TODAY IS MONDAY, MAY 23, 2016

On this day

1430: Joan of Arc was captured by Burgundians. She was then sold to the English. 1533: Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon was declared null and void. 1618: The Thirty Years War began when three opponents of the Reformation were thrown through a window. 1701: In London, Captain William Kidd was hanged after being convicted of murder and piracy. 1785: Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter that he had invented bifocals. 1837: Streets and squares in Adelaide, capital of South Australia, are first named. 1873: Canada’s North West Mounted Police force was established. The organisation’s name was changed to Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 1920. 1901: American forces captured Filipino rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo. 1908: Part of the Great White Fleet arrived in Puget Sound, WA. 1915: During World War I, Italy joined the Allies as they declared war on Austria-Hungary. 1926: The French captured the Moroccan Rif capital. 1930: Extensive aerial surveying and mapping of the Australian outback begins. 1934: In Bienville Parish, LA, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were ambushed and killed by Texas Rangers. The bank robbers were riding in a stolen Ford Deluxe. 1938: “LIFE” magazine’s cover pictured Errol Flynn as a glamour boy. 1949: The Republic of West Germany was established. 1960: Television finally comes to Tasmania with the launch of TVT-6. 1981: In Barcelona, Spain, gunmen seized control of the Central Bank and took 200 hostages. 1985: Thomas Patrick Cavanagh was sentenced to life in prison for trying to sell Stealth bomber secrets to the Soviet Union. 1992: In Lisbon, Portugal , the U.S. and four former Soviet republics signed an agreement to implement the START missile reduction treaty that had been agreed to by the Soviet Union before it was dissolved. 2013: Google acquired Makani Power for use for its Project Wing.