Today is Sunday, May 24, the 144th day of 2009. There are 221 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight

On May 24, 1844, Samuel F.B. Morse transmitted the message, “What hath God wrought” from Washington to Baltimore as he formally opened America’s first telegraph line.

Thought for Today

“It is the weakness and danger of republics, that the vices as well as virtues of the people are represented in their legislation.” — Helen Maria Hunt Jackson, American author (1830-1885)

On this date

In 1819, Queen Victoria was born in London.

In 1859, the song “Ave Maria,” featuring a melody by French composer Charles Gounod superimposed on a theme from Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier,” was first performed in Paris by opera singer Marie Caroline Miolan-Carvalho.

In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge, linking Brooklyn and Manhattan, was dedicated by President Chester Alan Arthur and New York Gov. Grover Cleveland, and opened to traffic.

In 1941, the German battleship Bismarck sank the British dreadnought Hood in the North Atlantic.

In 1959, former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles died in Washington, D.C., at age 71.

In 1962, astronaut Scott Carpenter became the second American to orbit the Earth as he flew aboard Aurora 7.

In 1976, Britain and France opened trans-Atlantic Concorde supersonic transport service to Washington.

In 1977, in a surprise move, the Kremlin ousted Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny from the Communist Party’s ruling Politburo.

In 1980, Iran rejected a call by the World Court in The Hague to release the American hostages.

In 1999, a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that schools can be sued when officials fail to stop students from sexually harassing each other. The Supreme Court ruled that police violate people’s privacy rights when they bring TV camera crews or other journalists into homes during arrests or searches. Mike Tyson walked out of a Rockville, Md., jail after serving 3½ months behind bars for assaulting two motorists after a fender-bender.

In 2001, 23 people died when the floor of a Jerusalem wedding hall collapsed beneath dancing guests in a horrifying scene captured on video.

In 2004, President George W. Bush sought to reassure Americans in a prime-time address that he had a plan to pull Iraq out of the violence and chaos that had marked the year since he declared an end to major combat. A federal court in Portland, Ore., threw out the case brought against Brandon Mayfield, an American lawyer once linked to the Madrid train bombings, and the FBI apologized for a fingerprint-identification error that led to his arrest. Severe storms flooded villages in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, resulting in an estimated 3,000 deaths.

In 2008, British actor Rob Knox, 18, who had completed filming a minor role in “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” was stabbed to death during a brawl in London. (His attacker, Karl Bishop, was later sentenced to life in prison.) Comedy performer and director Dick Martin of TV’s “Laugh-In” fame died in Santa Monica, Calif., at age 86.

Associated Press