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Today in History
May 23
1430 – Joan of Arc is captured at Compiegne and sold to the English
1536 – Pope Paul III installs Portugese inquisition
1568 – The Netherlands declare independence from Spain.
1701 – Captain William Kidd is hanged in London after being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore.
1785 – Benjamin Franklin announces his invention of bifocals
1861 – Virginia citizens vote 3 to 1 in favor of secession from the Union
1862 – Battle at Front Royal, Virginia
1867 – Jesse James gang robs bank in Richmond, Missouri (2 die, $4,000 taken)
1887 – First transcontinental train arrives in Vancouver, BC
1903 – First automobile trip across US which began on April 1 in San Francisco ended in New York
1908 – Dirigible explodes over San Francisco Bay, 16 passengers fall, none die
1911 – NY Public Library building at 5th Avenue dedicated by President Taft
1939 – Hitler proclaims he wants to move into Poland
1958 – Mao Tse Tung start “Great leap forward” movement in China
1960 – Israel announces capture of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina
1962 – Scott Carpenter orbits Earth 3 times in Aurora 7
1977 – Supreme Court refuses to hear appeals of Watergate wrongdoers H. R. Halderman, John Ehrlichman and John Mitchell
1992 – President Bush orders Coast Guard to intercept boats with Haitian refugees
2004 – Part of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport’s Terminal 2E collapses, killing four people and injuring three others.
Birthdays
1707 – Carolus Linnaeus, Swedish botanist and the Father of Taxonomy
1875 – Alfred P. Sloan, President and chairman of General Motors (d. 1966)
1908 – John Bardeen, US, physicist (transistor, Nobel 1956, 1972)
1910 – Artie Shaw, [Arthur Arshawsky], bandleader
1910 – Franz Jozef Kline, expressionist painter
1951 – Anatoli Karpov, USSR, world chess champion (1975-85)
Deaths
1498 – Girolamo Savonarola, dictator of Florence (1494-98), hanged at 45
1701 – William Kidd, Scottish pirate, hanged at London’s Execution Dock
1752 – William Bradford, English-born printer (b. 1663)
1868 – Kit Carson, American trapper, scout, and Indian agent (b. 1809)
1934 – Bonnie Parker, American outlaw, killed in police ambush at 23
1934 – Clyde Barrow, outlaw, killed in police ambush
1937 – John D Rockefeller, industrialist and philanthropist, dies at 97
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