May 23
1430 –
Joan of Arc is captured by the
Burgundians while leading an army to raise the
Siege of Compiègne.
1701 – After being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore,
Captain William Kidd is hanged in London, England.
1934 – The American bank robbers
Bonnie and Clyde
are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.
1939 – The U.S. Navy submarine
USS Squalus sinks off the coast of New Hampshire during a test dive, causing the death of 24 sailors and two civilian technicians. The remaining 32 sailors and one civilian naval architect are rescued the following day.
1945 – World War II:
Heinrich Himmler, the head of the
Schutzstaffel (SS), commits suicide while in Allied custody.
1958 – The satellite
Explorer 1
ceases transmission.
1995 – The first version of the
Java programming language is released.
2004 – Part of Paris'
Charles de Gaulle Airport's
Terminal 2E collapses, killing four people and injuring three others.
2010 – Jamaican police begin a manhunt for drug lord
Christopher Coke, after the United States requested his extradition, leading to
three days of violence during which at least 73 gunmen, policemen and bystanders are killed.
2013 – The
Interstate 5 bridge
over the Skagit River collapses in Mount Vernon, Washington.
2014 – Seven people, including the perpetrator, are killed and another 14 injured in a
killing spree near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara.
2015 – At least 46 people are killed as a result of floods caused by a tornado in Texas and Oklahoma.
Births
1707 – Carl Linnaeus; 1820 – James Buchanan Eads; 1824 – Ambrose Burnside; 1883 – Douglas Fairbanks; 1910 – Scatman Crothers, Artie Shaw; 1912 – John Payne; 1928 – Rosemary Clooney; 1931 – Barbara Barrie; 1933 – Joan Collins; 1934 – Robert Moog (invented the
Moog synthesizer); 1936 – Charles Kimbrough (anchorman on "Murphy Brown"); 1942 – Zalman King; 1946 – Michael Morrison (porn actor); 1954 – Marvin Hagler; 1956 – Buck Showalter; 1958 – Mitch Albom, Drew Carey; 1961 – Karen Duffy ('Duff', MTV vj); 1963 – Wally Dallenbach Jr.; 1973 – Maxwell; 1974 – Jewel, Ken Jennings
Deaths
1701 – William Kidd; 1868 – Kit Carson; 1906 – Henrik Ibsen; 1934 – Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker; 1937 – John D. Rockefeller; 1945 – Heinrich Himmler; 1975 – Moms Mabley; 1981 – George Jessel; 1986 – Sterling Hayden; 1994 –
Joe Pass; 1999 – Owen Hart; 2002 – Sam Snead; 2006 – Lloyd Bentsen ("Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine.
Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."; 2015 – Anne Meara; 2015 – Alicia Nash & John Forbes Nash, Jr. (subject of the movie
A Beautiful Mind)