What major event happened on this day of May 23? May 23 is the 143rd day of the year (144th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 222 days remaining until the end of the year.
1430 - Battle of Compiegne: Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians in leading an army to relieve Compia¨gne.
1498 - Girolamo Savonarola was burned at the stake in Florence, Italy, on the orders of Pope Alexander VI.
1533 - The marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon is declared null and void.
1568 - The Netherlands declared their independence from Spain.
1568 - Dutch rebels led by Louis of Nassau, brother of William of Orange, defeat Jean de Ligne, Duke of Arenberg and his loyalist troops in the Battle of Heiligerlee, the opening of the War Eighty Years .
1609 - Official ratification of the Second Charter of Virginia takes place.
1618 - The Second Defenestration of Prague precipitates the Thirty Years War.
1701 - After being convicted of piracy and murder of William Moore, Captain William Kidd is hanged in London.
1706 - Battle of Ramillies: John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, defeated a French army under Marshal de Villeroy.
1788 - South Carolina ratified the Constitution as the eighth U.S. state.
1805 - Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned King of Italy with the Iron Crown of Lombardy in the Milan Cathedral.
1813 - South American independence leader Simon Bolivar from Merida, leading to the invasion of Venezuela, and is proclaimed El Libertador (the Liberator).
1844 - Declaration of the Bab: a merchant of Shiraz announces he is a prophet and founded a religious movement that would later be brutally crushed by the Persian government. It is considered a forerunner of the Baha¡'a Faith, and Baha'is celebrate the day as a holy day.
1846 - Mexican-American War: President Mariano Paredes of Mexico declares war on the unofficial United States.
1863 - Organization of the seventh day Adventist Church in Battle Creek, Michigan.
1863 - The siege of Port Hudson held.
1863 - American Civil War: Sergeant William Harvey Carney becomes the first African American to be awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism during the attack on Battery Wagner.
1873 - The Canadian Parliament establishes the North West Mounted Police, the forerunner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
1907 - The unicameral Parliament of Finland gathered for its first plenary session.
1911 - The New York Public Library is dedicated.
1915 - First World War: Italy joins the Allies after they declare war on Austria-Hungary.
1923 - Launch of the Belgian airline Sabena.
1929 - The first talking cartoon of Mickey Mouse, The Karnival Kid "is released.
1934 - American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed by police and killed in Black Lake, Louisiana.
1934 - Auto-Lite Strike culminated in the "Battle of Toledo, a five-day melee between 1,300 troops of the National Guard of Ohio and 6,000 strikers.
1939 - The U.S. Navy submarine USS Squalus sinks off the coast of New Hampshire during a test dive, killing 24 sailors and two civilian technicians. The remaining 32 sailors and a civilian naval architect fled the next day.
1945 - World War II: Heinrich Himmler, the SS chief, Committee Allied suicide in detention.
1945 - World War II: The Flensburg government under Reichspra¤sident Karl Da¶nitz was dissolved when its members were captured and arrested by British forces at Flensburg in Northern Germany.
1949 - The Federal Republic of Germany is established and the fundamental law of the Federal Republic of Germany is proclaimed.
1951 - Seventeen Tibetans to sign the agreement, the point of the Liberatio peaceful.
Posted on March 2, 2010.
