paris Tasting. In 2005
George M. Taber authored “Judgement of Paris,” an account of the
1976 tasting.
(SFC, 5/29/96, ZZ1 p.4)(SSFC, 1/21/01, p.T8)(WSJ,
5/24/01, p.A20)(SFC, 6/16/05, p.F4)(SSFC, 2/17/13, p.C2)
1977 May 24, In a surprise
move, the Kremlin ousted Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny from the
Communist Party's ruling Politburo.
(AP, 5/24/97)
1980 May 24, Iran rejected a
call by the World Court in The Hague to release the American
hostages.
(AP, 5/24/97)
1982 May 24- 1982 May 25,
Iranian troops reconquered Khorramshahr.
(www.iran-daily.com/1384/2279/html/art.htm)
1983 May 24, The US Supreme
Court ruled, in Bob Jones University v. United States, that the
government can deny tax breaks to schools that racially discriminate
against students. This upheld a 1970 ruling.
(http://supreme.justia.com/us/461/574/)
1983 May 24, Fred Sinowatz
(1929-2008) became Austrian Chancellor and continued for 3 years.
(AP,
8/12/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Sinowatz)
1986 May 24, The Union Jack was
flown in Israel for the first time in 38 years as Margaret Thatcher
became the first British prime minister to visit the Jewish state.
(AP, 5/24/06)
1987 May 24, An estimated
quarter-million people crowded onto San Francisco's Golden Gate
Bridge to celebrate the structure's 50th birthday a few days before
the actual anniversary.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A21)(AP, 5/24/97)
1988 May 24, President Reagan
vetoed legislation that would have strengthened the nation's ability
to defend itself and its industries against trading practices of
other nations that were deemed unfair.
(AP, 5/24/98)
1988 May 24, Vice President
George Bush and Michael Dukakis won the Idaho presidential
primaries.
(AP, 5/24/98)
1989 May 24, The US film
"Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" premiered nationwide.
(http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1800080788/info)
1989 May 24, China's top army
command published a letter strongly supporting hard-line Premier Li
Peng, who was reportedly locked in a power struggle with rival
factions who opposed his strong stance against student protesters.
(AP, 5/24/99)
1989 May 24, French war
criminal Paul Touvier was arrested in a monastery in Nice.
(www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/touvier-obit.html)
1990 May 24, Darryl Cherney and
Judi Bari (11/7/49-3/2/97), environmental activists in the Earth
First! movement, were injured after a pipe bomb exploded in their
car as they drove through Oakland, Ca. They were arrested while in
the hospital on charges of transporting a bomb but the charges were
never filed. They later filed a suit against the FBI and Oakland
police for false arrest, illegal search and seizure and conspiracy
to violate free-speech rights. Bari died of liver cancer in 1997. In
2002 a jury awarded $2.9 million to Bari’s estate and $1.5 million
to Cherney saying the FBI had framed them as eco-terrorists. In 2004
the government settled civil suits for $2 million. In 2004 Kate
Coleman authored “The Secret Wars of Judi Bari.”
(SFC,10/21/97, p.A20)(SFC, 6/12/02, p.A1)(SFC,
4/23/04, p.B1)(SFC, 1/18/05, p.D1)
1990 May 24, The Edmonton
Oilers won their fifth Stanley Cup as they defeated the Boston
Bruins, four games to one.
(AP, 5/24/00)
1991 May 24, Eritrean rebels
liberated Asmara from Ethiopian rule. Days later Ethiopian rebels
from Tigray took Addis Ababa with the help of Eritrean counterparts
and ended the 17-year rule of Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile
Mariam.
(SFC, 6/24/99, p.A10)
1991 May 24, Israel began
airlifting 15,000 Ethiopian Jews to safety as Ethiopian rebels
continued to advance on Addis Ababa.
(AP, 5/24/01)
1991 May 24, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to deplore Israel’s deportation of four
Palestinians from the occupied territories.
(AP, 5/24/01)
1991 May 24, The remains of
former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, assassinated by a suicide
bomber, were cremated.
(AP, 5/24/01)
1992 May 24, Al Unser Jr.
became the first second-generation winner of the Indianapolis 500;
his father, four-time winner Al Unser, finished third.
(AP, 5/24/97)
1992 May 24, Kosovo Albanians
held unofficial elections for an assembly and president. Ibrahim
Rugova won an overwhelming majority and was elected President of
Kosovo.
(www.hrw.org/reports/1992/yugoslavia/)
1992 May 24-Aug 30, In Bosnia
Serbian forces confined over 3,000 Bosnian Muslims and Croats in
inhuman conditions at the Keraterm prison camp. Damir Dosen served
as a shift commander at the Keraterm prison camp in northwestern
Bosnia. Detainees were killed, sexually assaulted and beaten. In
1999 Dragan Kulundzija, a former shift commander at Keraterm, was
arrested on charges of killing and torturing prisoners. In 1999
Dosen, a Bosnian Serb, was arrested for war crimes and flown to the
Hague for trial.
(SFC, 6/8/99, p.A12)(WSJ, 10/26/99, p.A1)(SFC,
11/9/99, p.A14)
1992 May 24, Thailand protests,
supported by numerous political movements, climaxed with the
resignation of PM Suchinda. Deputy PM Meechai Ruchuphan took office
for a transitional period until the new government was assigned. He
was succeeded by Anand Panyarachun.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suchinda_Kraprayoon)
1993 May 24, "Farewell My
Concubine" and "The Piano" jointly won the Golden Palm award at the
Cannes Film Festival.
(AP, 5/24/98)
1993 May 24, The US Senate
confirmed Roberta Achtenberg, an acknowledged lesbian, to be a top
federal housing official.
(AP, 5/24/98)
1993 May 24, Microsoft launched
Windows NT.
(Wired, 12/98, p.198)
1993 May 24, Eritrea achieved
independence from Ethiopia after a 30-year civil war. Some 65,000
Eritreans lost their lives in the fight for independence. Pres.
Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia allowed Eritrea to secede as a reward for
the support of its rebel forces in 1991.
(WSJ, 3/4/97, p.A14)(SFC, 6/11/97, p.C16)(MC,
5/24/02)
1993 May 24, Juan Jesus Posada
Ocampo (66), Roman Catholic Cardinal, and six other people were
killed at the Guadalajara, Mexico, airport in what was described as
a shootout involving drug gangs. Gunmen of the four Arellano Felix
Brothers murdered Ocampo apparently mistaking him for a rival drug
lord. Drug cartel leader Hector Luis Palma was charged and sentenced
in connection to the killing on Jan 3, 1997. In 1998 members of a
San Diego street gang were indicted as hired hit men in the slayings
that left 7 dead. In 2005 a court sentenced Humberto Rodriguez
Banuelos, a former police commander, to 40 years in prison for his
role in the murders. In all, 12 gunmen, including Rodriguez, were
convicted and sentenced in the attack on the cardinal. In 2008
Araujo Avila, an alleged drug cartel hit man, was arrested in
Tijuana in relation to Ocampo’s murder.
(WSJ, 10/7/96, p.A16)(SFC, 1/9/96, p.A12)(SFC,
2/11/98, p.A3)(AP, 5/24/98)(AP, 12/9/05)(AP, 1/27/08)
1993 May 24, Separatist Kurdish
rebels fatally shot 33 Turkish soldiers and two civilians after
forcing them and about two dozen other persons off a bus in the
southeastern province of Bingol. This ended a unilateral cease-fire
and led the military to intensify a campaign to annihilate the PKK.
Testimony in 1999 by Abdullah Ocalan said a regional PKK commander
carried out the slaying.
(www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-948140.html)(SFC,
6/2/99, p.C2)
1994 May 24, Four men convicted
of bombing New York's World Trade Center were each sentenced to 240
years in prison.
(AP, 5/24/99)
1994 May 24, The United States
and Japan agreed to revive efforts to pry open Japanese markets to
U.S. goods.
(AP, 5/24/99)
1995 May 24, "Hollywood Madam"
Heidi Fleiss was sentenced to three years in prison and fined $1,500
for running a call-girl ring that catered to the rich and famous.
1995 May 24, Gen. Janvier told
the UN Security Council that the Bosnian government forces were
sufficient to defend Srebrenica, that UN troops should be withdrawn
and that NATO air power was not needed.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.A12)
1995 May 24, Harold Wilson
(79), former British Prime Minister (1964-70, 74-76), died in
London.
(AP, 5/24/00)(MC, 5/24/02)
1996 May 24, President Clinton
underwent his annual physical at Bethesda Naval Medical Center,
where he had a precancerous lesion removed from his nose. On the
plus side, his weight was the same as the year before -- 216 -- and
his cholesterol count had improved from 203 to 191.
(AP, 5/24/97)
1996 May 24, The Pleasant Hill
Baptist Church in Lumberton, N.C., burned down. Arson was suspected
and investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 May 24, International
Paper was removed as a component of the Dow Jones.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R46)
1996 May 24, A fire destroyed a
$5 mil. cooling tower at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in
Athens, Ala. At least three fires have occurred here since 1975. The
towers are used on hot days to cool water returned to the Tennessee
River.
(SFC, 5/234/96, p.A4)
1996 May 24, Alexandras
Lileikis (89) was stripped of his US citizenship for his role in
turning over Jews to the Germans in Lithuania from 1941-1944. In his
1949 application for citizenship he said that he only performed
administrative duties. 15 more cases are pending in federal courts
and 300 other cases are under investigation.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A2)
1996 May 24, Joseph Mitchell
(b.1908), NYC journalist, died. He is known for his carefully
written portraits of eccentrics and people on the fringes of
society, especially in and around NYC. In 2015 Thomas Kunkel
authored “Man in Profile” Joseph Mitchell of the New Yorker.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mitchell_%28writer%29)(SSFC,
5/10/15, p.N5)
1996 May 24, Roger Truitt,
president of Atlantic Richfield Co. was pictured in negotiations
with Burmese General Khin Nyunt, head of the secret police.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A12)
1996 May 24, Chechen leader
Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev and Russian Pres. Boris Yeltsin have agreed to
hold peace talks.
(SFC, 5/234/96, p.A14)
1996 May 24, In Paris a meeting
of 21 donor countries agreed to a $49 bil emergency bailout fund to
deal with future Mexican economic crises.
(SFC, 5/24/96, p.A14)
1996 May 24, In Turkey Prime
Minister Tansu Ciller said that her True path Party is pulling out
of the ruling coalition. This will give the pro-Islamic Welfare
Party another shot at power.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A11)
1996 May 24, Sheik Hamed Bitawi
said that Hammas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin might issue a call to end
terrorist attacks against Israel. The leadership of Hammas would
like to move to a position as a democratic alternative to Arafat’s
PLO.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A12)
1997 May 24, The space shuttle
Atlantis returned to Earth, bringing with it NASA astronaut Jerry
Linenger, who had spent four months aboard the Russian Mir space
station.
(AP, 5/24/98)
1997 May 24, Edward Mulhare
(74), Irish-born actor (Ghost & Mrs. Muir), died of lung cancer.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0611811/)
1997 May 24, In Afghanistan
forces of the Taliban swept into Mazar-E-Sharif, the last opposition
stronghold.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.A10)
1997 May 24, In the Ukraine the
first McDonald’s restaurant opened.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.A10)
1998 May 24, At the 51st Cannes
Film Festival the Golden Palm award went to the Greek film "Mia
Eoniotita Ke Mia Mera (Eternity and a Day), directed by Theo
Angelopoulos. The Grand Prize went to the Italian film "La Vita e
Bella" (Life Is Beautiful) by director Roberto Benigni. It starred
Benigni, Giorgio Cantarini and Nicoletta Braschi.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.E5)(SFEC, 10/25/98, DB p.46)
1998 May 24, In Danville, Ill,
an explosion occurred at the First Assembly of God Church and
injured 33 members, mostly teenagers. The cause was not yet
immediately known. The cause was determined the next day to have
been a bomb.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A1)(SFC, 5/26/98, p.A1)
1998 May 24, A Hall of Fame for
American classical music was scheduled to open in Cincinnati.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, Par p.18)
1998 May 24, In Egypt Saber and
Mahmoud Abu el-Ulla, a former inmate of a mental hospital and his
brother, were hanged for the Sep 18, 1997, killings of 10 people in
Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A12)
1998 May 24, In Hong Kong
voters turned out in record numbers for elections of a Legislative
Council. They returned to office pro-democracy politicians ousted by
Beijing. Democrats won 13 of 60 seats in the legislature.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/26/98, p.A1)
1998 May 24, The Young
Democrats-Civic Party (Fidesz) led by Viktor Orban (34) won the
elections and opened the way for a center-right coalition to rule.
Fidesz won only 148 seats of the 386-member Parliament and planned
to form a coalition with The Hungarian Democratic Forum (17 seats)
and the Smallholders (48 seats). Orban was elected prime minister
and served to 2002.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A10)(SFC, 5/27/98, p.A12)(WSJ,
8/2100, p.B13F)(Econ, 4/10/10, p.54)
1998 May 24, In Indonesia State
Sec. Akbar Tanjung said that parliamentary elections would be held
as soon as possible, perhaps within 6 months to a year.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A10)
1998 May 24, In Russia striking
miners lifted blockades along the trans-Siberian railway after
officials promised to pay back wages and help workers find new jobs.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A12)
1999 May 24, The US Supreme
Court ruled 5-4 that schools can be held liable for students
sexually harassing other students. The court also ruled that police
violate the 4th Amendment right to privacy when they allow the media
into people's homes to document arrests and raids.
(SFC, 5/25/99, p.A1,3)(AP, 5/24/00)
1999 May 24, Mike Tyson walked
out of a Rockville, Md., jail after serving 3 1/2 months behind bars
for assaulting two motorists over a fender-bender.
(AP, 5/24/00)
1999 May 24, Enron Corp.
scheduled thousands of megawatts through the tiny Silver peak
transmission line in Southern California and drove up energy prices
71%.
(SSFC, 11/17/02, p.A1)
1999 May 24, Ethiopia said
Eritrea had launched attacks at the western Badme front over the
weekend, but was thwarted by a counterattack that killed 400
Eritrean soldiers.
(SFC, 5/26/99, p.A12)
1999 May 24, In India Sonia
Gandhi decided to withdraw her resignation as president of the
Congress Party.
(SFC, 5/25/99, p.A6)
1999 May 24, Japan's upper
house voted to expand the country's military alliance with the US.
(SFC, 5/25/99, p.A8)
1999 May 24, The Ukraine
reported that it had lost $220 million in trade since the NATO war
against Yugoslavia began. 90% of the Ukraine population was against
the NATO bombing.
(SFC, 5/25/99, p.A8)
1999 May 24, In the Ukraine a
methane gas explosion in a mine killed 39 and injured 48 in the
Donetsk region.
(WSJ, 5/26/99, p.A1)
1999 May 24, In Yugoslavia 2
opposition parties urged Pres. Milosevic to strike a deal over
Kosovo. Russian diplomat Chernomyrdin said the bombing had caused
$100 billion in damage.
(SFC, 5/25/99, p.A1)
2000 May 24, Isiah Thomas, Bob
McAdoo and Tennessee women’s coach Pat Summitt were elected to the
Basketball Hall of Fame.
(AP, 5/24/01)
2000 May 24, The US House voted
237 to 197 to grant China permanent normal trade status.
(SFC, 5/25/00, p.A1)
2000 May 24, New US $5 and $10
bills were scheduled to be shipped to banks. The engravings of
Lincoln and Hamilton would be larger and off center.
(WSJ, 4/27/00, p.A1)
2000 May 24, The state of
Maryland dismissed its wiretapping case against Linda Tripp after
judge disallowed most of Monica Lewinsky’s testimony.
(AP, 5/24/01)
2000 May 24, Two gunmen killed
5 workers in a Wendy’s restaurant in the Queens borough of NYC. John
Taylor (36) and Craig Godineaux (31) were arrested 2 days later.
Taylor was sentenced to death in 2002.
(SFC, 5/26/00, p.A2)(SFC, 5/27/00, p.A2)(WSJ,
11/27/02, p.A1)
2000 May 24, In Chile an
appeals court ruled that Gen. Pinochet cannot claim immunity from
prosecution.
(SFC, 5/25/00, p.A12)
2000 May 24, Eritrea decided to
withdraw from land it seized in 1998 following a 12-day offensive by
Ethiopia.
(SFC, 5/25/00, p.A12)
2000 May 24, Israeli troops
pulled out unilaterally from south Lebanon, ending 18 years of
occupation.
(AP, 5/24/01)
2000 May 24, In Sierra Leone 2
journalists and 4 soldiers were killed by rebel soldiers some 60
miles northeast of Freetown. Kurt Schork (53) of Reuters was one the
journalists killed.
(SFC, 5/25/00, p.C16)(SFEC, 5/28/00, p.C14)
2001 May 24, US Sec. of State
Colin Powell traveled to South Africa as part of his 4-nation
African tour to promote the fight against AIDS.
(WSJ, 5/25/01, p.A11)
2001 May 24, Senator James
Jeffords of Vermont (67) announced that he would quit the Republican
Party and declare himself an independent. This gave the Democrats
control of the U.S. Senate for the first time since 1994 The switch
would become official upon the completion of the tax-cut bill.
(SFC, 5/24/01, p.A1)(SFC, 5/25/01, p.A1)(AP,
5/24/02)
2001 May 24, It was reported
that St. Jude Medical had designed a new aortic connector to make
operations easier in bypass surgery.
(WSJ, 5/24/01, p.A1)
2001 May 24, In Angola De Beers
suspended investment and prospecting for diamonds due to lack of
clarity over its legal rights. Rebel groups controlled many of the
diamond mines.
(SFC, 5/25/01, p.D6)
2001 May 24, The Israeli Air
Force shot down a small plane off the coast and killed a Lebanese
student pilot (43). Israel sent tanks into the Gaza Strip and 2
people were killed.
(SFC, 5/25/01, p.A14)(WSJ, 5/25/01, p.A1)
2001 May 24, In Jerusalem a
Jewish wedding hall collapsed and 23 people were killed in a
horrifying scene captured on videotape.
(SFC, 5/25/01, p.A14)(AP, 5/24/02)
2001 May 24, In Macedonia
Albanians said that government fire killed 7 civilians.
(WSJ, 5/25/01, p.A1)
2001 May 24, In Nepal Erik
Weihenmayer (32) of Golden, Colorado, became the 1st blind person to
reach the top of Mt. Everest. Sherman Bull of New Canaan, Conn.,
became the oldest person to reach the peak. 94 climbers reached the
summit over 4 days.
(SFC, 5/26/01, p.A1)(SSFC, 5/27/01, p.A14)
2001 May 24, Pakistan’s foreign
minister, Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi, accused India of state terrorism
in Kashmir and said his nation would accept an invitation from India
for talks.
(SFC, 5/25/01, p.A16)
2001 May 24, In the Philippines
Muslim rebels kidnapped 40 people traveling from Basilan to Babuan
Island.
(SFC, 5/26/01, p.A10)
2001 May 24, In Spain Santiago
Oleaga Elejabarrieta (54), financial director of the El Diario Vasco
daily newspaper, was shot and killed. The ETA was blamed.
(SFC, 5/25/01, p.D6)
2001 May 24, In Sudan the
government planned to halt air strikes against rebels in the south
May 25 in an effort to reach a cease-fire.
(SFC, 5/25/01, p.D6)
2002 May 24, Presidents Bush
and Putin signed the Treaty of Moscow, an agreement to reduce
nuclear stockpiles by two-thirds over the next 10 years.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A1)
2002 May 24, US Olympic
Committee president Sandra Baldwin resigned, a day after she
admitted lying about her academic credentials.
(AP, 5/24/03)
2002 May 24, Pope John Paul
accepted the resignation of Rembert Weakland (75), archbishop of
Milwaukee. Weakland admitted to a $450,000 settlement in 1998 to
Paul Marcoux (53) for an alleged sexual assault in 1979.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A3)
2002 May 24, In Afghanistan
coalition forces captured 50 people from a compound that was said to
be a refuge for senior Taliban and al Qaeda leaders.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A12)
2002 May 24, In Brazil a
shootout between drug gangs in a Rio slum left 6 people dead.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A13)
2002 May 24, An Israeli guard
foiled an attempt to blow up the packed Studio 49 nightclub in Tel
Aviv.
(SFC, 5/24/02, p.A18)
2002 May 24, Japan led a
successful move to deny Alaska and Siberian native peoples a renewal
of permission to hunt whales after a failed bid to end a 20-year
moratorium on commercial whaling.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A17)
2002 May 24, In Mexico Pres.
Fox announced that all of Mexico's waters are a preserve for whales
and off-limits to whale hunting.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A13)
2002 May 24, In Somalia
hundreds of gunmen, loyal to Mohamed Dhereh and opposed to the
transitional government, attacked the home of Interior Minister
Dahir Dayah and killed at least 8 people.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A13)
2003 May 24, The $16 million
Nevada Museum of Art opened in Reno.
(SFC, 5/27/03, p.D2)
2003 May 24, In Las Vegas Chris
Moneymaker (27), an accountant, walked away with $2.5 million and
the title of champion in the 34th annual World Series of Poker.
(AP, 5/25/03)
2003 May 24, Furious crowds
hurled debris and insults at Algeria's president Abdelaziz
Bouteflika when he visited a town devastated by a deadly earthquake.
(AP, 5/24/04)
2003 May 24, Ontario health
officials said they were monitoring 33 people for the deadly SARS
virus with another 500 in quarantine and warned that the number of
suspected cases could grow in coming days.
(Reuters, 5/24/03)
2003 May 24, British actress
Rachel Kempson, matriarch of the Redgrave acting dynasty, died in
Millbrook, N.Y., four days short of her 93rd birthday.
(AP, 5/24/04)
2003 May 24, In China Chen
Yongfeng (20), was arrested in Wenzhou on charges of killing and
dismembering 10 people, who had made their living picking through
garbage.
(AP, 5/30/03)
2003 May 24, In Colombia Capt.
Leonardo Moore disappeared while driving from Bogota to the southern
city of Cali. He was freed in 2007 following a skirmish with ELN
rebels.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2003 May 24, In Iran some 130
reformist lawmakers called on Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
to accept democratic reforms for the ruling establishment to
survive.
(AP, 5/24/03)
2003 May 24, Coalition forces
captured two more wanted Iraqis: Sayf al-Din al-Mashadani, No. 46 on
the list and Sad Abd al-Majid al-Faysal, No. 55. The US-led
coalition ordered Iraqis to give up their weapons by mid-June.
(AP, 5/27/03)(AP, 5/24/04)
2003 May 24, Israeli troops
shot and killed a Palestinian man near Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza.
(AP, 5/24/03)
2003 May 24, The 48th edition
of the annual Eurovision Song Contest and took place in Riga,
Latvia. Turkey's pop divas Sertab Erener, came first in the contest
and the 2004 edition was then held in Istanbul.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision_Song_Contest_2003)(AFP,
8/4/18)
2003 May 24, Malaysia PM
Mahathir Mohamad met with Brunei's 29th Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah
Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah to address the issue of the Kikeh oil find off
Borneo.
(WSJ, 6/27/03, p.A11)(SSFC, 6/28/03, p.C6)
2003 May 24, In Peru 19 Latin
American leaders ended the 17th summit of the Group of Rio nations
by promising to curb corruption and poverty, which they said
undermine democratic rule in the region as does terrorism.
(AP, 5/25/03)
2004 May 24, Pres. Bush offered
a 5 step plan in Iraq: 1) hand over authority to a sovereign Iraqi
government; 2) Help establish security; 3) Continue rebuilding the
infrastructure; 4) Encourage more int’l. support; 5) Move toward a
national election.
(SFC, 5/25/04, p.A1)
2004 May 24, In a rare public
apology, the FBI admitted mistakenly linking an American lawyer's
fingerprint to one found near the scene of a terrorist bombing in
Spain.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2004 May 24, NY Attorney
General Eliot Spitzer sued the NY Stock Exchange, former exchange
chairman Dick Grasso and an executive who headed its compensation
committee. Spitzer wanted Grasso to return $100 million of the $200
million plus that the NY Exchange gave or promised to Grasso.
(WSJ, 5/25/04, p.A1)
2004 May 24, It was reported
that Alcoa planned to build a $1 billion aluminum smelter on the
island of Trinidad and another in Iceland.
(WSJ, 5/24/04, p.A1)
2004 May 24, Brooke Wilberger
(19) vanished from an apartment in Corvallis, Ore. In 2009 Joel
Courtney (43) pleaded guilty to her murder and revealed the location
of her remains. He was sentenced to life in prison.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooke_Wilberger)(SFC, 9/22/09, p.A5)
2004 May 24, A fire in London
hit an art storage warehouse and is believed to have destroyed works
by some 100 contemporary Young British artists (YBAs) worth millions
of dollars, including part of a collection owned by former
advertising guru Charles Saatchi.
(AP, 5/26/04)(Econ, 5/29/04, p.58)
2004 May 24, Heavy rains left
as many as 2000 people dead across the island of Hispaniola. Health
officials feared up to 1,000 people could be dead in the Haitian
town of Mopau. Floods wiped out villages across Haiti and the
Dominican Republic. The final toll was over 3,300 dead.
(AP, 5/27/04)(SFC, 5/28/04, p.A3)(AP,
6/5/04)
2004 May 24, In Iraq an
explosion destroyed a civilian car with armor plating near an
entrance to the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition, killing four
people including two British civilians. , An Associated Press survey
found that more than 5,500 Iraqis died violently in just Baghdad and
three provinces in the first 12 months of the occupation.
(AP, 5/24/04)
2004 May 24, In Liberia an
American citizen working with a U.S. military assessment team was
killed in his hotel room in the capital Monrovia.
(AP, 5/26/04)
2004 May 24, In Malawi
opposition supporters rioted as Bingu wa Mutharika was sworn in as
president.
(WSJ, 5/25/04, p.A1)
2004 May 24, The WHO confirmed
an outbreak of the deadly ebola virus has killed four people in
south Sudan.
(AFP, 5/24/04)
2005 May 24, Breaking years of
gridlock, the Senate cleared the way for confirmation of Priscilla
Owen to the US appeals court following a compromise on President
Bush's current and future judicial nominees.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2005 May 24, Ignoring President
Bush's veto threat, the House voted to lift limits on embryonic stem
cell research.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2005 May 24, A US State
Department brochure, distributed to hundreds of delegates at the
188-nation conference reviewing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,
listed milestones in arms control since the 1980s, while touting
reductions in the US nuclear arsenal. But the timeline omitted a
pivotal agreement, the 1996 treaty to ban nuclear tests, a pact
negotiated by the Clinton administration and ratified by 121 nations
but now rejected under Pres. Bush.
(AP, 5/25/05)
2005 May 24, Texas lawmakers
tentatively voted to give juries the option of sentencing murderers
to life in prison without parole.
(SFC, 5/25/05, p.A3)
2005 May 24, Ismail Merchant
(68), film producer, died in London. He collaborated with James
Ivory and their films included adaptations of novels by Henry James
(e.g. The Europeans) and E.M. Forster (e.g. A Room With A View).
(SFC, 5/26/05, p.B6)(Econ, 6/4/05, p.82)
2005 May 24, Indigenous leaders
from Arctic regions around the world called on the European Union to
do more to fight global warming and to consider giving aid to their
peoples.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, In Bolivia
thousands of demonstrators blocked major roads in and around La Paz,
isolating the city in a protest demanding the nationalization of the
oil industry and opposing autonomy for an oil-producing region.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, The environmental
group Greenpeace nominated President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and
five others for its first "Golden Chainsaw" prize, to be awarded to
the Brazilian deemed to have contributed most to the Amazon's
destruction.
(AP, 5/25/05)
2005 May 24, The British
government approved the extradition of three British bankers the
United States is seeking to prosecute on fraud charges involving
Enron Corp.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, In the Central
African Republic military strongman Francois Bozize won the May 8
runoff presidential runoff election, a move toward legitimizing his
rule two years after he seized power.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, In Colombia
suspected leftist guerrillas carrying assault rifles swept into a
southern town and attacked government offices, killing six town
councilors and five others.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, The EU announced
that its members would double their aid to poor countries by 2015.
(Econ, 5/28/05, p.77)
2005 May 24, In Iraq a car bomb
exploded near a Baghdad junior high school for girls, killing six
people. 3 US soldiers were killed in central Baghdad when a car bomb
exploded next to their convoy. A US soldier sitting in the back of a
Bradley fighting vehicle at an observation post was shot to death by
gunmen in a passing car.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, A Web site that
acts as the clearinghouse for messages from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
said that Iraq's most-wanted militant had been wounded "for the sake
of God" and asked Muslims to pray for his recovery.
(AP, 5/25/05)
2005 May 24, Italian police
raided the homes and offices of 186 suspected members of a child
pornography ring, including three Roman Catholic priests and a local
mayor, that downloaded pictures from an exclusive Web site.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, In Mexico Eduardo
Villalobos, the director of a state prison in the border city of
Mexicali, was shot to death in an ambush outside his home.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, In Pakistan a bomb
exploded in the house of a tribal elder in South Waziristan region,
killing five women and a child.
(AP, 5/25/05)
2005 May 24, In Slovenia police
said Mitja Ribicic (86), a former Yugoslav secret service leader,
has been charged in connection with the revenge killing of thousands
of Slovenes following World War II, the first such charge in this
ex-Yugoslav republic.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, NATO Secretary
General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said NATO will offer airlift, training
and other logistics support to African Union (AU) forces struggling
to end the civil war in Sudan's Darfur region.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 24, World Orthodox
leaders gathered in Istanbul, the ancient seat of Orthodoxy. They
decided to stop recognizing the beleaguered patriarch of Jerusalem,
Irineos I, for allegedly leasing sites in the Palestinian side of
the city to Jewish investors. They asserted a rare unified position
on the crisis facing the church in the Holy Land.
(AP, 5/24/05)(WSJ, 5/25/05, p.A1)
2006 May 24, House Republican
and Democratic leaders jointly demanded the FBI return documents
taken in a Capitol Hill raid as part of a bribery investigation of
Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2006 May 24, In Alabama Regions
Financial Corp. and rival AmSouth Bancorp struck a $10 billion deal
to merge.
(WSJ, 5/25/06, p.A1)
2006 May 24, Taylor Hicks was
named the new "American Idol" over runner-up Katharine McPhee.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2006 May 24, The film “An
Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary on global warming, opened. The
Davis Guggenheim film featured Al Gore.
(WSJ, 5/26/06, p.W4)
2006 May 24, Vonage Holdings,
an Internet-based phone company, began trading on the NYSE at $17
per share and closed at $14.85.
(SFC, 5/25/06, p.C1)
2006 May 24, It was reported
that Google will shut down 6 sites on its Orkut service in Brazil in
response pressure from Brazilian law enforcement.
(SFC, 5/24/06, p.C3)
2006 May 24, Pogo (48), one of
the oldest gorillas in the world, died at the SF Zoo.
(SFC, 5/25/06, p.B1)
2006 May 24, In Afghanistan
clashes left at least 24 militants and 5 Afghan soldiers dead. 13
insurgents and two police died in a battle in southern Helmand
province's Sangin district.
(WSJ, 5/25/06, p.A1)(AP, 5/27/06)
2006 May 24, The African Union
accepted a NATO offer to extend its assistance in Sudan's violent
Darfur region, stressing its presence there would remain small.
(Reuters, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, Algerian President
Abdelaziz Bouteflika appointed Abdelaziz Belkhadem as the country's
prime minister.
(AFP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, In northern Benin
a tanker truck overturned and then exploded when people with
lanterns began siphoning gasoline. At least 35 people were killed.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 24, In England 10
people were arrested in a sweep targeting support for terrorism
outside Britain. Police served warrants at a number of addresses
before dawn in an operation involving about 500 officers.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, The Bank of Canada
raised its key overnight interest rate by a quarter percentage point
to 4.25 percent, as expected, and signaled that it would not hike
rates further at least for now.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, In Chile Paul
Schaefer (84), the leader of now-dismantled Colonia Dignidad, was
convicted of sexually abusing 25 children and sentenced to 20 years
in jail. The colony was founded by German immigrants in southern
Chile in the early 1960s.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 24, China's government
on raised state-set gasoline and diesel prices by about 10 percent
in response to soaring world oil prices.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 24, Election results
indicated that Dominican President Leonel Fernandez's party won the
recent legislative elections, which should enable him to carry out
economic reforms.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 24, Dubai hosted the
Middle East's first major international art auction.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, The EU, the US,
Japan, China, Russia and others initialed a $12.8 billion agreement
in Belgium to build an experimental fusion project they hope will
lead to a cheaper, safer, cleaner and endless source of energy. The
seven-party consortium, which also includes India and South Korea,
agreed last year to build the International Thermonuclear
Experimental Reactor, or ITER, in Cadarache, in the southern French
region of Provence.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, International
peacekeepers and troops from Australia and New Zealand were headed
to East Timor to help restore order after gunbattles between
disgruntled ex-soldiers and the military killed two people and
wounded nine.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, Stone-throwing
Iranian students fought police and Islamic vigilantes on in protest
against restrictions imposed by the government of President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad.
(Reuters, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, Iraq announced the
arrest in Lebanon of Bashar Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, a
nephew of Saddam Hussein, for crimes allegedly committed after the
fall of Saddam's regime. Drive-by shootings killed 12 people,
including a provincial official in northern Iraq and two of his
bodyguards. Authorities found the corpses of nine people who
apparently had been kidnapped and tortured.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, Thomas Patrick
Gilbert Cholmondeley (38), a descendant of Kenya's first white
settlers, was charged with murder in the shooting of Robert Njoya
Wambugu (37), who was shot in the back and died en route to a
hospital. Cholmondeley’s attorney said the victim unleashed several
dogs on Cholmondeley after the man was caught poaching an
impala. In 2009 Cholmondeley (40) was convicted of
manslaughter and was sentenced to 8 months in prison. He was
released on Oct 23.
(AP, 5/24/06)(AP, 5/14/09)(AP, 10/23/09)
2006 May 24, North Korea
abruptly canceled groundbreaking test runs of trains across its
highly guarded border with South Korea, citing an atmosphere of
confrontation.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, Fierce gunbattles
broke out between Israeli troops and Palestinians in the heart of
the West Bank city of Ramallah, killing two Palestinians and
wounding 30. A Gaza security chief loyal to the Palestinian
president was killed when his car blew up, the second attack on a
top commander in less than a week.
(AP, 5/24/06)(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 24, Philippine
officials said the US States and the Philippines have forged a
security arrangement covering threats such as terrorism, piracy,
natural disasters and outbreaks of disease. The initiative was
launched last year and diplomatic notes for carrying out the
arrangement were exchanged in April.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, Russian
prosecutors said St. Petersburg police have detained eight members
of an extremist group suspected in racist murders, including the
shooting of a Senegalese student outside a nightclub.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, In Sri Lanka 3
security personnel died in a mine blast as a Norwegian peace envoy
arrived to salvage a collapsing ceasefire.
(AFP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, A huge fire
engulfed the cargo section of Istanbul's Ataturk International
Airport, temporarily disrupting air traffic and causing thousands to
flee nearby terminals.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 24, President Hugo
Chavez said that Venezuela will buy Russian jets because of a
dispute over parts for US-made aircraft, launching yet another
verbal assault on Pres. Bush.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2007 May 24, The US Congress
passed a spending bill, providing $95 billion for the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Pres. Bush signed the bill the next day.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 24, Pres. Bush
nominated James Holsinger, a cardiologist from Kentucky, as the new
US surgeon general.
(www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070524-2.html)
2007 May 24, The Alabama
Legislature passed a resolution that expressed profound regret for
the state’s role in slavery. Gov Bob Riley was expected to sign it.
In recent months Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia made formal
apologies.
(SFC, 5/25/07, p.A3)
2007 May 24, In Oakland, Ca.,
C.C. Myers led the completion of repair work on I-580, 26 days after
a portion of the MacArthur Maze collapsed following a gasoline
tanker crash and fire.
(SFC, 5/25/07, p.A1)
2007 May 24, Ohio death row
inmate Christopher Newton was executed by injection; it took him 16
minutes to die, more than twice the usual amount of time, once
chemicals began flowing into his veins, which the execution team had
had trouble locating.
(AP, 5/24/08)
2007 May 24, Ancestry.com
unveiled over 90 million US war records that dated back to 1607.
(SFC, 5/29/07, p.C5)
2007 May 24, Energy Brands Inc.
agreed to a $4.1 billion takeover by Coca-Cola.
(WSJ, 5/26/07, p.A3)
2007 May 24, In Afghanistan
Sayed Gulab, a suspect with "extensive connections" with other
senior Taliban and al-Qaida leaders in Nangarhar and Pakistan, was
detained and held in a coalition facility.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 24, Britain's Court of
Appeal upheld a $95 million award to the ex-wife of insurance tycoon
John Charman (54), the largest judgment ever in a contested divorce
in England and Wales. Jenny Bailey (45), a female councilor who was
born a man and fathered two children, was sworn in as Britain's
first transsexual mayor. Bailey, a Liberal Democrat, became the
civic leader of the Cambridge City Council.
(AFP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, In southern China
residents of Bobai county angrily accused authorities of forcing
women to have abortions and vandalizing homes in a brutal campaign
to enforce birth-control policies. Government "work teams" had
raided homes, carried out mass arrests and levied crippling fines
across Guangxi, a sprawling region near the Vietnam border.
Communist Party officials in Shanghai convened a congress to install
a new generation of leaders following a corruption scandal that
toppled the city's top leader. 2 days of heavy rainstorms in
southwest China triggered flash floods and mudslides killed 21
people and left 11 missing.
(AFP, 5/24/07)(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, Egypt approved the
formation of a new liberal political party headed by a former member
of President Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).
(AFP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, A car bomb
targeting a funeral procession in the turbulent city of Fallujah
killed at least 26 people. The funeral was being held for Alaa
Zuwaid (60), a restaurant owner who was part of a tribe that had
formed an alliance with other tribal leaders against al-Qaida.
Zuwaid was killed earlier Thursday in the day unknown militants shot
him in front of his house. In Sulaiman Bek, 75 miles south of
Kirkuk, a roadside bomb hit an Iraqi police convoy and killed six
police officers. A suicide bomber detonated a bomb aboard a minibus
driving through Baghdad, killing three civilians and injuring eight
others. 5 US soldiers were killed in four separate attacks across
Iraq, most of them by roadside bombs.
(AP, 5/22/07)(Reuters, 5/25/07)
2007 May 24, In Ireland voters
began casting their ballots in an election that analysts say is
likely to return PM Bertie Ahern to power, but with new, left-wing
partners in government. An exit poll gave his Fianna Fail party a
surprisingly strong lead in parliamentary elections.
(AP, 5/24/07)(AP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 24, Israeli troops in
the West Bank rounded up a Palestinian Cabinet minister and 32 other
Hamas leaders in the West Bank before dawn, pressing forward with an
offensive against the Islamic militant group.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, Japan's prime
minister proposed cutting world greenhouse gas emissions in half by
2050 as part of a new global warming pact for all countries,
including top polluters United States and China.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, Japanese Emperor
Akihito and Empress Michiko arrived in Estonia's seaside capital on
their first-ever visit to a former Soviet republic.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, In Lebanon
sporadic gunfire erupted inside the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp where
Islamic militants are holed up after refusing an ultimatum by
Lebanon's defense minister to surrender or face a military
onslaught. Lebanon's leader vowed to uproot the fighters. The family
of Shaker Youssef al-Absi, the Palestinian who heads the shadowy
militant group blamed for this week's violence in Lebanon, said he
is not a terrorist but a nationalist who seeks an end to Israel's
occupation of Palestinian lands.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, Nigeria's powerful
oil unions began a strike at its state-owned oil company and
threatened to target exports in hopes of reversing the sale of
government refineries.
(AP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 24, In Pakistan
thousands of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's opponents
demonstrated in several, the first street protests since a burst of
political violence deepened a crisis clouding his plans to stay in
power.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, A Peruvian
government flight serving as a link between isolated jungle
communities disappeared in the country's northeastern rain forest
with 20 people on board. 7 survivors were rescued the next day.
(AP, 5/25/07)(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 24, A methane
explosion tore through a coal mine in southern Siberia, killing 38
miners and injuring seven others. One worker died days later raising
the toll to 39.
(AP, 5/24/07)(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 24, Somali police shot
and killed two civilians after attackers hurled a hand grenade at a
police station.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, In South Africa's
Eastern Cape province 9 children were among 14 people killed in a
multiple-vehicle crash.
(AP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 24, In northern Sri
Lanka a flotilla of rebel boats launched a deadly raid on a navy
camp, hours before a bomb exploded near an army bus in the capital
killing one soldier and wounding six people. Tigers claimed to have
killed 32 sailors. Government troops killed 12 suspected Tamil Tiger
rebels in the northern Vavuniya district.
(AP, 5/24/07)(AFP, 5/25/07)(Econ, 6/9/07, p.24)
2007 May 24, In Switzerland an
arson fire gutted the interior of Hekhal Haness Synagogue, Geneva's
largest synagogue.
(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 May 24, Hundreds of
thousands of Syrians thronged Damascus to support a second
seven-year term for President Bashar Assad.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, The head of the UN
nuclear agency said he agreed with CIA estimates that Iran was three
to eight years from being able to make nuclear weapons and he urged
the US and other powers to pursue talks with the Islamic country.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, Zimbabwe police
slapped a new ban on political rallies and demonstrations in parts
of the capital Harare, citing a recent spate of "disturbances."
(AFP, 5/24/07)
2008 May 24, In California a
tour helicopter crashed on Santa Catalina Island killing 3 people
and injuring 3 others.
(SSFC, 5/25/08, p.A6)
2008 May 24, In Georgia Kirk
Wright (37), convicted of leading an investment scheme, hanged
himself in the Union City jail. He faced up to 710 years in prison
and a fine up to $16 million. An SEC suit had already hit him with a
$20 million judgment for fraud and money laundering related to the
2006 collapse of his Int’l. Management Associates hedge fund.
(WSJ, 5/27/08, p.C12)
2008 May 24, Dick Martin (86),
the zany half of the comedy team whose "Rowan and Martin's
Laugh-In," died in Santa Monica, Ca. He took television by storm in
the 1960s, making stars of Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin and creating
such national catch-phrases as "Sock it to me!"
(AP, 5/25/08)
2008 May 24, Jimmy McGriff
(b.1936), blues organist, died in New Jersey.
(SFC, 5/29/08, p.B5)
2008 May 24, Stuart Moldaw (81)
of Atherton, Ca., philanthropist and founder of Ross Stores (1981),
died. By 2007 Ross had become the country’s 2nd largest off-price
retailer with annual sales of $6 billion.
(SFC, 5/28/08, p.B9)
2008 May 24, Disaster-prone
Bangladesh announced that it would plant 100 million trees to create
a "natural fence" against frequent floods and cyclones.
(AP, 5/24/08)
2008 May 24, Belgian police in
Brussels arrested Jean-Pierre Bemba (45), a Congolese warlord and
ex-presidential candidate, after he was secretly charged with rape
and torture. Bemba was accused of war crimes and crimes against
humanity as head of a militia that allegedly committed atrocities in
Central African Republic's conflict in 2002-2003.
(AP, 5/25/08)
2008 May 24, In England Rob
Knox (18), teenage actor who had a part in the next Harry Potter
film, was stabbed and killed in a scuffle outside a bar. Karl Bishop
(21), from Sidcup in Kent, was accused of the murder. On March 4,
2009, Bishop was convicted of murder. The next day he was sentenced
to life in prison.
(AFP, 5/27/08)(AP, 3/5/09)
2008 May 24, In China rescuers
rushed to reach 24 coal miners trapped underground by the earthquake
almost two weeks ago, as the government sharply raised the quake's
death toll, warning it could exceed 80,000.
(AP, 5/24/08)
2008 May 24, In Colombia a
moderate earthquake shook Bogota, killing at least six people and
injuring more than 10.
(AP, 5/25/08)
2008 May 24, Deutsche Telekom
acknowledged that in 2005 it had hired an outside firm to track
hundreds of thousands of phone calls by senior executives and
journalists to identify the sources of press leaks. The practice
continued into 2006.
(AP, 5/26/08)(Econ, 6/7/08, p.65)
2008 May 24, Lawmakers loyal to
anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr accused the Iraqi government of
trying to crush the movement and warned of "black clouds" on the
horizon for truces that have eased fighting between al-Sadr's
militia and security forces. Clashes broke out before midnight
between Shiite gunmen and US-Iraqi troops in the Amin area in
eastern Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding three others,
including a 4-year-old boy.
(AP, 5/24/08)(AP, 5/25/08)
2008 May 24, Israeli forces
attacked two groups of Palestinian militants firing mortar shells in
the northern Gaza Strip, wounding 4 Hamas gunmen.
(SSFC, 5/25/08, p.A4)
2008 May 24, Top Pakistani
Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud said jihad, or holy war, would
continue in Afghanistan, despite peace negotiations between the
militants and Islamabad. Separate roadside bomb attacks in
Pakistan's volatile northwest killed three people, including a local
police chief.
(AFP, 5/24/08)
2008 May 24, Russia won the
Eurovision song contest in Belgrade with "Believe", sung by Dima
Bilan, giving an eastern European nation victory for the third time
in five years.
(AFP, 5/25/08)
2008 May 24, In Saudi Arabia
authorities beheaded a local man convicted of armed robbery and
raping a woman. The execution brings the number of people beheaded
this year to 55.
(AP, 5/24/08)
2008 May 24, In South Africa
thousands of people marched through Johannesburg, calling for an end
to xenophobic violence that has killed over 40 African migrants and
displaced tens of thousands.
(Reuters, 5/24/08)
2008 May 24, In northern Sri
Lanka a new round of fighting killed seven Tamil separatists and two
soldiers.
(AP, 5/25/08)
2008 May 24, Morgan Tsvangirai
returned to Zimbabwe for an election run-off with President Robert
Mugabe and said the veteran leader wanted to "decimate" MDC
structures.
(Reuters, 5/24/08)
2009 May 24, The space shuttle
Atlantis and its 7 astronauts landed at Edwards Air Force Base in
California ending a 13-day mission that repaired and enhanced the
Hubble Space Telescope. Stormy weather in Florida prevented a return
to NASA's home base.
(AP, 5/24/09)(SFC, 5/25/09, p.A5)
2009 May 24, San Francisco
celebrated its 31st annual Carnaval in the Mission district.
(SFC, 5/25/09, p.B1)
2009 May 24, In Afghanistan US
troops detained 4 suspected Al-Qaida members during a raid in Khost
province.
(SFC, 5/25/09, p.A2)
2009 May 24, In Australia
thousands of homeowners remained isolated in the flood-hit
northeast. Authorities said days of torrential rain had created a
vast "inland sea."
(AFP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, In Austria groups
of rival worshippers at a Sikh temple in Vienna pulled knives and at
least one handgun in a mass fight. 16 people were wounded and one
preacher died the next day. The Vienna temple attended by
lower-caste Sikhs was attacked by Sikhs from a higher caste who
accused preachers of being disrespectful of the religion's Holy
Book.
(AP, 5/24/09)(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 24, At the Cannes Film
Festival the film “The White Ribbon” by Austrian director Michael
Haneke won the top prize. Christolph Waltz won the best actor prize
for his role in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglorious Bastards.” Charlotte
Gainsbourg won the best actress prize for her role in Lars von
Trier’s “antichrist.”
(SFC, 5/25/09, p.E4)
2009 May 24, Iran blocked
access to Facebook, prompting government critics to condemn the move
as an attempt to muzzle the opposition ahead of next month's
presidential election.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, Israel’s PM
Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel will continue to build homes in
existing West Bank settlements, defying US calls to halt settlement
growth.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, Voters in Mongolia
went to the polls to choose a new president less than a year after
allegations of vote-rigging in parliamentary elections triggered
deadly riots. The Democratic Party candidate Elbegdorj Tsakhia won
51.24% of the votes, while incumbent Enkbayar Nambar of the
Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, the former communists, won
47.44%.
(AFP, 5/24/09)(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 24, In Morocco 11
people were killed in a stampede at a stadium in the capital, Rabat,
overnight when thousands of spectators hurried to leave at the end
of a concert wrapping up the city's landmark music festival.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, The Nigerian army
said that over the last 2 days it freed a total of six Filipinos
held hostage in the oil-rich Niger Delta.
(AFP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, In Northern
Ireland over 20 militant Protestant supporters of the Glasgow
Rangers soccer team beat to death a Catholic man in Coleraine after
the Rangers clinched a championship.
(SFC, 5/26/09, p.A2)
2009 May 24, Pakistani troops
battling the Taliban captured several points in the Swat Valley's
main town, including a spot nicknamed "bloody intersection" because
militants routinely dumped the mutilated bodies of their victims
there. Five suspected militants were killed in various parts of
Mingora while 14 others were arrested. Overall in the valley, 10
militants were killed in the past 24 hours while three security
troops died. Elsewhere in the northwest, helicopter gunships pounded
alleged militant hide-outs in a tribal region, killing at least 18
people. Police said they had captured Qari Ihsanullah, an important
militant commander and six other Taliban fighters.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, In Somalia a
foreign suicide bomber killed six guards and a civilian at a
military base in Mogadishu, an attack that came after two weeks of
intense fighting.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 24, In Sudan raiders
attempted but failed to overrun the army base at Umm Baru, close to
the Chadian border in north Darfur. The next day an army spokesman
said 20 Sudanese soldiers were killed in the fierce fighting and
that 43 rebels had died.
(Reuters, 5/25/09)(AFP, 5/25/09)
2010 May 24, Pres. Obama signed
into law the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda
Recovery Act.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.58)(www.enoughproject.org/LRA)
2010 May 24, The US Supreme
Court ruled that a group of African Americans may sue the city of
Chicago for discriminatory use of an application test that kept them
from being hired as firefighters.
(SFC, 5/25/10, p.A4)
2010 May 24, Brian Thomas
Mettenbrink of Nebraska was sentenced to one year in federal prison
for his role in a cyber attack on the Church of Scientology.
(SFC, 5/25/10, p.A4)
2010 May 24, Afghan authorities
announced the arrest of seven people in last week's car suicide car
bombing that killed six NATO soldiers, including three American
colonels and a Canadian colonel.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Australia demanded
that Israel withdraw an embassy official from the country, saying
the Jewish state was behind fake Australian passports linked to the
killing of a Hamas operative.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Brazilian
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva launched TV Brasil, a new
Portuguese-language network based in Mozambique's capital Maputo and
tasked with "saying good things" about Brazil. From Maputo, the new
channel will be broadcast to more than 40 countries, mostly in
Africa and Latin America.
(AFP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Britain's new
coalition government outlined more than 6 billion pounds ($8.7
billion) in spending cuts, including scaling back computer
purchases, official cars for ministers and first-class air travel,
but warned that these are only first steps toward slashing the
nation's record budget deficit.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, British Airways
cabin crew started a five-day strike, throwing travel plans for
thousands of passengers into disarray after last-ditch efforts to
avert the action collapsed.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Burundians turned
out in droves to vote in local polls marking the first phase of an
electoral marathon, the first of a series of polls in which the tiny
African nation will also vote for representatives to parliament and
its next president.
(AFP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, In southern China
a head-on collision between two buses killed 10 people and injured
an additional 43 early Monday in the second major bus accident in
two days.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, In Colombia a
retired police major said that President Alvaro Uribe's younger
brother, Santiago Uribe, commanded a right-wing death squad in the
early 1990s from the family's cattle ranch. He estimated the militia
killed at least 50 people.
(AP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 24, The UN said an
Indian UN peacekeeper and two Congolese nationals were killed in an
ambush in North Kivu province, Democratic Republic of Congo.
(Reuters, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Costa Rica's
unicameral congress voted itself a 60 percent pay raise less than a
month after legislators took office. The next day President Laura
Chinchilla said she will veto the pay bill unless congress finds
days to offset the cost in other areas. Costa Rica's congress
shelved a final vote on the pay raise after Pres. Chinchilla
promised to veto the measure.
(AP, 5/26/10)(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 24, An international
human rights group said that Ethiopia's national election was marred
by repression and intimidation, while the government said the vote
was free and fair.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, In Germany Daryush
Shokof (55), a Berlin resident and Iranian dissident, disappeared in
Cologne, the day he planned to board a train to Paris to promote his
new film "Iran Zendan," or "Iran Prison." The small independent
movie is highly critical of the Iranian regime and shows scenes of
torture and rape in an Iranian prison. It was shown once last month
to a closed audience of friends at a Berlin theater and then posted
on YouTube, but has since been removed. On June 5, almost two weeks
after he went missing, Shokof was found by a group of teenagers,
drenched, exhausted and confused, near the Rhine river in Cologne,
and taken to a hospital.
(AP, 6/11/10)
2010 May 24, Guatemalan
authorities said they will require DNA tests for all babies offered
for adoption following allegations of child theft that led the
government to impose a two-year freeze on international adoptions.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Iran hanged the
brother of captured Sunni militant leader Abdolmalek Rigi for
"terrorism" in the city of Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchestan province in
the southeast.
(AFP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Iran’s state IRNA
news agency reported that police launched a crackdown on irreverent
social behavior, seizing some 60 cars over the weekend whose drivers
were deemed to be harassing women.
(AFP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Iran, seeking to
evade new UN sanctions, formally submitted its plan to swap some of
its enriched uranium for reactor fuel and said the onus was on world
powers to defuse tensions by accepting the deal.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, In Iraq gunmen in
Mosul killed newly elected lawmaker Bashar Mohammed Hamid Ahmed,
part of a Sunni-backed list that narrowly won the March elections.
(SFC, 5/25/10, p.A2)
2010 May 24, Israel's military
announced it plans to further ease restrictions on Palestinian
travel in the West Bank, delivering what appeared to be a first in a
series of gestures requested by the US as part of renewed peace
talks.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, In Jamaica more
than 1,000 police and soldiers assaulted a public housing complex
occupied by heavily armed gangsters defending Christopher "Dudus"
Coke, an alleged drug lord wanted by the US. 2 police officers were
killed and at least six wounded since the previous night, and at
least one Jamaican soldier was shot dead during today's fighting at
Tivoli Gardens.
(AP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 24, Lebanon's PM Saad
Hariri made his first official visit to Washington as premier and
planned to discuss Mideast security issues and peace efforts with
Pres. Barack Obama.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 24, It was reported
that Malagasy timer barons were robbing Madagascar of its sylvan
heritage, illegally cutting down scarce species of rosewood trees in
poorly protected national parks, and exporting most of the valuable
logs to China.
(SFC, 5/25/10, p.A2)
2010 May 24, South Korea's
Pres. Lee Myung-bak cut trade to North Korea vowing the country
would "pay a price" for a torpedo attack that killed 46 sailors, and
promised to haul its impoverished neighbor before the UN Security
Council. Lee Myung-bak said that the country will take Pyongyang to
the UN Security Council, suspend inter-Korean exchanges and ban
North Korean ships from passing through its waters.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, In Thailand
opposition leaders moved to impeach PM Abhisit Vejjajiva for his
handling of rioting and violence in Bangkok, and an army official
said the capital would remain under curfew for another week as a
precaution against further unrest.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, In Trinidad and
Tobago attorney Kamla Persad-Bissessar (59) was elected as the first
female prime minister. Preliminary elections results indicated that
Persad-Bissessar and her five-party People's Partnership coalition
won 29 of 41 seats in parliament.
(AP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 24, In Yemen tribal
gunmen kidnapped two American tourists and demanded the release of a
jailed tribesman for the pair. The tourists were released the next
day after Pres. Saleh agreed to free a prisoner held by the state.
(AP, 5/24/10)(SFC, 5/26/10, p.A2)
2011 May 24, The Obama
administration hit seven foreign companies, including Venezuela'
state-owned oil company and an Israeli shipping firm, for engaging
in trade with Iran in violation of a US ban. At the same time, the
administration imposed separate sanctions on more than 15 people and
companies in China, Iran, North Korea, Syria and elsewhere for
illicit trading in missile technology and weapons of mass
destruction.
(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, President Barack
Obama and wife Michelle Obama were welcomed to Buckingham Palace in
grand royal style by Queen Elizabeth II as they began their official
state visit to Britain.
(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, In Arizona 3
employees of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio were arrested on
charges that they helped a drug and human smuggling organization
from Mexico.
(AP, 5/25/11)
2011 May 24, San Francisco
supervisors vote 6-5 to approve a $1.2 billion plan to transform the
Parkmerced area. 1,500 rent-controlled town homes will be replaced
with 7,200 units over the next 20-30 years.
(SFC, 5/25/11, p.A1)
2011 May 24, In California a
family of four was found dead in San Diego in what police called a
triple murder suicide.
(SFC, 5/25/11, p.A6)
2011 May 24, In New York Luke
Wright (32) was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison for raping,
scalding and torturing his disabled half-sister before their mother
killed her last year. An Erie County jury found him guilty last
month on 10 criminal counts. Laura Cummings (23) was suffocated by
her mother Eva Cummings in the family's North Collins home. She
pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last October.
(AP, 5/25/11)
2011 May 24, New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie said he will not defy today’s state Supreme Court
ruling to increase aid to low-income school districts, but called
the decision legally faulty and bad education policy. The state
Supreme Court said New Jersey must provide about $500 million for
its poorer school districts.
(AP, 5/24/11)(Reuters, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, Reclusive American
copper heiress Huguette Clark (104) died and left most of her $400
million fortune to charity, and nurse Hadassah Peri, who was
randomly assigned to care for her 20 years ago. Clark was the
daughter of Montana Sen. William Clark, who was once the
second-richest man in the country. In 2013 a court fight over her
estate reached a tentative deal giving about $30.5 million to her
distant relatives. Nurse Peri would have to return $5 million and a
valuable doll collection.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguette_M._Clark)(AP, 6/24/11)(SSFC,
9/22/13, p.A9)
2011 May 24, In southern
Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed 10 workers, and NATO again
promised that the coalition would not abandon the country even if
some members plan to withdraw their forces. The Taliban shot dead
the principal of a boys' only high school in Logar province. A NATO
service member died in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 5/24/11)(AP, 5/25/11)
2011 May 24, In northern Brazil
rubber tapper Jose Claudio Ribeiro da Silva, an activist fighting to
protect the Amazon rain forest from loggers, was shot and killed
with his wife by gunmen in the jungle state of Para.
(AP, 5/25/11)
2011 May 24, About 250 flights
to northern Britain were canceled over concerns about the ash cloud
spewing from an Icelandic volcano, but British and Irish officials
dismissed fears of a mass shutdown of airspace.
(Reuters, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, In Colombia‘s
Congress approved legislation to of offer compensation to some 4
million people who have suffered in its armed conflicts. A Colombian
judge issued an arrest order for the former head of the secret
police over her alleged involvement in a domestic spying scandal.
Former domestic intelligence chief Maria del Pilar Hurtado, who says
she is innocent. She has been living in exile in Panama since
November 2010 and that country has said it will maintain her asylum.
(Econ, 6/4/11, p.46)(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, Egypt’s ousted
leader Hosni Mubarak and his two sons were referred to a criminal
court on suspicion of graft and ordering deadly fire against
anti-government protesters.
(AFP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, In Ethiopia at an
address to an India-Africa summit in Addis Ababa, Indian PM Manmohan
Singh trumpeted his country's historical ties with Africa and
offered $5 billion dollars for the next three years under lines of
credit to help Africa achieve its development goals.
(Reuters, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, World Bank Pres.
Robert Zoellick said it will provide up to $6 billion to Egypt and
Tunisia to help them modernize their economies as they undertake
democratic reforms after the ouster of their longtime presidents.
(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, In France the
world's most powerful Internet and media barons gathered in Paris in
a show of strength to leaders at the G8 summit, amid rows over
online copyright, regulation and human rights.
(AFP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, In Guatemala
officials found the hacked-up body of an assistant prosecutor along
with a message allegedly signed by the Zetas. The interior minister
said police have arrested five Mexican members of the Zetas drug
cartel who are allegedly linked to the chief suspect in the May 15
massacre of 27 people.
(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, In India
representatives of eight countries with large wild elephant
populations pledged to eradicate poaching of the animals and
smuggling of ivory to ensure their survival for future generations.
The "Elephant 8 Ministerial Meet" included officials from Thailand,
Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Botswana, Congo, Kenya and Tanzania.
(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, An accidental
blast at Iran's Abadan's oil refinery killed one person and wounded
25 during a visit by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was not
affected.
(AFP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, In Japan major
international mission to investigate the flooded, radiation-leaking
nuclear complex began as new information suggested that nuclear fuel
had mostly melted in two more reactors in the early days after the
March 11 tsunami.
(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, Japan’s Sony Corp.
said it discovered a security breach affecting 8,500 user accounts
in a music entertainment website in Greece that comes on the heels
of a hacker attack which forced its flagship gaming site offline.
(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, The Libyan rebel
council fighting to oust Muammar Gaddafi said it will open an office
in Paris but a representative has not yet been named. Top US
official Jeffrey Feltman said Libya's rebels have accepted an
invitation to open a representative office in Washington as he
renewed a US call for Moamer Kadhafi to step down immediately.
(AFP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, Libyan forces
loyal to Muammar Gaddafi cut electricity supplies to much of the
Western Mountains, threatening water supplies and stepping up a war
of attrition with rebels who hold the plateau. NATO launched its
most intense bombardment yet against Gadhafi's Tripoli stronghold.
Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said at least 3 people were
killed.
(Reuters, 5/29/11)(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, In northern Mexico
17 inmates escaped through a tunnel starting in a prison's laundry
room. On may 27 the director and 11 officials at the prison were
charged with helping in the escape in Reynosa, Tamaulipas state.
Suspected cartel gunmen opened fire on a federal police chopper,
hitting two officers and forcing the craft to land in Michoacan
state. Officials insisted it had not been shot down. In 2012
official documents reported that armed forces and prosecutors have
suffered at least 28 gunfire attacks on helicopters since 2008.
(AP, 5/27/11)(AP, 1/16/12)
2011 May 24, In Nigeria a fire
engulfed a pipeline belonging to a subsidiary of state-owned oil
company Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in the town of
Amukpe.
(AP, 5/25/11)
2011 May 24, North Korea’s
reclusive leader Kim Jong Il reportedly traveled to an eastern
Chinese city to study Beijing's economic reforms, while a US
government team was in North Korea on a rare trip to assess food
shortages.
(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, A Moscow appeals
court upheld the second conviction of oil magnate Mikhail
Khodorkovsky (47), but it also reduced his 14-year prison sentence
by one year.
(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, Ammar Qarabi of
the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria said his group
has documented the names of 1,062 people who have died since the
uprising erupted in mid-March.
(AP, 5/24/11)
2011 May 24, In Sudan gunmen
from an Arab tribe fired on four UN helicopters taking off from
Abyei a disputed border town at the heart of a new north-south
conflict.
(AP, 5/25/11)
2011 May 24, Thai authorities
arrested American citizen on charges he insulted the country's
monarchy, in part by posting a link on his blog four years ago to a
banned book about the Southeast Asian nation's ailing king. Lerpong
Wichaikhammat (aka Joe Gordon), a 54-year-old Thai-born man, had
lived in the US state of Colorado for around 30 years before
returning recently to Thailand for medical treatment. In August
Gordon was charged with lese majeste for allegedly translating parts
of an unauthorized biography of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and writing
articles that defamed the royal family.
(AP, 5/27/11)(AP, 8/18/11)
2011 May 24, In Yemen shelling
in Sanaa killed 24 supporters of Sheikh al-Ahmar, a powerful
opposition chieftain, as clashes intensified between embattled
President Ali Abdullah Saleh's security forces and the tribesmen. 14
soldiers were also killed and another 20 were missing.
(AFP, 5/24/11)(SFC, 5/25/11, p.A4)
2012 May 24, New York City
police arrested Pedro Hernandez (51) of New Jersey for the killing
of Etan Patz (6) in 1979.
(SFC, 5/25/12, p.A6)
2012 May 24, Kathi Kamen
Goldmark (b.1948), San Francisco-based literary impresario and
country-rock singer, died of breast cancer.
(SSFC, 5/27/12, p.A14)
2012 May 24, In Cambodia prison
sentences were imposed on 13 women who protested evictions from
their land without adequate compensation. Their old houses were
demolished by developers in 2010.
(AP, 5/25/12)
2012 May 24, In Indonesia a
landslide killed 8 of 16 people illegally mining for gold, after
days of heavy rain hit a mountainous part of western Java, the
country's main island.
(AFP, 5/25/12)
2012 May 24, Iranian
negotiators rejected proposals by six world powers to curb Tehran's
nuclear program, and demanded answers to their own counteroffer
meant to alleviate concerns about the Islamic Republic's ability to
build atomic weapons. The 2-days talks ended with no clear signs of
progress, but parties agreed to reconvene in Moscow in June.
(AP, 5/24/12)(SFC, 5/25/12, p.A4)
2012 May 24, In Japan Nicola
Furlong (21), an Irish fan of Rapper Nicki Minaj, was found dead in
a Tokyo hotel after attending a concert. Police arrested two
American men, dancer James Blackston (23) and a musician, 19, as
part of an investigation into her death. On June 14 police arrested
a 19-year-old American musician on suspicion of murdering Furlong.
(AFP, 6/1/12)(AFP, 6/14/12)
2012 May 24, Lebanese security
forces stormed a building in Beirut after a nighttime shootout with
gunmen holed up inside a flat, in an incident which left 2 dead and
7 wounded. The spark for the shootout was a personal dispute between
at least one of the dead men and a woman in her early 20s. The dead
man and the woman, detained in the incident, were Syrian nationals.
(AFP, 5/24/12)
2012 May 24, In Myanmar
demonstrators protesting electricity outages clashed with police,
and several were arrested in Pyay. The protests in Pyay began on May
21 with a small group of people and have grown to more than 1,000.
(AP, 5/24/12)
2012 May 24, New Zealand's
government squeezed smokers more than ever by announcing a 40 per
cent hike in tobacco taxes over the next four years. Officials hoped
the higher taxes and new restrictions will bring the country of 4.4
million closer to a recent pledge to snuff out the habit entirely by
2025.
(AP, 5/24/12)
2012 May 24, In Pakistan a US
drone strike killed 7-10 suspected militants in a Taliban stronghold
of North Waziristan, bringing the death toll from such strikes to 12
in two days.
(AFP, 5/24/12)(SFC, 5/25/12, p.A2)
2012 May 24, Papua New Guinea
Deputy PM Belden Namah led officers into the Supreme Court to arrest
of Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injia, one of three judges who affirmed
an earlier ruling that Somare is the nation's legitimate prime
minister.
(AP, 5/25/12)
2012 May 24, In Somalia
thousands of people fled a region north of Mogadishu amid the sounds
of gunfire and explosions as government troops and their allies
tried to take more ground from Islamist insurgents in the Afgoye
corridor. An estimated 400,000 refugees had been in the agricultural
town.
(AP, 5/24/12)
2012 May 24, South Korea’s
capital unveiled its latest landmark, a controversial $256 million
city hall with an undulating glass structure that looms over its
preserved colonial-era stone predecessor. It overshadowed the 1926
structure built during Japanese rule.
(AFP, 5/24/12)
2012 May 24, The jumbo jet-size
Solar Impulse, an experimental solar-powered airplane, took off from
Switzerland on its first transcontinental flight, aiming to reach
North Africa next week.
(AP, 5/24/12)
2012 May 24, Syrian opposition
groups said government forces shelled the rebel-held town of Rastan,
killing at least three people. The state-run news agency said an
armed group assassinated a lieutenant, shooting him and his
13-year-old son outside Damascus.
(AP, 5/24/12)
2012 May 24, In Ukraine a melee
in the parliament was sparked by a proposed bill to make Russian an
official language in eastern regions of the country with large
native Russian-speaking populations. Lawmakers grappled and threw
punches. One was hospitalized with a head injury.
(AP, 5/25/12)
2012 May 24, Vatican Bank
president Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was ousted for having leaked
documents and failing to do his job. Tedeschi’s primary position was
head of Spain’s Banco Santander Italian unit in Milan.
(SFC, 5/25/12, p.A2)
2012 May 24, Yemeni troops
killed 35 Al-Qaeda militants in overnight battles in the restive
southern Abyan province as the army pressed ahead with a 13-day
offensive to retake extremist strongholds. 2 soldiers were killed
and at least six others were wounded in the battle to retake
Zinjibar.
(AFP, 5/24/12)
2012 May 24, In Zimbabwe Petroc
Trelawny, who presents several radio programs for the BBC, was
arrested for taking part in the Bulawayo Music Festival without a
work permit. He was not being paid for the role. Trelawny reportedly
dislocated his shoulder in a fall in a police cell.
(AFP, 5/26/12)
2013 May 24, Pres. Obama signed
legislation awarding the Congressional Medal fo Honor posthumously
to the 4 girls killed in the Sep 15, 1963, Alabama church bombing.
(SFC, 5/25/13, p.A6)
2013 May 24, A US federal judge
said Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio violated the constitutional rights of
Latino drivers in his crackdown on illegal immigration, and ordered
him to stop using race as a factor in law enforcement decisions.
(Reuters, 5/24/13)
2013 May 24, In San Diego, Ca.,
Eduardo Arellano Felix (56) of the Tijuana drug cartel pleaded
guilty to helping ship hundreds millions of dollars from the US.
Under a plea agreement he will spend 15 years in prison and then be
deported to Mexico.
(SFC, 5/25/13, p.A6)
2013 May 24, In California
Gabriel Fernandez (8) of Palmdale died after being hospitalized with
injuries including a cracked skull, broken ribs and burns. In 2014
Pearl Fernandez (30) and her boyfriend Isauro Aguirre (34) pleaded
not guilty to murder charges with special allegations of torture.
(SFC, 8/20/14, p.E2)(http://tinyurl.com/kvgkkzd)
2013 May 24, An anonymous
letter to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg was opened and contained
traces of ricin. A 2nd similar letter in Washington DC at an office
used by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a nonprofit started by
Bloomberg, was opened on May 26.
(SFC, 5/30/13, p.A5)
2013 May 24, In upstate New
York a volunteer Angel Flight crashed killing the pilot and two
passengers.
(SSFC, 5/26/13, p.A10)
2013 May 24, In Utah Army
veteran Matthew David Stewart (39) charged with killing a police
officer on Jan 4, 2012, was found dead hanging from a bedsheet in
his cell in Ogden.
(SFC, 5/25/13, p.A6)
2013 May 24, In Afghanistan
Taliban gunmen backed by a suicide car bomber attacked an
international aid group's compound. 4 people were killed, including
a 6-year-old child, two compound guards and one policeman. All 6 of
the attackers were killed. A blast in Ghazni province killed 12
people at a mosque during evening prayers.
(AP, 5/24/13)(AP, 5/25/13)
2013 May 24, The Church of
England published a plan to approve the ordination of women bishops
by 2015, a widely supported reform it just missed passing last
November after two decades of divisive debate.
(Reuters, 5/24/13)
2013 May 24, In England Sarah
McClay (24) was mauled by a Sumatran tiger in an enclosure at South
Lakes Wild Animal Park in Cumbria. She soon died from her injuries.
(AP, 5/25/13)
2013 May 24, In western Central
African Republic rebels arrived in the village of Poulissi in three
vehicles and began killing residents there. At least 25 people were
reported killed in attacks on various villages near Bossangoa,
including a pregnant woman and a child.
(AP, 5/27/13)
2013 May 24, Chile's newly
empowered environmental regulator confirmed nearly two dozen
violations of Barrick's environmental impact agreement, blocking
construction on the $8.5 billion Pascua-Lama gold mining project
until the Canadian company keeps its promises to prevent water
contamination. Some 500 local Diaguita Indians have joined a civil
lawsuit against Barrick, persuading an appellate court last month to
block construction despite the company's denials that it caused any
pollution or health problems.
(AP, 5/25/13)
2013 May 24, Ecuador’s Pres.
Rafael Correa took office for a 3rd term.
(Econ, 8/24/13, p.36)
2013 May 24, An Egyptian
security official said 10 male relatives have killed a mother and
her two daughters on suspicion of moral offenses, so-called "honor
killings."
(AP, 5/24/13)
2013 May 24, The EU approved
restrictions on 3 pesticides to better protect dwindling bee
populations.
(SFC, 5/25/13, p.A2)
2013 May 24, Former Guatemalan
President Alfonso Portillo (61) was extradited to the United States
to face charges of laundering $70 million in Guatemalan funds
through US bank accounts.
(AP, 5/24/13)
2013 May 24, In Guinea at least
12 people were killed in clashes over the last 24 hours between
opposition marchers and security forces in Conakry. 26 people were
hospitalized with injuries from the violence.
(AP, 5/27/13)
2013 May 24, Niger's military,
with the help of French special forces, killed the last two
jihadists holed up inside a dormitory on the grounds of a military
garrison in the desert town of Agadez, and freed at least two
soldiers who had been held hostage.
(AP, 5/24/13)
2013 May 24, Nigeria's military
said it has rescued 3 women and 6 children taken hostage by Islamic
extremists after a May 7 attack on a police barracks in Bama. A
woman and 2 children remained missing.
(AP, 5/24/13)
2013 May 24, North Korean Vice
Marshal Choe Ryong Hae delivered a letter from leader Kim Jong Un to
Chinese President Xi Jinping and told him Pyongyang would take steps
to rejoin stalled six-nation nuclear disarmament talks, in an
apparent victory for Beijing's efforts to coax its unruly ally into
lowering tensions.
(AP, 5/24/13)
2013 May 24, In northwest
Pakistan a pair of suspected militant attacks killed 9 people in
Mattani and Peshawar.
(AP, 5/24/13)
2013 May 24, In Pakistan an
American diplomat accidentally killed a pedestrian while driving in
Islamabad.
(AP, 5/24/13)
2013 May 24, Russia's foreign
ministry said the Syrian government has agreed in principle to a
conference on the country's future proposed by Russia and the United
States.
(AP, 5/24/13)
2013 May 24, An earthquake in
the Sea of Okhotsk, east of the Russian coast and north of Japan
registered 8.0 on the Richter scale. Tremors were felt as far away
as Moscow, about 7,000 km (4,400 miles) west of the epicenter.
(AP, 5/24/13)
2013 May 24, In Spain the
Catholic Archdiocese in Madrid said it needed more exorcists to help
some of its faithful cope with the devil.
(SFC, 5/25/13, p.A2)
2013 May 24, Arthur Budovsky,
the founder of Liberty Reserve, a Costa Rica-based digital currency
system long favored by cybercrime scammers, was arrested in Spain. A
defendant identified as Budovsky's partner, Vladimir Kats, was in
custody in New York. Budovsky was soon indicted in the United States
along with six other people in a $6 billion money-laundering scheme
described as "staggering" in its scope.
(AP, 5/29/13)(SFC, 5/29/13, p.D1)(Econ, 6/1/13,
p.71)
2013 May 24, In Sri Lanka
Bowatte Indraratana (30) set himself on fire near the famed Temple
of Buddha's Tooth Relic in the central town of Kandy. He soon died
of severe burns after suffering injuries to over 95% of his body.
Indraratana was the first monk to self-immolate in Sri Lanka. He
allegedly killed himself because the authorities ignored his
requests to ban the slaughter of cattle.
(AP, 5/27/13)
2013 May 24, Syria's state
media said rebels have fired mortar shells at the central prison in
Aleppo, killing and wounding several inmates. Intense fighting
continued in the town of Qusair.
(AP, 5/24/13)
2013 May 24, Turkey's
parliament passed legislation that would ban all alcohol advertising
and tighten restrictions on the sale of such beverages.
(AP, 5/24/13)
2013 May 24, Ugandan President
Yoweri Museveni fired his top military commander, the ouster
apparently linked to turmoil over Museveni's alleged plan to have
his son succeed him as head of state.
(AP, 5/24/13)
2013 May 24, In Yemen al-Qaida
gunmen attacked a military position in al-Bayda province. The
fighting that left 3 militants and 2 soldiers dead.
(AP, 5/24/13)
2014 May 24, President Barack
Obama made a surprise trip to Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan.
(AP, 5/26/14)
2014 May 24, Afghan officials
said security forces have flushed out insurgents from Yamgan
district in Badakshan province, where 15 policemen were taken
hostage. 8 policemen were reported killed and seven others were
wounded. At least 7 civilians were also killed during operation.
(AFP, 5/24/14)
2014 May 24, In Belgium 3
people were killed and one badly injured after a man walked into the
Jewish Museum in Brussels, pulled out a Kalashnikov shoulder rifle
and started shooting before walking away. Mehdi Nemmouche, a French
citizen, was later charged with terrorist murder for gunning down an
Israeli couple and two museum workers. On March 7, 2019, Nemmouche
was convicted of murdering four people.
(AFP, 5/24/14)(SFC, 5/26/14, p.A2)(SFC, 1/16/19,
p.A2)(SFC, 3/8/19, p.A2)
2014 May 24, In Djibouti a
suicide bombing at a restaurant filled with Western military
personnel killed three people and wounded at least 15. Two Somalis
were suspected of carrying out the attack.
(Reuters, 5/25/14)
2014 May 24, An Egyptian court
convicted 20 students from an Islamist university in Cairo on
charges of rioting during a protest last year in support of ousted
Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, sentencing most of them to five
years in prison.
(AP, 5/24/14)
2014 May 24, French forces in
Central African Republic fired mortars and exchanged sustained
gunfire with Muslim rebels who once controlled the country.
(AP, 5/24/14)
2014 May 24, A magnitude 6.9
earthquake struck northern Greece and western Turkey. Over 250
people were reported injured.
(SSFC, 5/25/14, p.A4)
2014 May 24, In Iran Mahafarid
Amir Khosravi (aka Amir Mansour Aria), a billionaire businessman at
the heart of a $2.6 billion state bank scam, was executed. His was
the largest fraud case since the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution.
A total of 39 defendants were convicted in the case. Four received
death sentences, two got life sentences and the rest received
sentences of up to 25 years in prison.
(AP, 5/24/14)
2014 May 24, Malawi President
Joyce Banda said she is cancelling elections citing fraud and
"rampant irregularities." The decision triggered protests and was
challenged by the national electoral authority and a political
rival. Banda, who had been standing for re-election, ordered a new
vote within 90 days but said she would no longer be a candidate to
guarantee a credible outcome. Shortly before her announcement, the
electoral commission released preliminary results showing opposition
Democratic Progressive Party candidate Peter Mutharika leading with
42 percent of the vote, followed by Banda with 23 percent. The head
of the electoral authority said she did not have the power to do
this and that vote counting was continuing.
(Reuters, 5/24/14)
2014 May 24, In Nigeria a car
bomb killed at least 3 people in Jos.
(AFP, 5/25/14)
2014 May 24, President Vladimir
Putin said that Russia is ready for talks with Japan over disputed
Pacific Islands, but Japan may not be ready for negotiations. Japan
has imposed a set of measures against Russia for its annexation of
Ukraine's Crimea.
(Reuters, 5/24/14)
2014 May 24, Russian
authorities said 7 militants in the North Caucasus province of
Ingushetia died in a three-hour gun battle with Russian security
forces after which their hide-out was consumed by fire.
(Reuters, 5/24/14)
2014 May 24, In Somalia
al-Shabab militants stormed the parliament in Mogadishu. At least 7
people were killed including 6 attackers.
(Reuters, 5/24/14)(SSFC, 5/25/14, p.A4)
2014 May 24, Sudanese rebels
launched a major operation against an area in South Kordofan which a
controversial counter-insurgency unit showed off to journalists
after "liberating" it last week. The Daldako field commander of
Rapid Support-2 was killed in the rebel counter-attack.
(AFP, 5/25/14)
2014 May 24, Thailand's coup
leaders said that they would keep former PM Yingluck Shinawatra,
Cabinet members and anti-government protest leaders detained for up
to a week to give them "time to think" and to keep the country calm.
9 bombs exploded in the restive south, killing 2 people and wounding
dozens.
(AP, 5/24/14)
2014 May 24, In eastern Ukraine
Italian photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli (30) and Russian
interpreter Andrey Mironov were killed while covering fighting
between government forces and pro-Russia insurgents. They were
reportedly hit by government mortar fire as they were taking shelter
in a roadside ditch.
(AP, 5/25/14)
2014 May 24, Pope Francis
called for urgent steps to end Syria's three-year-old civil war as
he arrived in neighboring Jordan.
(Reuters, 5/24/14)
2014 May 24, Yemeni soldiers
killed 15 al-Qaida fighters in fierce fighting with militants who
launched a major attack overnight targeting army, security and
government buildings in Sayoun city, Hadramawt province. 12 soldiers
were killed in the fighting.
(AP, 5/24/14)(Reuters, 5/25/14)
2015 May 24, In Texas a
five-year drought came to a dramatic end, as a straight month of
rain built into a torrent that destroyed more than 1,000 homes. At
least 21 people were killed, including 5 in Houston, as spectacular
flash flooding hit Texas and Oklahoma.
(AFP, 5/25/15)(Reuters, 5/27/15)(SFC, 5/28/15,
p.A5)
2015 May 24, In southern
Afghanistan Taliban insurgents attacked police checkpoints, killing
at least 10 officers in the ongoing assault.
(AP, 5/24/15)
2015 May 24, Chinese
authorities said the death toll in the latest round of flooding has
risen to at least 52, including two schoolchildren aboard a bus
carrying more than twice its authorized passenger load that plunged
into a pond.
(AP, 5/24/15)
2015 May 24, Ethiopians voted
in the country's first general elections since the death of
strongman Meles Zenawi in 2012. On May 27 the electoral board said
the ruling party and its allies won an overwhelming majority in
parliament in the weekend elections. Final results on June 22 showed
the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF)
swept all but one seat in the 547-seat parliament. The opposition
complained of voting abuses.
(AFP, 5/24/15)(AFP, 5/27/15)(Reuters, 6/22/15)
2015 May 24, In France the 68th
Cannes film festival came to a close. The Grand Prix went to “Son of
Saul,” directed by Laszlo Nemes. The Palme d’Or went to “Dheepan,”
directed by Jacques Audiard.
(Econ, 5/30/15, p.84)
2015 May 24, Indonesia's
anti-terrorism squad killed two suspects and arrested seven others
in raids on a jihadist organization with possible links to the
Islamic State group.
(AP, 5/25/15)
2015 May 24, Indonesia's
National Disaster Mitigation Agency said that starting next week, it
would begin the repatriation of 720 Bangladeshi migrants over the
next month.
(Reuters, 5/24/15)
2015 May 24, Iran said it has
agreed to grant UN inspectors access to military sites as part of a
future deal over its contested nuclear program.
(SFC, 5/25/15, p.A4)
2015 May 24, In Israel a
Palestinian man (19) stabbed two Israeli teenagers as they walked to
a holy site on the Jewish Shavuot holiday. Officers apprehended the
suspected attacker and the two boys were hospitalized.
(AP, 5/24/15)
2015 May 24, Warplanes from
Libya's official government attacked the Anwar Afriqya oil tanker
off the coast near the city of Sirte, wounding two people. The
tanker had been unloading gasoil for Sirte's power plant when it
came under attack.
(Reuters, 5/24/15)
2015 May 24, Malaysia’s home
minister said mass graves and suspected human-trafficking detention
camps have been discovered by police in towns and villages bordering
Thailand. The mass graves were believed to contain the bodies of
hundreds of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh.
(Reuters, 5/24/15)
2015 May 24, A group of
international women activists crossed the heavily-fortified
Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea in what they
said was a symbolic act for peace.
(Reuters, 5/24/15)
2015 May 24, Poland held the
final round of a cliffhanger presidential election race between the
conservative incumbent Bronislaw Komorowski and an even more
conservative challenger. Conservative newcomer Andrzej Duda (43)
from the Law and Justice (PiS) opposition party won the presidential
run-off with 51.55% of the vote.
(AP, 5/24/15)(AFP, 5/25/15)
2015 May 24, Syrian state media
reported that Islamic State fighters have executed at least 400
people in Palmyra since capturing the ancient city four days ago.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said least 300 soldiers were
killed in the days of fighting before the city was captured. Syrian
state television said its air force had killed 300 insurgents in
strikes that broke the siege of the Jisr al-Shughour hospital in
Idlib province.
(Reuters, 5/24/15)
2015 May 24, A Syrian military
helicopter crashed at the northern air base of Kweiras, killing all
of its crew. An activist group said it was shot down by Islamic
State militants.
(AP, 5/24/15)
2015 May 24, In Yemen Saudi
forces and Houthi militia traded heavy artillery fire overnight,
which destroyed part of the Haradh border crossing, the main border
crossing between the two countries. In Taiz Houthi forces and
pro-Hadi fighters fired tank and artillery shells at each other
throughout the city overnight, killing 5 civilians. Local fighters
combating the Houthis in the south said they killed 8 Houthi
fighters in an ambush in Dalea province.
(Reuters, 5/24/15)
2016 May 24, The United States
and its allies staged 17 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria.
(Reuters, 5/25/16)
2016 May 24, The Obama
administration defended a deal reached last September that would
resolve the 1983 environmental disaster in California’s Central
Valley by absolving famers of a $330 million debt to taxpayers,
among other benefits. The settlement would relieve the federal
government of $3.8 billion in potential liability to Westlands Water
District in the San Joaquin Valley.
(SFC, 5/25/16, p.D1)
2016 May 24, Belgian riot
police fired a water cannon at protesters after fighting broke out
at the end of a major anti-austerity demonstration attended by tens
of thousands of people in central Brussels. At least one policeman
and several protesters were injured.
(AP, 5/24/16)
2016 May 24, In Brazil an
official with the Landless Workers Movement (MST) promised a new
wave of farm occupations following President Dilma Rousseff's
suspension to stand trial in the Senate. One percent of Brazil's
population owns 45 percent of all the country's land, according to a
US government report.
(Reuters, 5/25/16)
2016 May 24, British media
reported that singer-songwriter Adele has signed a contract with
Sony worth up to £90 million (117 million euros, $131 million), in
one of the biggest ever record deals. Adele has been at London-based
independent label XL Recordings since she was a teenager.
(AFP, 5/24/16)
2016 May 24, In Burundi gunmen
killed 3 people including a retired army colonel and a police chief,
in continuing violence associated with Pres. Pierre Nkurunziza's
extended time in power.
(AP, 5/25/16)
2016 May 24, Cuba announced
that it will legalize small and medium-sized private businesses.
(SFC, 5/25/16, p.A5)
2016 May 24, Czech PM Bohuslav
Sobotka berated members of ruling coalition partner ANO for blocking
a government-proposed anti-smoking bill in parliament, calling their
vote against a national ban a "disgrace".
(Reuters, 5/25/16)
2016 May 24, Officials in Dubai
announced a new, $270-million project to build homes and shops along
part of the under-construction Dubai canal.
(AP, 5/24/16)
2016 May 24, In Finland
American biochemical engineer Frances Arnold (59), whose discoveries
in "directed evolution" have helped produce medicines, including
drugs for treating diabetes, was awarded this year's euro 1 million
($1.2 million) Millennium Technology Prize.
(AP, 5/24/16)
2016 May 24, France's
government stepped up efforts to break blockades and strikes at
refineries that are threatening to paralyze the country just three
weeks ahead of the Euro 2016 football tournament.
(AFP, 5/24/16)
2016 May 24, Greek police
started moving some of the 8,000 migrants and refugees stranded in a
makeshift camp on the sealed northern border with Macedonia to
state-run facilities further south.
(Reuters, 5/24/16)
2016 May 24, In Iran Ayatollah
Ahmad Jannati (89) was chosen to lead the Assembly of Experts, a
clerical body that picks the country's next supreme leader. The
hard-line cleric has been in the country's power structure since its
1979 Islamic Revolution.
(AP, 5/24/16)
2016 May 24, Kenyan troops in
Somalia killed 21 suspected al-Shabab extremists who were plotting
an ambush in southern Somalia.
(AP, 5/25/16)
2016 May 24, In central Mexico
a mob of Atlatongo villagers attacked people suspected of a
kidnapping, killing two of them.
(AP, 5/25/16)
2016 May 24, Nigeria’s
agriculture commissioner Manzo Daniel said the Tuta absoluta moth,
dubbed "tomato Ebola" by local farmers, has destroyed more than 80
percent of tomato farms in the northern state of Kaduna. Tomato
prices have been steadily climbing for months, caused by unrest in
northern and central states where the crop is grown and this has
affected farmers' ability to plant and harvest.
(AFP, 5/25/16)
2016 May 24, South Korean
officials said an unspecified number of North Koreans working at a
Pyongyang-run restaurant overseas have escaped their workplace and
will come to South Korea. The announcement came after South Korean
media reported that two or three female employees at a North
Korean-run restaurant in China fled and went to an unidentified
Southeast Asian country earlier this month.
(AP, 5/24/16)
2016 May 24, South Sudan
authorities arrested an army major for allegedly trafficking
elephant ivory through the country's Paloich oil fields.
(AP, 5/27/16)
2016 May 24, Yehdego Mered, an
Eritrean man suspected of running a huge human trafficking network,
was arrested in Sudan.
(Reuters, 6/8/16)
2016 May 24, Switzerland's
market supervisor indicated that BSI SA helped transfer money to the
Alpine country connected to the Malaysian fund called 1MDB. The
Swiss attorney general's office opened criminal proceedings against
the bank, whose chief executive resigned.
(AP, 5/24/16)
2016 May 24, The Syrian
Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-Arab alliance, announced the launch of
a major assault against the Islamic State group north of the
jihadists' Syrian bastion of Raqa.
(AFP, 5/24/16)
2016 May 24, In Vietnam
President Barack Obama pressed Vietnam to allow greater freedoms for
its citizens, arguing that better human rights would improve the
communist country's economy, stability and regional power.
(AP, 5/24/16)
2016 May 24, Ukraine’s
government said 7 soldiers have died from shelling in the war-torn
east over the past 24 hours, the biggest casualty toll in a single
day this year.
(AFP, 5/24/16)
2016 May 24, In Yemen a bomb
hit a university campus in the rebel-held capital Sanaa killing 2
people at an event commemorating the country's 1990 unification.
(AFP, 5/24/16)
2017 May 24, Pope Francis urged
US President Donald Trump to be a peacemaker at their first meeting
after they exchanged sharp words last year, and Trump promised he
would not forget the pontiff's message. Pope Francis presented Trump
with a copy of his encyclical on preserving the environment.
(Reuters, 5/24/17)(SFC, 5/25/17, p.A3)
2017 May 24, US President
Donald Trump arrived in Brussels from Rome ahead of meetings with
other NATO leaders and the heads of European Union institutions.
(Reuters, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, The US
Congressional Budget Office said the GOP House health bill would
increase the number of people without insurance by 23 million within
a decade.
(SFC, 5/25/17, p.A1)
2017 May 24, Montana
Congressional candidate Greg Gianforte assaulted Guardian reporter
Ben Jacobs and threw him to the ground in Bozeman on the eve of
elections for a House seat. Republican Gianforte was still elected.
On June 12 he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 40 hours of
community service, 20 hours of anger management ordered to pay $385
in fines and court costs in addition to a 180-day suspended jail
sentence.
(SFC, 6/13/17, p.A8)
2017 May 24, Denis Johnson
(67), American fiction writer, poet and playwright, died at his home
at Seaside Ranch, Sonoma County, Ca. His books included the Vietnam
War novel “Tree of Smoke” (2007). It won the National Book Award for
Fiction and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
(SFC, 5/27/17, p.C3)
2017 May 24, Bogdan Mocanu, a
Romanian man living in New York City, was sentenced to more than two
years in prison for his role in a multi-state bank ATM skimming
scheme and ordered in US District Court in Springfield,
Massachusetts, to pay nearly $343,000 in restitution. He was part of
a group that defrauded banks in Massachusetts, New York and New
Jersey by placing devices on automated-teller machines that recorded
debit and credit card account numbers.
(AP, 5/25/17)
2017 May 24, Johnson &
Johnson said it has reached a $33 million settlement with 42 states
resolving allegations that it sold nonprescription medicines that
did not meet federal quality standards.
(SFC, 5/25/17, p.C5)
2017 May 24, Researchers
published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that showed
medicine made from marijuana, without the stuff that gives a high,
had cut seizures in kids with a severe form of epilepsy. GW
Pharmaceuticals of London, the maker of Epidiolex, is seeking US
Food and Drug Administration approval.
(AP, 5/25/17)
2017 May 24, US-based Praxair
and Germany-based Linde, two industrial gas firms, agreed to terms
of a merger of equals worth $70 billion.
(Econ 5/27/17, p.61)
2017 May 24, Abu Dhabi's
government-owned power utility said it has closed a 3.2 billion
dirham ($872 million) financing package for what will be the world's
largest solar power plant.
(Reuters, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, Algerian Pres.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika appointed Abdelmadjid Tebboune as prime
minister, replacing his confidant Abdelmalek Sellal in the wake of
parliamentary elections. Tebboune (71) was the housing minister of
the outgoing government.
(AFP, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, British police
arrested three people in South Manchester, bringing the total number
of arrests related to the May 22 concert attack to four.
(Reuters, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, The Moody's
ratings agency cut China's credit rating due to surging debt,
prompting a protest by Beijing and highlighting challenges faced by
Communist leaders as they overhaul a slowing economy.
(AP, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, Czech finance
minister Andrej Babis stepped down and was replaced by Ivan Pilny,
the former head of Microsoft’s Czech division.
(Econ 5/27/17, p.48)
2017 May 24, Ecuador's incoming
President Lenin Moreno was sworn into office. A day earlier he named
several people from the private sector to key cabinet posts.
(AP, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, Egyptian
prosecutors ordered the release on bail of opposition leader Khaled
Ali, accused of publicly making an obscene finger gesture in
January.
(AP, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, Indonesian police
in West Java said they have set up a task force to investigate
activities by gays in the country's most populous province.
(AP, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, In Indonesia twin
suicide bombings targeting police killed three officers, in the
deadliest attack by suspected militants in Jakarta in a year. On May
26 three suspects were arrested for alleged involvement in the
bombings.
(AP, 5/25/17) (AP, 5/26/17)
2017 May 24, Iran signed a deal
worth $615 million, €550 million, with a Spanish-Iranian consortium
under which the group will provide pipes used in Iran's oil
industry.
(AP, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, Iraq's interior
minister ordered an investigation into allegations that members of
the security forces had tortured, killed and abused civilians in the
campaign to oust Islamic State militants from Mosul.
(Reuters, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, In Kenya eight
police officers were killed by two roadside bombs during ongoing
operation in Liboi. Both attacks were claimed by Shabaab Islamists.
(AFP, 5/25/17)
2017 May 24, More than 30
migrants, mostly toddlers, drowned when about 200 people without
life jackets fell from a boat into the sea off the Libyan coast
before they could be hauled into waiting rescue boats. Another 82
were feared dead after falling into the water when their rubber boat
deflated.
(Reuters, 5/24/17)(Reuters, 5/30/17)
2017 May 24, Clashes broke out
between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces as
Israeli demonstrators march through the Old City of Jerusalem to
mark the 50th anniversary of Israel's capture of the city's eastern
half.
(AP, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, Representatives
from Myanmar's ethic rebel groups and the government gathered in
Yangon for five days of peace talks aimed at ending decades of
ethnic rebellions in the country.
(AP, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, Nepal's PM Pushpa
Kamal Dahal announced his resignation so Sher Bahadur Deuba, the
leader of his coalition partner party, can succeed him in line with
an agreement between the two parties.
(AP, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, Nepali Sherpas
found four climbers dead in their tents on Mount Everest, taking the
death toll on the world's highest mountain to 10 in the past month.
A day later Nepal said that the bodies were not of mountaineers from
this year's climbing season.
(Reuters, 5/24/17)(Reuters, 5/25/17)
2017 May 24, Pakistani prison
authorities executed Atta Ullah and Taj Mohammad, both members of
the Pakistani Taliban, over their involvement in a 2014 school
attack that killed 150 people, mostly schoolchildren.
(AP, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, In Pakistan armed
men pretending to be policemen kidnapped Chinese language teachers
Lee Zing Yang (24) and Meng Li Si (26) in Quetta. Their deaths were
confirmed on June 12.
(Reuters, 5/24/17)(AP, 6/12/17)
2017 May 24, Qatar authorities
blamed hackers for incendiary statements about Iran and Israel
posted on Qatar's state-run news agency. The statements sparked a
regional dispute, with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia
blocking Qatari media including Al-Jazeera.
(AP, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, Angry UN staff in
Geneva protested against a proposed 7.5 percent cut to their
salaries, the equivalent of almost a month's pay, and called for
strike action if it is implemented.
(Reuters, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, Syrian government
forces carried out at least 12 airstrikes and dropped at least nine
barrel bombs on rebel-held parts of Daraa as intense clashes with
insurgents, including members of the al-Qaida-linked Levant
Liberation Committee, continued in the city's Manshiyeh
neighborhood.
(AP, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, In Syria At least
16 civilians were killed in bombing raids early today by the US-led
coalition on the village of Al-Baruda 10 miles from Raqa. 15
civilians were reportedly killed in coalition raids on Mayadeen.
(AFP, 5/24/17)(AFP, 5/26/17)
2017 May 24, The Syrian army
said it had killed Abu Musab al-Masri, the Islamic State's military
commander in Syria, during operations in the north of the country,
in operations that got underway on May 10.
(Reuters, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, Taiwan's
Constitutional Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage,
punctuating a years-long campaign by advocates for gay rights. In
its majority opinion, the court said a provision in the current
civil code barring same-sex marriages violated two articles of the
constitution safeguarding human dignity and equality under the law.
(AP, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, A court in the
United Arab Emirates sentenced businessman Khater Massaad to 15
years in prison over one alleged scam. He was accused of stealing
$1.5 billion while working for one of its sheikhdoms. Massaad was
arrested in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, in September and still remains
there. He maintained his innocence and said that the charges were
part of a long-running vendetta against him by the government of Ras
al-Khaimah.
(AP, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, Angry Venezuelans
barricaded streets in parts of Caracas and the opposition geared up
for another protest as the announcement of two election dates failed
to appease anger against President Nicolas Maduro and an economy in
tailspin.
(Reuters, 5/24/17)
2017 May 24, Pres. Robert
Mugabe's daughter Bona Chikore (27) was appointed to the Zimbabwe
board of censors, the latest family member to take up an official
role.
(AFP, 5/24/17)
2018 May 24, President Donald
Trump cancelled his planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong
Un following North Korea's reaction to comments by US Vice President
Mike Pence.
(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, US President
Donald Trump rejected a push by moderate congressional Republicans
for a "Dreamer" immigration deal, saying he would only back sweeping
immigration legislation that met all of his demands, including a
US-Mexico border wall.
(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, Pres. Donald Trump
granted a posthumous pardon to Jack Johnson (d.1946), boxing's first
black heavy-weight champion (1908).
(SFC, 5/25/18, p.A10)
2018 May 24, Pres. Donald Trump
signed into law a measure that loosens key restraints for banks
imposed in 2010 after the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession.
(SFC, 5/25/18, p.C6)
2018 May 24, US Deputy
Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette launched an initiative with
several other governments to promote nuclear power and encourage
investment in new nuclear technologies. The partners included Japan,
Canada, Russia, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Poland,
Argentina and Romania.
(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, The United States
imposed sanctions on several Iranian and Turkish companies and a
number of aircraft in a move targeting four Iranian airlines.
(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, The US Special
Inspector for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found that
Washington had set unrealistic expectations for itself after the
US-led invasion in 2001 and overestimated its ability to build and
reform government institutions. It said the United States wasted
billions of dollars trying to stabilize fragile parts of Afghanistan
from 2001-2017 and some efforts caused more harm than good.
(AFP, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, Oscar-winning
actor Morgan Freeman apologized to anyone who might have felt
"uncomfortable or disrespected" by his behavior after CNN reported
the multiple women have accused him of sexual harassment and
inappropriate behavior on professional settings.
(SFC, 5/25/18, p.A7)
2018 May 24, Jerry Maren (98),
the Munchkin leader of the Lollipop Guild in the 1939 film "Wizard
of Oz," died in San Diego.
(SFC, 6/8/18, p.D5)
2018 May 24, In Idaho former
municipal worker Tom Young (62) was found dead at his home. Eight
people including emergency responders became ill after entering his
home in Dietrich. Mayor Don Heiken warned residents not to drink
local water over concenrs that Young may have contaminated the
community water well.
(SFC, 5/26/18, p.A6)
2018 May 24, In Oklahoma City
Alexander Tilghman (28) wounded a woman and two girls in a
restaurant before he was shot dead by two armed citizens.
(SFC, 5/26/18, p.A6)
2018 May 24, In southern
Afghanistan more than 50 senior Taliban commanders were reportedly
killed in an artillery strike on a meeting in Helmand province. The
Taliban dismissed the report as "propaganda" and said the attack had
hit two civilian houses in Musa Qala, killing five civilians and
wounding three.
(Reuters, 5/30/18)
2018 May 24, Algerian blogger
Merzoug Touati, arrested last year over social media posts, was
sentenced to 10 years in prison on espionage and other charges.
(Reuters, 5/25/18)
2018 May 24, Barbados elected
Mia Mottley (52), its first female prime minister, as the opposition
inflicted a crushing defeat on the ruling Democratic Labour Party
(DLP), winning all the seats in the Caribbean island's parliament.
(Reuters, 5/25/18)
2018 May 24, Brazil's
government and several unions that represent truckers said late
today that they had reached a deal for the suspension of a strike
for 15t days.
(SFC, 5/26/18, p.A2)
2018 May 24, In Canada an
explosion late today caused by a homemade bomb ripped through an
Indian restaurant where children were present for family parties at
a mall in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga, wounding 15 people.
(AP, 5/25/18)
2018 May 24, The European Union
imposed obligations on Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom to
improve the flow of gas at competitive prices in eastern EU nations,
but did not fine the company.
(AP, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, Germany's largest
lender Deutsche Bank said it will slash over 7,000 jobs globally and
dramatically scale back its investment banking activities as it
seeks to turn the page on years of losses.
(AFP, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, Germany-based
car-sharing service car2go said it is indefinitely suspending its
operations in Toronto, Canada, because parking regulations make its
business inoperable. It will suspend operations of the flexible,
short-term rental system on May 31.
(AP, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, India's Tamil Nadu
state said that it was seeking a permanent closure of a big copper
smelter run by London-listed Vedanta Resources after 13 people died
in protests demanding the closure of the plant on environmental
grounds.
(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, Iraq's PM Haider
al-Abadi ordered the creation of a high-powered commission to look
into alleged irregularities in the parliamentary elections held May
12, the first sign that authorities are taking seriously complaints
about the vote.
(AP, 5/25/18)
2018 May 24, Italy's foreign
minister proudly announced the return to Italy of a young Pakistani
woman (19) who was taken by her family to Pakistan to have an
abortion against her will after she got pregnant by her Italian
boyfriend.
(AP, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, A Japanese warship
spotted a North Korean tanker and another ship with a Korean name
apparently transferring fuel on the open seas in violation of UN
sanctions.
(AP, 6/1/18)
2018 May 24, Two Kosovo doctors
were convicted for a second time of involvement in an organ
trafficking ring that performed illegal kidney transplants at a
clinic near the capital Pristina. The director of the Medicus
clinic, urologist Lutfi Dervishi, had his sentence reduced by six
months to seven-and-a half years. Anesthetist Sokol Hajdini had his
sentence cut to one year from three.
(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, Latvian
authorities warned that an increased flow of questionable and
illegally sourced money into other EU states was expected as Baltic
authorities crack down on non-resident accounts.
(Reuters, 5/25/18)
2018 May 24, Lebanese lawmakers
designated PM Saad Hariri for a third term in office, after winning
the backing of a majority of MPs in official consultations.
(AFP, 5/24/18)(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, Dutch prosecutors
said a detailed analysis of video and photos by an international
team of investigators has unequivocally established that the Buk
missile that brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern
Ukraine nearly four years ago came from a Russia-based military unit
in Kurst. Russia's military denied that any Russian missile complex
had ever crossed the border between Russia and Ukraine.
(AP, 5/24/18)(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, North Korean
leader Kim Jong Un made good on his promise to demolish his
country's nuclear test site, which was formally closed in a series
of huge explosions as a group of foreign journalists looked on.
(AP, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, Pakistan passed
legislation paving the way for its restive tribal areas to enter the
mainstream political fold, bringing an ending to a colonial-era
arrangement that endorsed collective punishment and fuelled
militancy.
(AFP, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, A Romanian court
ordered that Austrian businessman Dieter Kaas (67), suspected of
child pornography, be placed under house arrest.
(AP, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, Rights groups said
Saudi authorities have released two prominent women's rights
activists, but continue to hold at least eight others in a sweep
targeting prominent icons of the women's rights movement.
(AP, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, Tensions in the
unrecognized breakaway northern state of Somaliland and the
semi-autonomous Somali state of Puntland erupted into violence
around the border town of Tukaraq in Sool, a disputed desert region
claimed by both sides. Troops from both camps were reported killed.
(AFP, 5/26/18)
2018 May 24, A Spanish court
ruled that the country's governing party benefited from the biggest
kickbacks-for-contracts scheme in four decades of democratic rule.
The former treasurer of Spain's ruling People's Party, Luis
Barcenas, was given a 33-year prison sentence and fined 44 million
euros for his part in a corruption case in which dozens of
high-ranking party members were jailed The conviction of more than
two dozen Spanish businesspeople and officials in a major corruption
scandal triggered political turmoil.
(AP, 5/24/18)(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, Spanish police
detained 29 people and raided several offices across Catalonia in an
operation against the alleged misappropriation of public development
aid money.
(AP, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, Authorities in
Spain issued arrest warrants for Jose Miguel Arenas Beltran (24), a
rap singer (aka Valtonyc) and composer from Palma de Mallorca,
sentenced to prison for lyrics that praised terror groups and
insulted the royal family.
(AP, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, Taiwan lost its
second diplomatic ally in less than a month when Burkina Faso said
it had cut ties with the self-ruled island, following intense
Chinese pressure on African countries to break with what it regards
as a wayward province.
(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, Thai police raided
four Buddhist temples, arresting several prominent monks and
worshippers in the year's biggest such operation amid a crackdown on
illegal financial dealings by temples.
(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, In Turkey rapper
Sercan Ipekcigolu (27), better-known as rapper "Ezhel," was detained
by narcotics police in Istanbul late today and was later charged
with encouraging the use of drugs.
(AP, 5/25/18)
2018 May 24, In Turkey a blast
at a state-owned explosives factory on the outskirts of Ankara
killed one worker and injured four others.
(AP, 5/24/18)
2018 May 24, The UN Security
Council unanimously approved a resolution that for the first time
recognizes the link between conflict and hunger and condemns the use
of starvation as a method of warfare.
(SFC, 5/25/18, p.A2)
2018 May 24, Yemen declared a
state of emergency on the island of Socotra as Cyclone Mekunu
intensified after flooding several villages and capsizing boats to
leave at least 17 people missing.
(AP, 5/24/18)
2019 May 24, US Pres. Donald
Trump, declaring a national emergency because of tensions with Iran,
swept aside objections from Congress to complete the sale of $8.1
billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates
and Jordan, citing a threat from Iran, infuriating lawmakers who
fear the weapons could kill civilians in Yemen.
(AFP, 5/24/19)(Reuters, 5/25/19)
2019 May 24, Intelligence
professionals warned that President Donald Trump's decision to give
his loyal attorney general carte blanche to disclose still-secret
material from the Russia investigation will let William Barr
cherry-pick intelligence to paint a misleading picture about what
started the probe.
(AP, 5/25/19)
2019 May 24, Pres. Donald Trump
said the United States is deploying 1,500 additional troops to the
Middle East to counter "credible threats" from Iran.
(AFP, 5/25/19)(SFC, 5/25/19, p.A4)
2019 May 24, US District Judge
Hayward Gilliam of Oakland, Ca., dealt a blow to President Donald
Trump's signature wall project, issuing a temporary injunction
against using Defense Department funds to pay for barriers on the
border with Mexico.
(AFP, 5/25/19)(SFC, 5/25/19, p.A1)
2019 May 24, US regulators
approved the most expensive medicine ever, for a rare inherited
condition called spinal muscular atrophy that destroys a baby's
muscle control and kills nearly all of those with the most common
type of the disease within a couple of years. The one-time gene
therapy developed by Novartis, Zolgensma, will cost $2.125 million.
(AP, 5/24/19)
2019 May 24, In Connecticut
Jennifer Dulos (50) of New Canaan went missing after dropping her
children off at school. Police later arrested Fotis Dulos, her
estranged husband, and Michelle Troconis, his girlfriend, on charges
of evidence tampering and hindering prosecution. Both have pleaded
not guilty, and both were free on $500,000 bond. Police later
detailed Fotis Dulos driving to multiple locations, with Troconis,
to dump trash bags containing bloody clothes.
(AP, 7/23/19)(ABC News, 9/5/19)
2019 May 24, Biographer Edmond
Morris (78) died in Danbury, Conn. His books included "The Rise of
Theodore Roosevelt" (1979), "Theodore Rex" (2001), "Colonel
Roosevelt" (2010) and "Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan" (1999).
(SFC, 5/28/19, p.C3)
2019 May 24, Floodwaters from
the Missouri River topped a levee at Jefferson City and shut down
some streets around the state Capitol.
(SFC, 5/25/19, p.A5)
2019 May 24, Murray Gell-Mann
(89), Nobel Prize winning physicist (1969), died at his home in
Santa Fe, New Mexico. He authored "The Quark and the Jaguar" (1994)
to present his ideas to a general audience.
(SFC, 5/27/19, p.C3)
2019 May 24, Facebook said it
increased the amount of content it restricted access to in Vietnam
by over 500% in the last half of 2018, as the Southeast Asian
country ramped up its crackdown on online dissent.
(Reuters , 5/24/19)
2019 May 24, In Afghanistan a
bomb exploded during weekly prayers at a mosque in an eastern part
of Kabul, killing three people including senior preacher Samiullah
Raihan. At least 20 men who had gathered for worship were wounded.
(Reuters, 5/24/19)
2019 May 24, In Argentina
hundreds of people staged a march in Buenos Aires against
"trigger-happy" police.
(SSFC, 5/26/19, p.A4)
2019 May 24, Britain’s PM
Theresa May (62) announced her resignation in an emotional address,
ending a dramatic three-year tenure of near-constant crisis over
Brexit and increasing the likelihood of Britain crashing out of the
EU later this year. May said she would step down as head of the
Conservative Party on June 7. Former foreign minister Boris Johnson,
the favorite to replace May, was first out of the blocks, saying
Britain should be prepared to leave the EU without a deal.
(AFP, 5/24/19)(Reuters, 5/24/19)
2019 May 24, Cambodia's Supreme
Court upheld a life prison term given to Oeut Ang, a man convicted
of murdering prominent government critic Kem Ley in July 2016.
(AP, 5/24/19)
2019 May 24, Chinese state
media accused the US of seeking to "colonize global business" with
moves against Huawei and other Chinese technology companies.
(AP, 5/24/19)
2019 May 24, In France 13
people suffered mostly minor injuries after a suspect deposited a
paper bag containing an explosive device that went off in the city
of Lyon. Days later police arrested four suspects following a blast
in Lyon. A suspect identified as Mohamed Hichem M. was arrested on
May 27. On May 31 a prosecutor said the suspect had pledged
allegiance to the Islamic State.
(AP, 5/25/19)(AP, 5/27/19)(SFC, 6/1/19, p.A4)
2019 May 24, In India at least
19 students were killed in a fire that broke out in a four-story
building in the western city of Surat. A youth died in hospital the
next day, increasing the toll to 20. Police soon charged three
owners of the tuition center at the Takshashila Arcade with culpable
homicide not amounting to murder, and attempted culpable homicide.
(AP, 5/24/19)(AP, 5/25/19)(SFC, 5/25/19, p.A2)
2019 May 24, Irish voters cast
ballots as part of phased EU-wide elections after a campaign
dominated by concerns over neighboring Britain's messy bid to leave
the bloc.
(AFP, 5/24/19)
2019 May 24, In Kenya a
three-judge panel of the High Court upheld sections of the country's
penal code that criminalize same-sex relations.
(AP, 5/24/19)
2019 May 24, A Mexican navy
helicopter with five crew on board crashed while helping to fight a
forest fire in the north-central state of Queretaro. Authorities
later confirmed that six people died in the crash.
(AFP, 5/25/19)(AP, 5/26/19)
2019 May 24, In Nepal a traffic
jam of climbers in the Everest "death zone" was blamed for two of
four new deaths reported today, heightening concerns that the drive
for profits is trumping safety on the world's highest peak.
(AFP, 5/24/19)
2019 May 24, North Korea said
that nuclear negotiations with the United States will never resume
unless the Trump administration moves away from what Pyongyang
described as unilateral demands for disarmament.
(AP, 5/24/19)
2019 May 24, Oman said it was
trying to reduce spiraling tensions between the Unites States and
Iran, as the Pentagon confirmed it was considering deploying more
troops to the region.
(AFP, 5/24/19)
2019 May 24, In Pakistan a
bombing at a Sunni mosque in the city of Quetta, the capital of
restive Baluchistan province, killed two people, including the
prayer leader. 28 worshippers were wounded.
(AP, 5/24/19)
2019 May 24, It was reported
that Paraguay’s indigenous Isla Jovai Teju community has gone
digital to map the its ancestral land with a smartphone app and GPS.
Their lands have been encroached on over the years by widespread
deforestation and vast surrounding plantations of soybeans and
maize.
(Reuters, 5/24/19)
2019 May 24, A Russian court
extended the arrest for Paul Whelan, a former US Marine charged with
espionage, for three more months. Whelan had complained in court
about abuse in custody.
(AP, 5/24/19)
2019 May 24, South Korea said
it's discussing security issues regarding its 5G, or fifth
generation, cellphone networks with the United States following a
report the Trump administration is demanding that Seoul join a "war"
against Huawei.
(AP, 5/24/19)
2019 May 24, In Taiwan hundreds
of same-sex couples rushed to get married, the first day a landmark
decision that legalized same-sex marriage took effect.
(AP, 5/24/19)
2019 May 24, In western
Venezuela at least 29 prisoners were killed and 19 police wounded in
clashes at a jail in the town of Acarigua, Portuguesa state. Police
special forces (FAES) had tried to stop a "massive prison break”.
(AFP, 5/25/19)
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