May 23

1430 – Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians while leading an army to raise the Siege of Compiègne.

1609 – The Second Virginia Charter a ” further Enlargement and Explanation of the said Grant, Privileges, and Liberties”, for the London Company  is ratified, more than doubling the area granted from the first charter.

1701 – After being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore, Captain William Kidd is hanged in London.

1788 – South Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution as the 8th American state.

1846 – In response to the U.S. declaration of war on the 13th, Mexican President Mariano Paredes reciprocates with his first manifesto of defense.

1895 – The libraries of the Astor and Lenox  Foundations are merged, and using the funds of the Tilden Trust, form and build the New York Public Library.

1900 – Sergeant William Harvey Carney is awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism in the Assault on Battery Wagner in 1863, the first action where a black soldier would be awarded the Medal.

1932 – In Brazil, 4 students are shot and killed during a protest against the Brazilian dictator Getúlio Vargas, which resulted in the outbreak of the Constitutionalist Revolution several weeks later.

1934 – Bank robbers and murderers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

1939 – The U.S. Navy’s Sargo class submarine, USS Squalus sinks off the coast of New Hampshire during a test dive with the loss 26 of 59 sailors and civilian technicians aboard.

1945 – Heinrich Himmler, head of the Nazi SS  – Schutzstaffel –  cheats the hangman, committing suicide by taking cyanide after being detained for investigation of his false identity documents by British forces.

1949 – The Western occupying powers approve the ‘Basic Law’,  Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, which establishes a new German state, the Federal Republic of Germany.

1960 – A tsunami caused by an 9.5 Moment Scale earthquake in Chile the previous day hits Hilo, Hawaii, killing 61 people.

1995 – Sun Microsystems in  Menlo Park, California releases the first version of the Java programming language.

2006 –  Mount Cleveland on the western end of Chuginadak Island of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, erupts.

2013 – A freeway bridge carrying Interstate Highway 5 over the Skagit River at Mount Vernon, Washington, collapses, precipitating 2 vehicles into the river, but with all 3 riders rescued.

2014 – 6 people are killed and 14 wounded by gunshot, stabbing and vehicle ramming in a killing spree by a lone perpetrator near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara before being shot by police, then committing suicide.

2015 – 46 people are killed in Texas and Oklahoma as a result of flooding caused by an extensive storm system moving through the area.