On May 24

A gunman involved in Islamic extremism opened fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing four people.

An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary film that has been credited for raising international public awareness of climate change and re-energizing the environmental movement, was released.

The Israel Defense Forces began Operation Solomon, a covert operation to bring thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel (evacuees pictured).

Section 28 of the United Kingdom's Local Government Act of 1988, a controversial amendment stating that a local authority cannot intentionally promote homosexuality, was enacted.

A stationary front began over the central Caribbean Sea, leading to severe floods that over two weeks killed dozens of people in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.

In a wine competition in Paris, French judges shocked the wine industry by rating California wines higher than French ones.

On the Kola Peninsula in Russia, drilling began on the Kola Superdeep Borehole, which eventually reached a depth of 12,262 metres (40,230 ft), making it the deepest borehole ever drilled and the lowest artificial point on Earth.

United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy met with African American author James Baldwin in an unsuccessful attempt to improve race relations.

Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbited the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule.

The first edition of the Eurovision Song Contest was held in Lugano, Switzerland.

Arab–Israeli War: After five days of fighting, Egyptian forces captured the Israeli community of Yad Mordechai after the defenders had abandoned it.

Second World War: The German battleship Bismarck sank the British battlecruiser Hood at the Battle of the Denmark Strait.

English aviator Amy Johnson landed in Darwin, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.

Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia married Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover; the occasion was one of the last great social events of European royalty before World War I began.

New York City's Brooklyn Bridge opened as the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time.

The nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb" was first published as a poem by Sarah Josepha Hale.

The Irish Rebellion of 1798 began, with battles beginning in County Kildare and fighting later spreading across the country.

At a Moravian meeting in Aldersgate, London, John Wesley (pictured) experienced a spiritual rebirth, leading him to launch the Methodist movement.

The Act of Toleration became law, granting freedom of worship to English nonconformists under certain circumstances, but deliberately excluding Catholics.

Oxford University's Ashmolean Museum, the world's first university museum, opened.