May 23
1430 - Joan of Arc was captured by Burgundians. She was then sold to the English.
1533 - Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon was declared null and void.
1618 - The Thirty Years War began when three opponents of the Reformation were thrown through a window.
1701 - In London, Captain William Kidd was hanged after being convicted of murder and piracy.
1785 - Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter that he had invented bifocals.
1788 - South Carolina became the eighth state to ratify U.S. Constitution.
1827 - The first nursery school in the U.S. was established in New York City.
1846 - Arabella Mansfield (Belle Aurelia Babb) was born. She was the first woman in the U.S. to pass the bar exam, though she never used her law degree.
1873 - Canada's North West Mounted Police force was established. The organization's name was changed to Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 1920.
1876 - Boston’s Joe Borden pitched the very first no-hitter in the history of the National League.
1879 - The first U.S. veterinary school was established by Iowa State University.
1895 - The New York Public Library was created with an agreement that combined the city's existing Astor and Lenox libraries.
1900 - Civil War hero Sgt. William H. Carney became the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor, 37 years after the Battle of Fort Wagner.
1901 - American forces captured Filipino rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo.
1908 - Part of the Great White Fleet arrived in Puget Sound, WA.
1915 - During World War I, Italy joined the Allies as they declared war on Austria-Hungary.
1922 - The play "Abie's Irish Rose" opened in New York City.
1922 - "Daylight Saving Time" was debated in the first debate ever to be heard on radio in Washington, DC.
1926 - The French captured the Moroccan Rif capital.
1934 - In Bienville Parish, LA, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were ambushed and killed by Texas Rangers. The bank robbers were riding in a stolen Ford Deluxe.
1937 - Industrialist John D. Rockefeller died.
1938 - "LIFE" magazine’s cover pictured Errol Flynn as a glamour boy.
1945 - In Luneburg Germany, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi Gestapo, committed suicide while imprisoned by the Allied forces.
1949 - The Republic of West Germany was established.
1960 - Israel announced the capture of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Argentina.
1962 - The National Basketball Association (NBA) agreed to transfer the Philadelphia Warriors to San Francisco, CA. The team became the San Francisco Warriors (and later the Golden State Warriors).
1962 - Joe Pepitone of the New York Yankees set a major league baseball record by hitting two home runs in one inning.
1981 - In Barcelona, Spain, gunmen seized control of the Central Bank and took 200 hostages.
1985 - Thomas Patrick Cavanagh was sentenced to life in prison for trying to sell Stealth bomber secrets to the Soviet Union.
1992 - In Lisbon, Portugal , the U.S. and four former Soviet republics signed an agreement to implement the START missile reduction treaty that had been agreed to by the Soviet Union before it was dissolved.
1994 - "Pulp Fiction" won the "Golden Palm" for best film at the 47th Cannes Film Festival.
1995 - The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was demolished.
1998 - British Protestants and Irish Catholics of Northern Ireland approved a peace accord.
1999 - In Kansas City, MO, Owen Hart (Blue Blazer) died when he fell 90 feet while being lowered into a WWF wrestling ring. He was 33 years old.
1999 - Gerry Bloch, at age 81, became the oldest climber to scale El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. He broke his own record that he set in 1986 when he was 68 years old.
2013 - Google acquired Makani Power for use for its Project Wing.
2016 - U.S. President Obama announced that the United States would end its ban of lethal military equipment sales to Vietnam. The restrictions had been in place since the end of the Vietnam War.
