TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, the 143rd day of 2018. There are 222 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1618, the Defenestration of Prague took place as Bohemian Protestants threw two Catholic imperial regents and their secretary out an upperstory palace window; the men survived the incident, which helped trigger the Thirty Years’ War.
In 1430, Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians, who sold her to the English.
In 1533, the marriage of England’s King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon was declared null and void by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
In 1788, South Carolina became the eighth state to ratify the United States Constitution.
In 1915, Italy declared war on AustriaHungary during World War I.
In 1934, bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were shot to death in a police ambush in Bienville Parish, La.
In 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.
In 1945, Nazi official Heinrich Himmler committed suicide by biting into a cyanide capsule while in British custody in Luneburg, Germany.
In 1967, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, an action that helped precipitate war between Israel and its Arab neighbors the following month.
In 1984, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop issued a report saying there was “very solid” evidence linking cigarette smoke to lung disease in non-smokers.
In 1993, a jury in Baton Rouge, La., acquitted Rodney Peairs of manslaughter in the shooting death of Yoshi Hattori, a Japanese exchange student he’d mistaken for an intruder. (Peairs was later found liable in a civil suit brought by Hattori’s parents.)
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Bluegrass singer Mac Wiseman is 93. Actress Joan Collins is 85. International Tennis Hall-of-Famer John Newcombe is 74. Chess grandmaster Anatoly Karpov is 67. Boxing Hall-of-Famer Marvelous Marvin Hagler is 64. Actor-comediangame show host Drew Carey is 60. Rock musician Phil Selway (Radiohead) is 51. Rock musician Matt Flynn (Maroon 5) is 48. Singer Maxwell is 45. Singer Jewel and game show contestant Ken Jennings are 44. Actor LaMonica Garrett is 43. Actors D.J. Cotrona and Lane Garrison are 38. Actor-comedian Tim Robinson is 37. Actor Adam Wylie is 34. Movie writer-director Ryan Coogler is 32. Golfer Morgan Pressel is 30. Actor Alberto Frezza (TV: “Station 19”) is 29. Folk/pop singer/songwriter Sarah Jarosz is 27.