On this day

May 24: Aldersgate Day (Methodism)

John Wesley

 1567 – The mentally ill King Erik XIV of Sweden and his guards murdered five
incarcerated nobles, including some members of the influential Sture family.
 1738 – At a Moravian meeting in Aldersgate, London, John
Wesley (pictured) experienced a spiritual rebirth, leading him to launch the Methodist
movement.
 1948 – Arab–Israeli War: After five days of fighting, Egyptian forces finally captured the
Israeli community of Yad Mordechai after the defenders had abandoned it.
 1962 – Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbited the Earth three
times in the Aurora 7 space capsule.
 2006 – 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.
 Cathinka Buchwieser (b. 1789)