On May 24, 1626, Peter Minuit of the Dutch West India Trading
Co. bought the island of Manhattan from natives for $24 worth of
goods. In 1775, John Hancock was elected president of the 2d
Continental Congress. In 1819, Queen Victoria was born in
Kensington, England. In 1830, the first passenger railroad in
the United States began service between Baltimore and Elliott`s
Mills, Md., a 13-mile trip. In 1844, Samuel Morse transmitted
the first public message by telegraph, from Washington to
Baltimore. In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge, linking Manhattan and
Brooklyn, was opened. In 1935, night baseball began in the major
leagues in Cincinnati, where the Redlegs beat the Philadelphia
Phillies 2-1. In 1937, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the
constitutionality of the Social Security Act. In 1941, the
German battleship Bismarck sank the British battle cruiser Hood
in the North Atlantic, and 1,300 lives were lost. In 1962,
astronaut Scott Carpenter became the second American to fly in
orbit as he circled the Earth three tim