This Day in History - 24th May
1487The ten-year-old Lambert Simnel was crowned in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, with the name of Edward VI in a bid to threaten King Henry VII's reign.
1530A list of heretical books was drawn up in London. Tyndale's Bible was burnt.
1689 Parliament introduced the Toleration Act. The Act granted freedom of worship to Nonconformists (i.e. dissenting Protestants) and granted them their own places of worship and their own teachers and preachers, subject to acceptance of certain oaths of allegiance. It enabled this building, Farfield Friends' Meeting House, to be erected (1689) and licensed as a place of worship. The building is one of the earliest Quaker Meeting Houses in the world and has been chosen by Historic England as 'One of the 10 most significant Faith and Belief places in England'.
1738John Wesley first attended evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral, London, then went on to a meeting at Aldersgate where he experienced his conversion. This was the start of Wesley’s Methodism, and over 270 years later there are 54 million Methodists in 60 countries. The design and construction of the octagon Heptonstall Chapel in West Yorkshire were overseen by John Wesley. He laid the foundation stone and preached in the unfinished shell of the church.
1809Dartmoor Prison was opened to accommodate French prisoners of war. From 1850 it becomes a prison for convicts.
1819Princess Alexandrina Victoria was born at Kensington Palace in London, the only daughter of the Duke of Kent. As Queen Victoria, she reigned for 63 years, from 1837 until her death in 1901. She married Prince Albert in 1840 and had four sons and five daughters. After Albert’s death in 1861, she went into virtual retirement.
1836The birth, in York, of Joseph Rowntree, Quaker philanthropist, social reformer and chocalatier businessman.
1895The actor Henry Irving became the first person from the theatre to be knighted. On his death he was cremated and his ashes buried in Westminster Abbey, thereby becoming the first person ever to be cremated prior to interment at Westminster.
1930Amy Johnson landed at Darwin, Australia and became the first woman to fly from England to Australia.
1941World War II: The German battleship Bismarck sank the Royal Navy's largest warship HMS Hood off Greenland with the loss of more than 1,400 lives. The ship exploded when a German shell hit the Hood's ammunition store.
1969The Black and White Minstrel Show, at London's Victoria Palace, closed after completing 4,354 performances over a period of seven years.
1976British Airways and Air France Concordes arrived at Dulles International Airport, Washington D.C. having made their first commercial crossing of the North Atlantic.
1978Princess Margaret, sister of Queen Elizabeth II was divorced from her husband, Lord Snowdon, after 18 years of marriage.
1989A jury at the High Court in London awarded £600,000 damages to Sonia Sutcliffe, wife of the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, against the satirical magazine Private Eye.
1995The death of Harold Wilson, Huddersfield born Labour politician and Prime Minister from 1964-1970 and again from 1974-1976. This statue of him, outside Huddersfield railway station in St George’s Square, was unveiled in July 1999 by the then Prime MInister Tony Blair.
2019At just after 10:00 am this morning, Theresa May announced that she would stand down as Prime Minister on Friday 7th June.