NOW & THEN
23 MAY
1430: English took Joan of Arc prisoner. 1533: Henry VIII divorced Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn. The result was a break with the Church in Rome.
1568: William of Orange defeated Spanish force at Heiligerlee in Holland, marking start of Revolt of the Netherlands.
1814: Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, had its first production at Theater an der Wein, Vienna.
1842: General Assembly of Church of Scotland condemned patronage as a grievance to the cause of true religion that ought to be abolished.
1873: The North-west Mounted Police were established in Canada – their name was changed to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on 1 February, 1920.
1913: London traffic was restricted to 10mph at Hyde Park Corner, an accident blackspot.
1926: Lebanon was proclaimed a republic by France.
1939: Parliament approved plan for independent Palestine by 1949, which later was denounced by Jews and Arabs in Palestine.
1945: Heinrich Himmler, notorious Nazi chief of police, committed suicide.
1949: The German Federal Republic, with Bonn as the capital, came into existence.
1960: Israel announced detention of the former Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann.
1977: South Moluccan exiles in Netherlands held 161 hostages in elementary school and hijacked train in effort to get Dutch help in their fight for independence from Indonesia.
1988: Hungary’s Communist Party outlined sweeping political and economic changes designed to salvage nation’s faltering economy.
1989: Meryl Streep was voted Best Actress of the Year for her performance in A Cry In The Dark, a film based on the dingo baby case in Australia.
1990: The General Medical Council allowed doctors to advertise their services for the first time in 130 years.
1991: Rajiv Gandhi’s Italianborn widow, Sonia, rejected offer to become president of Congress Party, effectively ending dynastic power of family in Indian politics.
1992: The anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone was killed when a huge bomb blew up a motorway on the outskirts of the Sicilian capital, Palermo.
2002: The “55 parties” clause of the Kyoto protocol was reached after its ratification by Iceland.
2006: Alaskan stratovolcano Mount Cleveland erupted.
2011: The UK’S military operation in Iraq officially ended.
2011: Winds of up to 100mph caused travel disruption on Scotland’s road, rail and ferry networks, and thousands of homes were without power.
2014: Fire devastated the Glasgow School of Art – Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s architectural masterpiece, which the Royal Institute of British Architects had recently voted the finest British building of the past 175 years.
BIRTHDAYS
Marvin Hagler, US boxer, 65; Graeme Hick MBE, English cricketer, 53; Anatoly Karpov, Russian world chess champion, 68; Graham Marshall, Scottish rugby player, 59; John Newcombe OBE, Australian tennis player, 75; Heidi Range, English singer (Sugababes), 36.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1707 Carolus Linnaeus, Swedish botanist; 1734 Franz Anton Mesmer, Austrian physician and pioneer of hypnotism; 1910 Sir Hugh Casson, architect; 1918 Denis Compton, Test cricketer, footballer, journalist and broadcaster; 1921 Humphrey Lyttelton, jazz trumpeter and broadcaster; 1926 Desmond Carrington, radio presenter; 1928 Rosemary Clooney, singer; 1928 Nigel Davenport, actor.
Deaths: 1701 Captain William Kidd, Scottish privateer and pirate (hanged); 1868 Kit Carson, American frontiersman; 1906 Henrik Ibsen, Swedish playwright; 1934 Bonnie Parker, 23, and Clyde Barrow, 25, American bank robbers (shot dead in police ambush); 1937 John D Rockefeller, American philanthropist, founder of Standard Oil Company;
1941 Lord Austin, motor manufacturer; 2017 Sir Roger Moore KBE, actor and UNICEF goodwill ambassador.