Now & Then
◆ MAY 23
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.
1842: General Assembly of Church of Scotland condemned patronage as a grievance to the cause of true religion that ought to be abolished. 1853: Constitution of Argentine Republic went into effect.
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, 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 Italian-born 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. 2004: Part of Paris-charles de Gaulle Airport’s Terminal 2E collapsed, killing four people and injuring three others.
2006: Alaskan stratovolcano Mount Cleveland erupted.
2008: The International Court of Justice (ICJ) awarded Middle Rocks to Malaysia and Pedra Branca (Pulau Batu Puteh) to Singapore, ending a 29-year territorial dispute between the two countries.
2011: The UK’S military operation in Iraq officially ended. At its peak the operation, which began in 2003, involved some 46,000 personnel.
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. The iconic Mackintosh library and studio were lost in the blaze. ◆ BIRTHDAYS
Johnny Ball, TV presenter, 86; Rubens Barrichello, racing driver, 52; Drew Carey, American actor and comedian, 66; Dame Joan Collins DBE, British actress,91; Jewel (born Jewel Kilcher), singer and actress, 50; Anatoly Karpov, Russian world chess champion, 73; Graham Marshall, Scottish rugby player, 64; Bob Mortimer, British comedian, 65; Heidi Range, English singer (Sugababes), 41; Phil Selway, British rock drummer (Radiohead), 57. ◆ ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1707 Carolus Linnaeus, Swedish botanist; 1918 Denis Compton, Test cricketer, footballer, journalist and broadcaster; 1921 Humphrey Lyttelton, jazz trumpeter and broadcaster; 1928 Rosemary Clooney, singer. Deaths: 1701 Captain William Kidd, Scottish privateer and pirate (hanged at Execution Dock in London); 1906 Henrik Ibsen, Swedish playwright; 1937 John D Rockefeller, American philanthropist, founder of Standard Oil Company; 2017 Sir Roger Moore KBE, actor and UNICEF goodwill ambassador.