23rd May: Today In History

Today is Tuesday, May 23rd, the 143rd day of 2017. There are 222 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

Events:

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.

1430: Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians, who sold her to the English.

1533, the marriage of England’s King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon was declared null and void by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer.

1788:  South Carolina became the eighth state to ratify the United States Constitution.

1814:  A third version of Beethoven’s only opera, “Fidelio,” had its world premiere in Vienna.

1915:  Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary during World War I.

1934:  Bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were shot to death in a police ambush in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

1937:  Industrialist and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, founder of the Standard Oil Co. and the Rockefeller Foundation, died in Ormond Beach, Florida, at age 97.

1939:  The Navy submarine USS Squalus sank during a test dive off the New England coast. Thirty-two crew members and one civilian were rescued, but 26 others died; the sub was salvaged and re-commissioned the USS Sailfish.

1945: Nazi official Heinrich Himmler committed suicide by biting into a cyanide capsule while in British custody in Luneburg, Germany.

1977:  The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeals of former Nixon White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman and former Attorney General John N. Mitchell in connection with their Watergate convictions. 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.

1984:  Surgeon General C. Everett Koop issued a report saying there was “very solid” evidence linking cigarette smoke to lung disease in non-smokers. “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” starring Harrison Ford, was released by Paramount Pictures.

1992:  Top anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone was killed in a remote-controlled highway bombing outside Palermo, Sicily, along with his wife and three police escorts. (Salvatore “Toto” Riina, the Mafia’s “boss of bosses,” was arrested in Jan. 1993 and was later convicted with others of plotting the assassinations of Falcone and another leading anti-Mafia prosecutor, Paolo Borsellino.)

Birthdays:

Bluegrass singer Mac Wiseman is 92.

Actress Barbara Barrie is 86.

Actress Joan Collins is 84.

Actor Charles Kimbrough is 81.

International Tennis Hall of Famer John Newcombe is 73.

Actress Lauren Chapin is 72.

Country singer Misty Morgan is 72.

Quotes Of The Day:

Tell that person who makes your life a little bit easier everyday how much you appreciate them.

"He who reveres the appearance of this world,
Will always have regret and sorrow.".