Today, May 24, 2023

1626….Dutch settler, Peter Minwit, buys Manhattan Island from the Indians. In return, he offers key chains and other fancy trinkets, valued at $24. Almost 250 years later…

1883…. In the USA, the Brooklyn Bridge is inaugurated, which connects the island of Manhattan with the Brooklyn area of ​​New York.

It is 600 meters long and is the longest suspension bridge of the time. It was described as an architectural wonder and its construction lasted 14 years.

With a main span of 486.3 meters it was the longest suspension bridge in the world from its completion until 1903, and the first steel cable suspension bridge.

Read more: Today – 1528: The first Greek to arrive in America

Other facts

1738…. The Methodist Church is founded.

1844….Samuel Morse presents his invention, the telegraph, before members of the US Congress by sending the first telegram from Washington to Baltimore.

1881…. An agreement is signed between Turkey, England and France, according to which Arta and Thessaly – apart from the province of Elassona – are annexed to Greece.

1915… Thomas Edison presents his new invention, a device that records telephone conversations.

1930… The ninth planet, which is discovered, is named “Pluto”.

…. On the same day, Amy Johnson, the first female aviator, lands in Darwin, Australia, making a solo flight of 11,000 miles from England to Australia.

1931… The opening of the new Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens takes place in the mansion of “Duchess Placentia” on Vasilissis Sofias Street.

1954…. The German airline Lufthansa is founded.

1956…. The first Eurovision Song Contest is held, in Lugano, Switzerland. The winner is the Swiss Lis Asia, with the song “Refrain”.

1964… In Lima, Peru, the bloodiest riots ever seen during a football match break out in the Olympic Tournament qualifier between Argentina and Peru, when the referee disallows a goal by the Peruvian team. The dead amount to 300 and the wounded to 650.

1968…. Students set fire to the Paris Stock Exchangein the context of the Parisian May ’68 riots.

1993…. Two years after the end of the war with Ethiopia, the Republic of Eritrea officially declares its independence.

1995…. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic rejects a proposal to recognize Bosnia-Herzegovina in exchange for the lifting of UN sanctions against his country.

Like today in 1743 he was born the french revolutionary, Jean Paul Maratin 1819 the Queen of the United Kingdom Victoriawhich marked the 19th century in Great Britain and its era was called Victorian and in 1941 the American singer and composer, Bob Dylanstage name of Robert Allen Zimmerman.

On the same day in 1543 passed away the Polish astronomer Copernicus“father of modern astronomy”, who proposed the theory of the heliocentric system and in 1974 the American jazz composer and pianist, Duke Ellington.