TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – MAY 23
1430 Burgundians capture Joan of Arc and sell her to the English.
1533 Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon is declared null and void.
1618 Defenestration of Prague took place as Bohemian Protestants angry over what they saw as a threat to their religious freedom threw two Catholic imperial regents and their secretary out an upper-story palace window; the men survived the incident, which helped trigger the Thirty Years’ War.
1701 Captain William Kidd, the Scottish pirate, is hanged on the banks of the Thames.
1785 Benjamin Franklin announces his invention of bifocals.
1844 Siyyid `Alí Muḥammad Shírází founds Bábism The Báb, as he called himself, created the religion which was a forerunner of the Bahá’í Faith. His teachings were seen as a threat by the Islamic clergy, and his followers were brutally persecuted by the Persian government.
1873 Canada’s North West Mounted Police force was established. The organization’s name was changed to Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 1920.
1900 Civil War hero Sgt. William H. Carney becomes the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor, thirty-seven years after the Battle of Fort Wagner.
1929 A new gold rush is starting in Australia as gold has been found just 3 feet below the surface and claims are now being made all over the area in South West.
1934 Gangsters Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were shot to death in a police ambush in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.
1945 Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi Gestapo, commits suicide after being captured by Allied forces.
1949 The Federal Republic of West Germany is proclaimed.
1951 Delegates of the Dalai Lama sign the Seventeen Point Agreement The contract affirmed Chinese sovereignty over Tibet.
1960 Israel announces the capture of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Argentina.
1967 Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, an action which helped precipitate war between Israel and its Arab neighbors the following month.
1977 Moluccan extremists seized a train and a primary school in the Netherlands; the hostage drama ended June 11 as Dutch marines stormed the train, resulting in the deaths of six out of nine hijackers and two hostages, while the school siege ended peacefully.
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.
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.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
