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Today in History, May 24th

On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse sent "What hath God wrought?" by telegraph from Washington to Baltimore. Plus the Brooklyn Bridge opens.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 3 min read Sources checked

Published May 24, 2026 · Last updated November 10, 2026

May 24 is best known for 1844, when Samuel Morse sent the message “What hath God wrought?” over a telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore. The date also saw the Brooklyn Bridge open in 1883 and Major League Baseball play its first night game in 1935.

The big story: Morse sends “What hath God wrought?” (1844)

Samuel F.B. Morse made his first name as a painter, not an inventor. In 1832 he heard about a French inventor’s idea for an electric telegraph, and he spent roughly the next 12 years trying to build one that actually worked. Along the way he devised a system of signals, the code that still bears his name, to turn letters into electrical pulses. He also talked Congress into paying for an experimental line between Washington and Baltimore. On May 24, 1844, Morse tapped out a message from the U.S. Capitol to his partner Alfred Vail at a Baltimore railroad station. Vail sent it straight back. The words, a line from the Bible’s Book of Numbers, were picked by Annie Ellworth, the daughter of the U.S. patent commissioner. Within about a decade, more than 20,000 miles of telegraph wire crossed the country, speeding business, making railroads safer and tying a sprawling nation together.

More events on May 24

Year	What happened
1689	England’s Parliament passed the Toleration Act (Old Style).
1775	John Hancock was elected president of the Second Continental Congress. He still held the post when the Declaration of Independence was adopted.
1830	The first line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opened.
1883	The Brooklyn Bridge opened, with President Chester A. Arthur on hand. Its 1,595-foot main span made it the largest suspension bridge built up to then, and about 250,000 people walked across in its first 24 hours.
1917	Facing German U-boat attacks, Britain’s Royal Navy began making merchant ships cross the Atlantic in protected convoys.
1935	The Cincinnati Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1 at Crosley Field in Major League Baseball’s first night game.
1941	The German battleship Bismarck sank HMS Hood, the pride of the British fleet.
1956	The first Eurovision Song Contest was held in Lugano, Switzerland. The host country won with “Refrain,” sung by Lys Assia.
2000	Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon, ending an occupation of 18 years.
2022	A school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, killed 21 people, 19 of them fourth-grade students.

Born on May 24

1819: Queen Victoria, British monarch for almost 64 years, born at Kensington Palace in London.
1941: Bob Dylan, American singer-songwriter and Nobel laureate in literature, born in Duluth, Minnesota.
1949: Jim Broadbent, English actor who won an Academy Award for Iris, born in Lincoln, England.