Today in History - May 23
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1059 May 23,
Henri I crowned his son King Philip I of France.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1153 May 23, David I (~68),
king of Scotland (1124-53), died.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1275 May 23, King Edward I of
England ordered a cessation to the persecution of French Jews.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1421 May 23, Jews of Austria
were imprisoned and expelled.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1423 May 23, Benedict XIII,
[Pedro the Luna], Spanish Pope (1394-1423), died. He had been
elected by the Avignon cardinals during the Great Western Schism.
(MC, 5/23/02)(PTA, 1980, p.402)
1430 May 23, Joan of Arc was
captured by the Burgundians, who sold her to the English.
(AP, 5/23/97)(HN, 5/23/98)
1498 May 23, The body of
Girolamo Savonarola (45), moral scourge of Florence (1494-98), was
burned along with 2 Dominican companions. An enraged crowd burned
the previously hanged body of Savonarola at the same spot where he
had ordered cultural works burned the year before. In 2006 Lauro
Martines authored “Fire in the City,” an account of Savonarola’s
life.
(WUD, 1994,
p.1672)(www.historyguide.org/intellect/savonarola.html)(WSJ,
5/19/06, p.W6)
1533 May 23, The marriage of
England's King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon was declared null
and void.
(AP, 5/23/97)(HN, 5/23/98)
1536 May 23, Pope Paul III
installed the Portuguese Inquisition.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1611 May 23, Matthias von
Habsburg was chosen king of Bohemia.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1618 May 23, The Thirty Years
War (1618-1648) ravaged Germany. It began when three opponents of
the Reformation were thrown through a window. The “official”
Defenestration of Prague was the “official” trigger for the Thirty
Year’s War. Local Protestants became enraged when Catholic King
Ferdinand II reneged on promises of religious freedom and stormed
Hradcany Castle and threw 3 Catholic councilors out of the window
and into the moat.
(V.D.-H.K.p.90)(NH, 9/96, p.18,22)(HN, 5/23/98)
1701 May 23, New York sea
captain William Kidd was hanged on the banks of the Thames after
being found guilty of piracy and murder. Kidd had reluctantly became
a privateer for England in 1696 and was expected to fight pirates on
the open sea, seize their cargoes, and provide a hefty share of the
spoils to the Crown. According to his British accusers, Kidd turned
to piracy himself as the deadline for reporting to his employers in
New York approached and he had not taken enough booty to fulfill his
commission. Kidd himself did not know he was a wanted man until he
dropped anchor in the West Indies in April 1699. He chose to
surrender to the authorities and submit to a London trial, believing
to the end that he could clear his name. Important evidence in his
favor was suppressed and he was hanged.
(AP, 5/23/97)(HNPD, 8/27/98)(HN, 5/23/99)
1706 May 23, Battle of
Ramillies: Marlborough defeated the French and 17,000 were killed.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1707 May 23, Carolus Linnaeus
[Carl von Linné, d.1778], Swedish botanist, was born.
(HN, 5/23/01)(WUD, 1994 p.834)
1718 May 23, William Hunter
(d.1783), obstetrician, surgeon, anatomy teacher, was born near
Glasgow, Scotland. In 1768 he opened a medical school. The Glasgow
Hunterian Museum opened in 1807.
(MC,
5/23/02)(http://www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk/index.html)
1734 May 23, Friedrich Anton
Mesmer, physician and hypnotist, was born.
(HN, 5/23/98)
1750 May 23, Carlo Goldoni's
"Il Bugiardo," premiered in Mantua.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1779 May 23, Benedict Arnold,
military governor of Philadelphia, wrote a query to the British
asking what they would pay for his services. He had already begun
trading with the British for personal profit and faced charges.
(ON, 11/01, p.1)
1785 May 23, Benjamin Franklin
in Paris spoke of his invention of bifocals in a letter to friend
and philanthropist George Whatley.
(www.antiquespectacles.com/topics/franklin/franklin.htm)
1788 May 23, South Carolina
became the eighth state to ratify the U. S. Constitution.
(AP, 5/23/97)(HN, 5/23/98)
1799 May 23, Thomas Hood
(d.1845), English poet, composer (Song of the Shirt), was born. "I
saw old Autumn in the misty morn Stand shadowless like silence,
listening To silence."
(AP, 9/23/98)(MC, 5/23/02)
1810 May 23, Margaret Fuller
(d.1850), American social reformer, writer and critic, was born. She
was the first female journalist for the New York Tribune. "Man is
not made for society, but society is made for man. No institution
can be good which does not tend to improve the individual."
(AP, 7/12/97)(HN, 5/23/99)
1819 May 23, Bolivar’s
revolutionary commanders met in the deserted village of Setenta,
Venezuela, and planned a march across the Andes to attack Spanish
forces in New Granada (Colombia).
(ON, 3/05, p.1)
1820 May 23, James Buchanan
Eads, engineer of the Eads Bridge in St. Louis, was born.
(HN, 5/23/98)
1832 May 23, Samuel Sharp was
hanged in Jamaica for leading a slave rebellion. He is survived by
his immortal declaration: "I would rather die upon yonder gallows
than live in slavery."
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.73)(http://tinyurl.com/3cu2ds)
1848 May 23, Helmuth J.L. von
Moltke, German general, chief of staff (WW I), was born.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1861 May 23, Virginia citizens
voted 3 to 1 in favor of secession, becoming the last Confederate
state.
(HN, 5/23/98)(MC, 5/23/02)
1861 May 23, Pro Union and pro
Confederate forces clashed in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
(HN, 5/23/99)
1862 May 23, Confederate Gen.
Stonewall Jackson took Front Royal, Virginia, in the Valley
Campaign. Jackson captured 691 federal soldiers. His success was
based on information from Confederate spy Isabella Boyd.
(HN, 5/23/98)(ON, 4/10, p.2)
1863 May 23, The 7th Day
Adventist church was formally established in Battle Creek, Michigan
with a membership of 3,500. Among its founders was Ellen G. White,
whose extensive writings are still held in high regard by
Seventh-day Adventists today.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-day_Adventist_Church)
1863 May 23, In Germany the
General German Workers’ Association (ADAV) was founded. In 1869 it
became the Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Germany (SDAP). In
1875 it became the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_of_Germany)
1864 May 23, Union General
Ulysses Grant attempted to outflank Lee in the Battle of North Anna,
Virginia.
(HN, 5/23/98)
1865 May 23, The American flag
was flown at full staff over White House for the 1st time since
Lincoln was shot. Union Army's Grand Review began in Washington DC.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1867 May 23, Jesse James gang
robbed a bank in Richmond, Missouri, with 2 killed and $4,000 taken.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1868 May 23, Kit Carson
(b.1809), American scout and frontiersman, died at Fort Lyon,
Colorado. In 1999 David Roberts authored "A Newer World: Kit Carson,
John C. Freemont and the Claiming of the American West."
(WUD, 1994, p.227)(SFEC, 2/13/00, BR
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_Carson)
1873 May 23, Canada's North
West Mounted Police force was established. The North West Mounted
Police was formed by the Canadian government to protect new settlers
in the territory between Manitoba and British Columbia. [see Mar 9]
(AP, 5/23/97)(HNQ, 5/5/98)
1875 May 23, Alfred Pritchard
Sloan, Jr., president and chairman of the board for General Motors,
was born. His foundation started the cancer research center
Sloan-Kettering Institute. Sloan defined the modern automobile
industry and helped rescue General Motors in 1920.
(HN, 5/23/99)(WSJ, 1//03, p.D8)
1883 May 23, Douglas Fairbanks,
actor, was born in Denver, CO.
(HN, 5/23/98)(MC, 5/23/02)
1883 May 23, The first baseball
game between one-armed and one-legged players was played.
(HN, 5/23/98)
1887 May 23, The 1st
transcontinental train arrived in Vancouver, BC.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1891 May 23, Par Lagerkvist,
Swedish writer (The Dwarf, Barabbas), was born.
(HN, 5/23/01)
1871 May 23, In France
extremists burned the Tuileries Palace.
(SFC, 10/8/07,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuileries_Palace)
1895 May 23, The New York
Public Library had its origins with an agreement combining the
city's existing Astor and Lenox libraries. James Lenox, the son of a
wealthy Scottish merchant, started the NY Public Library.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(AP, 5/23/97)(SFCM, 12/10/00,
p.12)
1900 May 23, Civil War hero
Sgt. William H. Carney became the first African American to receive
the Medal of Honor, thirty-seven years after the Battle of Fort
Wagner.
(HN, 5/23/99)
1901 May 23, American forces
captured Philippine rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo.
(HN, 5/23/98)
1903 May 23, Dr. Horatio Nelson
Jackson set off to cross the US from San Francisco in his $2,500
Winton touring car with his mechanic Sewell Croker. They reached NYC
July 26.
(SFC, 6/16/03, p.A1)(SFC, 6/18/03, p.A23)(ON,
9/04, p.10)
1906 May 23, Henrik Ibsen (78),
Norwegian playwright and poet died in Christiania, Norway.
(AP, 5/23/06)
1908 May 23, John Bardeen,
physicist, co-inventor of the transistor, was born.
(HN, 5/23/01)
1908 May 23, Part of the Great
White Fleet arrived in Puget Sound, Washington.
(HN, 5/23/98)
1908 May 23, A dirigible
exploded over the SF Bay. 16 passengers fell but none died.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1910 May 23, Franz Kline
(d.1962), American painter of abstract expressionist style, was born
in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
(www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_77.html)
1910 May 23, Artie Shaw
(d.2004), jazz bandleader and clarinetist, was born as Arthur Jacoby
Arshawsky on the Lower East Side of NYC to poor Eastern European
Jewish immigrants.
(HN, 5/23/01)(SFC, 12/31/04, p.A4)
1911 May 23, The NY Public
Library building at 5th Avenue was dedicated by Pres Taft. In 2008
the central reference building at 42nd and Fifth Avenue was renamed
"The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building following a $100 million
contribution by Schwarzman (b.1947), co-founder of the Blackstone
Group, toward the expansion of the New York Public Library.
(SFC, 5/23/11,
p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman)
1915 May 23, Italy declared war
on Austria-Hungary in World War I. Italy entered World War I and
came up against the Austro-Hungarian forces including many
Slovenians in the Julian Alps near Trieste. Over 29 months 12 major
battles were fought along the Soca River.
(AP, 5/23/97)(HN, 5/23/98)(SFEC, 7/9/00, p.T14)
1920 May 23, Helen O'Connell,
big band vocalist, was born.
(HN, 5/23/01)
1921 May 23, James [Benjamin]
Blish, US-UK sci-fi author (Hugo, Black Easter, Star Trek
Reader), was born.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1922 May 23, "Abbie’s Irish
Rose" opened for the 1st of over 2,500 performances.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1928 May 23, Rosemary Clooney
(d.2002), singer, was born in Maysville, Ky.
(HN, 5/23/01)(SSFC, 6/30/02, p.A20)
1928 May 23, Italian Gen.
Nobile reached the North Pole for a 2nd time with a 16-man crew
aboard the dirigible Italia. The ship crashed the next day.
(ON, 10/00, p.5)
1934 May 23, Robert A. Moog,
electrical engineer, creator of the Moog synthesizer, was born.
(HN, 5/23/01)
1934 May 23, Wallace Carothers
manufactured the 1st nylon, polymer 66.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1934 May 23, Bonnie Parker (23)
and Clyde Barrow (24) were shot some 4 dozen times early in the
morning in a police ambush by Texas Rangers as they were driving a
stolen Ford Deluxe along a road in Bienville Parish, near Sailes,
La. This ended the most spectacular manhunt seen in America up to
that time. The pair had spent the previous 2 years killing and
robbing banks in the Midwest. Bonnie Parker was 19 and Clyde Barrow
was 21 when they met in Dallas in 1930. By the time the Barrow
gang's crime spree ended four years later, Bonnie, Clyde, Clyde's
brother Buck and Buck's wife had terrorized the Southwest and
Midwest and were believed to have committed 13 murders. In 1997
Clyde’s bullet-ridden shirt was auctioned off to a Nevada casino for
$85,000. His largest theft was estimated at $4,000. In 1979 Ted
Hinton and Larry Grove authored "Ambush: The Real Story of Bonnie
and Clyde." In 2009 Jeff Guinn authored “Go Down Together: the True
Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde.”
(SFC, 4/3/97, p.A13)(SFC, 4/15/97, p.A13)(AP,
5/23/97)(HN, 5/23/02)(ON, 7/02, p.3)(WSJ, 3/10/09, p.A13)
1937 May 23, John Davison
Rockefeller (97), industrialist, died in Ormond Beach, Fla. In 1998
Ron Chernow published this biography: “Titan: The Life of John D,
Rockefeller, Sr.” His value in 1999 dollars totaled $190 billion.
(AP, 5/23/97)(WSJ, 5/8/98, p.W1)(SFEC, 5/23/99,
Par p.7)(MC, 5/23/02)
1939 May 23, The US submarine
Squalus sank off the coast of New Hampshire. A diving bell designed
by Charles "Swede" Momsen (d.1967) brought 33 survivors (26
perished) safely to the surface. In 1999 Peter Maas authored "The
Terrible Hours," an account of the sinking and rescue. This was the
first successful undersea rescue operation to retrieve a sunken
submarine crew
(SFEC, 9/26/99, Par p.4,5)(WSJ, 8/17/00,
p.A22)(HNQ, 5/29/01)
1939 May 23, British parliament
planned to make Palestine independent by 1949.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1939 May 23, Hitler proclaimed
he wants to move into Poland.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1939 May 23, Dmitri
Shostakovitch was appointed professor at conservatory of Leningrad.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1940 May 23, Tommy Dorsey and
His Orchestra, the Pied Pipers and featured soloist Frank Sinatra
recorded "I'll Never Smile Again" in New York for RCA.
(AP, 5/23/97)
1940 May 23, The 1st great
dogfight between Spitfires took place.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1943 May 23, Thomas Mann began
writing his novel Dr. Faustus.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1943 May 23-24, Some 826 Allied
bombers attacked Dortmund.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1944 May 23, During World War
II, Allied forces bogged down in Anzio began a major breakout
offensive.
(AP, 5/23/99)
1945 May 23, Winston Churchill,
the head Britain’s coalition government, resigned pending the
upcoming general election. He continued to serve as the head of the
caretaker government which lasted till he lost the election on July
26 and officially resigned as PM.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caretaker_Government_1945)
1945 May 23, British military
police arrested Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, Hitler's designated
successor ("Fuhrer for a Weekend").
(MC, 5/23/02)
1945 May 23, Heinrich
Himmler (44), the head of the Nazi Gestapo, committed suicide while
imprisoned in Luneburg, Germany.
(AP, 5/23/97)(HN, 5/23/01)
1947 May 23, Jane Kenyon, poet
(Let Evening Come, Otherwise), was born.
(HN, 5/23/01)
1949 May 23, The Federal
Republic of (West) Germany with Bonn as the capital officially came
into existence under a new constitution.
(WUD, 1994, p.1684)(Econ, 3/28/09, p.59)
1951 May 23, Anatoli Karpov,
world chess champion (1975-85), was born in the USSR.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1951 May 23, Peter Ustinov's
"Love of Four Colonels," premiered in London.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1951 May 23, The Dalai
Lama signed the “17-point agreement” in which he agreed to accept
Chinese sovereignty over Tibet.
(www.friends-of-tibet.org.nz/17-point-agreement.html)(Econ, 5/21/11,
p.42)
1953 May 23, Schools 1st used
Cliff's Notes.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1958 May 23, Mao Tse Tung
started his "Great leap forward" movement in China. China tried to
modernize its economy in “The Great Leap Forward” and urged
factories and farms to meet impossible production targets.
Farmers were forced to pool their possessions and devote all land to
grain cultivation. Rather than concede failure, local officials
misled central planners about output. The result: a famine that may
have killed as many as 30 million people by the end of 1960. The
story is told by Jasper Becker in his 1997 book “Hungry Ghosts:
Mao’s Secret Famine.”
(WSJ 12/10/93)(SFEC, 10/7/96, A12)(WSJ, 2/7/97,
p.A14)(MC, 5/23/02)
1959 May 23, Presbyterian
church accepted women preachers.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1960 May 23, A tidal wave, due
to a 9.5 earthquake off Chile, hit Hilo, Hawaii. It killed 61
people, wiped out the beaches and destroyed 537 buildings. It went
on to hit Japan.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.T4)(SSFC, 8/25/02, p.C14)
1960 May 23, Israel announced
Israeli agents had captured former Nazi official SS Lt. Col. Adolf
Eichmann in Argentina. Eichmann was tried in Israel, found guilty of
crimes against humanity, and hanged in 1962. [see May 11]
(WSJ, 4/28/97, p.A17)(AP, 5/23/02)
1962 May 23, OAS leader general
Raoul Salan was sentenced to life in prison. French general Raoul
Salan led a failed army revolt in Algeria (July, 1960) and then fled
abroad, continuing to direct increasing terrorist Secret Army
Organization (OAS) attacks on the French and Algerian governments,
turning the Algerian War of Independence into a three-way war in
Algeria and a right-wing guerrilla insurrection in France.
(http://tinyurl.com/d8qm2)
1962 May 23, Ruben Jaramillo,
Mexican agrarian reformer, was assassinated along with his family by
state forces.
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.C9)(AP, 5/23/04)
1965 May 23, David Smith
(b.1906), American sculptor, died in Albany NY. His farm in upstate
New York was named the Terminal Iron Works. His work included
"Circle and Box," "XI Books, III Apples," "Lunar Arc," "Becca" and
"Rebecca Circle."
(www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_146B.html)
1969 May 23, The BBC ordered 13
episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
(www.querycat.com/faq/a99b3004b7265291928d484e51b547ea)
1969 May 23, The Who released
their rock opera "Tommy."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_(album))
1971 May 23, In California poet
Lou Welch (b.1926) walked away from Gary Snider’s residence in the
Sierra foothills and was never seen again.
(SFC, 8/15/97,
p.A21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lew_Welch)
1975 May 23, The US Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) banned the sale of turtles with shells
that measured less than four inches in length. The turtles were
identified as major carriers of salmonella bacterium and had been
widely sold as pets for kids.
(WSJ, 5/30/96, p.B1)(http://tiny.cc/IEWJ3)
1975 May 23, Jackie "Moms"
Mabley (b.1894), comedienne, died. Her films included “Amazing
Grace” (1974).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moms_Mabley)
1977 May 23, Pres. Jimmy Carter
presented an environmental message to Congress: "I am directing to
make a one-year study of the probable changes in the world’s
population, natural resources and environment through the end of the
century. This study will serve as the foundation of our longer-term
planning. The Global 2000 Report sold 1.5 million copies and
pronounced a world that would be more crowded, more polluted, less
stable ecologically and more vulnerable to disruption than the world
of 1980.
(SFC, 12/31/00, WB p.1)
1977 May 23, The US Supreme
Court refused to hear appeals of former Nixon White House aides H.R.
Haldeman, John Ehrlichman & John Mitchell in connection with
their Watergate convictions.
(AP, 5/23/04)
1977 May 23, Moluccan
extremists held 105 schoolchildren and 50 others hostage on a
hijacked train in Netherlands. The children were released May 27.
The siege ended June 11.
(www.tkb.org/Group.jsp?groupID=4024)
1982 May 23, The British HMS
Antelope was attacked. It sank the next day after an unexploded bomb
detonates. Ten Argentine aircraft were destroyed.
(www.yendor.com/vanished/falklands-war.html)
1983 May 23, Radio Moscow
announcer Vladimir Danchev (35) praised Afghanistan Muslims standing
up to Russia. He was removed from the air. Soviet sources said that
Vladimir Danchev, the Radio Moscow news announcer who twice in six
days described Soviet troops in Afghanistan as an occupying force,
had been dismissed and was under investigation.
(http://tinyurl.com/3dv7cx)
1985 May 23, Thomas Patrick
Cavanagh, an aerospace engineer who admitted trying to sell
"stealth" bomber secrets to the Soviet Union, was sentenced in Los
Angeles to life in prison.
(AP, 5/23/05)
1986 May 23, Sterling Hayden
(b.1916), actor and author, died in Sausalito, Ca. he appeared in 35
films and wrote two books, including his autobiography: “The
Wanderer.”
(http://movies.aol.com/celebrity/sterling-hayden/31197/biography)(SSFC,
5/22/11, DB p.46)
1987 May 23, Rescue workers and
survivors searched through the rubble of a killer tornado in
Saragosa, Texas, that had claimed 30 lives. Texas Gov. Bill Clements
expressed his sorrow, and pledged all possible help.
(AP, 5/23/97)
1988 May 23, Less than a week
before a scheduled superpower summit in Moscow, Secretary of State
George Shultz went to Capitol Hill to ask for a prompt Senate vote
to ratify the intermediate-range nuclear missile treaty.
(AP, 5/23/98)
1989 May 23, An estimated 1
million people in Beijing and tens of thousands in other Chinese
cities marched to demand that Premier Li Peng resign.
(AP, 5/23/99)
1990 May 23, Clinton’s campaign
for a 5th term as governor of Arkansas received a $60,000 loan from
the Perry County Bank. More cash was requested a few days later.
(SFC, 6/28/96, p.A7)
1990 May 23, Neil Bush, son of
the president, denied any wrongdoing as a director of a failed
Denver savings-and-loan in testimony before Congress. The cost of
rescuing US savings & loan failures was put at up to $130
billion.
(AP,
5/23/00)(www.mof.go.jp/english/f_review/fr51e.htm)
1990 May 23, The Soviet Union
unveiled an economic-reform program that included plans for a
national referendum.
(AP, 5/23/00)
1991 May 23, In a five-to-four
vote, the US Supreme Court upheld regulations barring federally
subsidized family planning clinics from discussing abortion with
pregnant women, or from telling women where they could get
abortions.
(AP, 5/23/01)
1991 May 23, Holly Washa (22)
of Burien, Washington, was kidnapped, raped and soon murdered. Cal
Coburn Brown was convicted of murder in 1993 and sentenced to death
in 1994. In 2009 the Washington supreme Court granted a last minute
reprieve and postponed his execution, which would have been the
state’s first since 2001.
(SFC, 3/13/09, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/alz33r)
1991 May 23, Last Cubans troops
left Angola.
(www.iie.com/research/topics/sanctions/cuba.cfm)
1991 May 23, Peter T. Thwaites,
British brig-gen, playwright (Love or money), died.
(www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search2?coll_id=723&inst_id=21)
1992 May 23, Pres. Bush issued
Executive Order 12807 authorizing the repatriation of Haitian
refugees interdicted by the Coast Guard.
(http://uscis.gov/graphics/aboutus/history/nov91.htm)
1992 May 23, The United States
and four former Soviet republics signed an agreement in Lisbon,
Portugal, to implement the START missile-reduction treaty that had
been agreed to by the Soviet Union prior to its dissolution.
(AP, 5/23/97)
1992 May 23, In Sicily
anti-Mafia investigator Giovannii Falcone was murdered on a highway
outside Palermo. Falcone’s wife and 3 bodyguards were also killed.
Sicilian politician Salvo Lima was also murdered. Anti-Mafia
investigator Paolo Borsellino was killed in another blast some
months later. In 1997 Pietro Aglieri, aka "U Signurinu" (The Little
Gentleman), was arrested for involvement in all three murders. 24
mobsters were convicted in the murder in 1997, including Leoluca
Bagarella.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A12)(SFEC, 6/7/98,
p.A23)(http://giovanni-falcone.foosquare.com/)
1993 May 23, 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.
(AP, 5/23/08)
1994 May 23, "Pulp Fiction" by
American director Quentin Tarantino won the Golden Palm for best
film at the 47th Cannes Film Festival.
(AP, 5/23/99)
1994 May 23, Funeral services
were held at Arlington National Cemetery for former first lady
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
(AP, 5/23/97)
1994 May 23, Some 270 pilgrims,
most of them Indonesian, were killed in a stampede in Mecca as
worshippers surge toward cavern for symbolic ritual of "stoning the
devil."
(AP, 2/1/04)
1995 May 23, Leland William
Modjeski (37), a graduate student, was shot and wounded on the White
House lawn after scaling a fence with an unloaded gun.
(AP, 5/23/05)
1995 May 23, The nine-story
hulk of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was
demolished. That day, James Nichols, whose brother and a friend were
charged in the Oklahoma bombing, was released from federal custody.
(AP, 5/23/00)
1996 May 23, The US House
approved, by a vote of 281-144, election-year legislation to raise
the minimum wage by 90 cents an hour.
(AP, 5/23/97)
1996 May 23, The Mt. Tabor
Baptist Church in Cerro Gordo, N.C., burned down. Arson was
suspected and investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 May 23, In San Francisco
the Joe Goode Performance Group celebrated its 10th anniversary with
the opening of "The Maverick Strain," a spoken word and dance
performance that explored the renegade impulse in American culture.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.B1)
1996 May 23, Federal agents in
the Bay Area and Sacramento, Ca., began arresting agents of China’s
two main government-owned arms companies on suspicion of smuggling
2,000 illegal automatic assault weapons into the US. The smugglers
are representatives of China Northern Industrial Corp. (Norinco) and
Poly Technologies. Norinco reports to the State Council headed by
Premier Li Peng. Poly Tech operates under the Chinese army General
Staff, which reports to Chinese Pres. Jiang Zemin.
(SFC, 5/23/96, p.A1)(SFC, 5/23/96, p.A17)
1996 May 23, The Armed Islamic
Group said that it had killed 7 French Trappist monks who were
kidnapped two months ago from the Notre Dame de l’Atlas monastery at
Tibhirine near Medea on Mar 27. Only their decapitated heads were
found. In 2002 John W. Kister authored "The Monks of Tibhirine." In
2010 this story was covered in the French film “Of Gods and Men.”
(SFC, 5/24/96, p.A14)(WSJ, 2/19/02, p.A24)(Econ,
2/19/11, p.95)
1996 May 23, In Bangladesh as
many as 77 people were feared drowned in a sunken ferry after a
collision on the Jamuna River. More than 50 ferries have sunk since
1981 killing more than 1,000 people.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A11)
1996 May 23, In Mexico a
teacher’s march turned into a bloody confrontation with police and
40 teachers were injured. Pres. Zedillo later fired Police Chief
David Garay for his heavy-handed action.
(SFC, 6/1/96, p.A12)
1996 May 23, A North Korean
pilot flew his unarmed Mig-19 jet to South Korea. Capt. Lee Chul Soo
(30) was the first pilot to defect since 1983.
(SFC, 5/24/96, p.A12)
1997 May 23, The defense at the
Oklahoma City bombing trial suffered an embarrassing setback when
one of its own witnesses provided testimony damaging to defendant
Timothy McVeigh.
(AP, 5/23/98)
1997 May 23, The Senate
decisively approved a carefully constructed deal to balance the
budget and cut taxes.
(AP, 5/23/98)
1997 May 23, In Algiers 2 car
bombs exploded and killed 7 people and wounded 12 in the town of
Tlemcen.
(SFC, 5/24/97, p.C1)
1997 May 23, In Indonesia
thousands rampaged the streets of Jakarta after a confrontation
between the rival United Development Party and the ruling Golkar
Party. A 5-day cooling off period was declared. On Borneo as many as
130 people died in a shopping complex fire set by rioters during a
political clash.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A10)(SFC, 5/24/97, p.A8)
1997 May 23, In Iran
presidential elections put conservative speaker Ali Akbar Nateq
Nouri against left-leaning cleric Mohammad Khatami (54). Former
Culture Minister Mohammad Khatemi won in a landslide over
hard-liners in the ruling Muslim clergy.
(WSJ, 3/20/97, p.A12)(AP, 5/23/98)(SFEC,
5/25/97, p.1)
1997 May 23, Russia and Belarus
signed a union charter for economic, military and political
cooperation.
(SFC, 5/24/97, p.A8)
1997 May 23, From Russia it was
reported that huge forest fires near Lake Baikal had consumed more
than 400,000 acres of Siberian woodland and killed 20 people over
the last 2 months.
(SFC, 5/23/97, p.A18)
1998 May 23, From Guatemala it
was reported that the Pacaya volcano had erupted during the week and
covered Guatemala City with a half-inch of grit.
(SFC, 5/23/98, p.A5)
1998 May 23, From India and
Pakistan it was reported that temperatures had reached 120 degrees
and claimed 34 lives. Most of the fatalities occurred in the
southwestern Indian state of Maharashtra.
(SFC, 5/23/98, p.A5)
1998 May 23, Official returns
showed two convincing "yes" votes for the Northern Ireland peace
accord: a surprisingly strong 71.1 percent in British-linked
Northern Ireland, and 94.4 percent in the Republic of Ireland.
(AP, 5/23/99)
1999 May 23, At Cannes the
Belgian film "Rosetta" by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne won the
Golden Palm Award at the 52nd Cannes Film Festival. The
Russian film 'Moloch" won for best screenplay and "Humanity" by
Frenchman Bruno Dumont won the runner-up Grand Jury Prize. The Jury
Prize went to "The Letter" by Portuguese director Manoel de
Oliveira.
(SFC, 5/24/99, p.D3)
1999 May 23, Owen Hart (33), a
professional wrestler also known as "The Blue Blazer," was killed
when he fell 50 [78] feet while being lowered into the ring at a
World Wrestling Federation show in Kansas City. The fall was revised
to 90 feet in front of 16,200 fans at the Kemper Arena.
(SFC, 5/24/99, p.A6)(SFC, 5/25/99, p.A3)(AP,
5/23/00)
1999 May 23, Some 14,000 ethnic
Albanians crossed the border from Kosovo to Macedonia in the last 2
days.
(SFC, 5/24/99, p.A12)
1999 May 23, In Algeria men
armed with guns and bombs attacked a village near Medea and killed
10 people.
(SFC, 5/24/99, p.A13)
1999 May 23, In Germany
Johannes Rau, a prominent Social Democrat, was elected president by
the 1,338 member federal assembly with a 690 majority.
(SFC, 5/24/99, p.A13)
1999 May 23, In Indonesia
thousands rallied in the streets of Jakarta in support of Megawati
Sukarnoputri.
(SFC, 5/24/99, p.A14)
1999 May 23, In Iraq US planes
bombed Iraqi defense systems.
(SFC, 5/24/99, p.A13)
2000 May 23, Two weeks before a
US-Russia arms summit, presidential candidate George W. Bush said he
would slash America’s nuclear arsenal as part of a broad national
security review that would call for a missile-defense system.
(AP, 5/23/01)
2000 May 23, The US Nasdaq
market fell 6% to 3,164.55.
(SFC, 5/24/00, p.A1)
2000 May 23, Ethiopian forces
reclaimed Zalambessa, which was seized by Eritrea 2 years ago.
(WSJ, 5/24/00, p.A1)
2000 May 23, In France the
15-day strike by armored truck security guards ended after they
agreed to a risk premium of $138 per month.
(SFC, 5/24/00, p.C4)
2000 May 23, The South Lebanon
Army abandoned its positions and Israel’s 22-year occupation of its
“security zone” ended.
(SFC, 5/24/00, p.A1)
2000 May 23, In Nigeria
Christians and Muslims clashed for a 2nd day in Kaduna and the death
toll mounted to 100.
(SFC, 5/24/00, p.C4)
2001 May 23, The US Senate
passed an 11-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut bill.
(AP, 5/23/02)
2001 May 23, Pres. Bush banned
the import of rough diamonds from Liberia in an effort to deprive
rebels in Sierra Leone of a source of funds.
(SFC, 5/24/01, p.C3)
2001 May 23, Pres. Bush met
with the Dalai Lama as China condemned the Taiwan president’s visit
to NYC.
(WSJ, 5/24/01, p.A1)
2001 May 23, US Sec. of State
Colin Powell began his 4-nation African tour in Mali and met with
Pres. Alfa Omar Konare.
(SFC, 5/24/01, p.C2)
2001 May 23, In Arizona 12
illegal Mexican immigrants were found dead due to dehydration. 2
more were found dead the next day. In 2002 Jesus Lopez-Ramos, one of
3 smugglers, was sentenced to 16 years in prison. In 2004 Luis
Alberto Urrea authored "The Devil's Highway: A True Story," about
the ill-fated crossing.
(SFC, 5/24/01, p.A3)(SFC, 5/25/01, p.A3)(SFC,
2/23/02, p.A5)(SSFC, 4/11/04, p.M2)
2001 May 23, An Israeli
contractor was killed in an ambush in the West Bank. 38 Palestinians
including 15 children were wounded in a firefight at the Rafah
refugee camp in Gaza.
(SFC, 5/24/01, p.A14)
2001 May 23, India called off a
6-month cease-fire in Kashmir and at the same time invited
Pakistan’s military leader to visit and discuss how to bring peace
to the region.
(SFC, 5/24/01, p.C2)
2001 May 23, The negotiations
for the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants were
completed in Stockholm, Sweden. The convention entered into force on
May 17th, 2004 with ratification by an initial 128 parties and 151
signatories.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_Convention)(SSFC, 7/6/08,
p.A2)
2001 May 23, The UN reported
that in Sierra Leone some 2,300 fighters turned in their weapons in
the 1st 6 days of a new disarmament deal.
(SFC, 5/24/01, p.C3)
2002 May 23, Pres. Bush at a
Berlin press conference said that he expects Pres. Putin to “get on
board” with America's hard-line policy toward Iran and Iraq. Bush
also addressed the German Parliament and said terrorist groups
constitute a “new totalitarian threat,” and then flew on to Moscow.
(SFC, 5/24/02, p.A1)
2002 May 23, It was reported
that the US government had charged Jeffrey A. Royer, a former FBI
agent, with giving stock traders information on criminal probes of
public companies in a scheme hatched by investor Amr “Anthony”
Elgindy. 3 others were also charged including a current FBI agent.
(WSJ, 5/23/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/29/02, p.A1)(WSJ,
8/22/02, p.A1)
2002 May 23, The Pentagon
reported that the Defense Dept. sprayed live nerve and biological
agents over Navy ships in 6 six tests between 1964-1968. The Project
shipboard Hazard and Defense (SHAD) experiments included the use of
sarin and VX nerve gases and the staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB).
(SFC, 5/24/02, p.A7)
2002 May 23, Sam Snead (89),
golfing legend, died.
(WSJ, 5/24/02, p.A1)
2002 May 23, The UN voted to
extend the mandate for an int'l. force in Afghanistan for 6 months
but with no expansion of troops or presence beyond Kabul.
(SFC, 5/24/02, p.A13)
2002 May 23, Pope John Paul II
visited Bulgaria, his 1st to the Orthodox nation of just 80,000
thousand Catholics.
(SFC, 5/24/02, p.A13)
2002 May 23, In Israel a bomb
exploded under a tanker truck near a fuel depot but failed to ignite
the tanker fuel.
(SFC, 5/24/02, p.A18)
2002 May 23, The Israeli
Embassy in Paris burned beyond repair. A faulty circuit was
suspected.
(SFC, 5/24/02, p.A16)
2002 May 23, Pedro Carmona
(60), CEO of Industrias Venoco CA and Venezuela‘s recent 2-day
president, escaped house arrest and sought refuge in the Colombian
Embassy.
(SFC, 5/24/02, p.A16)(WSJ, 3/10/08, p.A5)
2003 May 23, Golfer Annika
Sorenstam failed to make the 36-hole cut at the PGA Tour in Fort
Worth, Texas, missing the cut by four strokes. She was the first
woman to play in a PGA Tour event in 58 years.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2003 May 23, The US Congress
gave its final approval to $330 billion in new tax cuts for
families, investors and businesses. Congress passed a $350 billion,
10-year tax cut.
(AP, 5/23/03)(WSJ, 11/3/04, p.A6)
2003 May 23, US defense
officials reported that American troops had confiscated gold bars
valued at $34 million from a truck in northern Iraq.
(AP, 5/23/03)
2003 May 23, Another travel
alert for Toronto, Canada, was issued following the report of 20
possible new cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
(AP, 5/24/03)
2003 May 23, Researchers from
China and Hong Kong identified a coronavirus in 3 wild mammals, palm
civets, a raccoon dog and a ferret badger, sold in the live-animal
food markets of South China.
(SFC, 5/24/03, p.A1)
2003 May 23, In India officials
reported that a heat wave in southern Indian has killed at least 198
people in the past eight days.
(AP, 5/23/03)
2003 May 23, Israel's PM Ariel
Sharon agreed to work with a US-backed peace plan to end 32 months
of fighting and to set up a Palestinian state.
(AP, 5/23/03)
2003 May 23, The Democratic
Party in the Dutch Caribbean territory of St. Maarten won
legislative elections, winning support for its platform of working
with the regional government before seeking independence from the
Netherlands.
(AP, 5/24/03)
2004 May 23, Seattle’s new $165
million downtown Central Library, designed by Rem Koolhaas,
officially opened.
(SFC, 5/21/04, p.W1)(WSJ, 1/13/05, p.D8)
2004 May 23, In eastern
Bangladesh 2 river ferries carrying about 250 passengers capsized
during a storm, and dozens of people were feared dead. The death
toll climbed to 74.
(AP, 5/24/04)(WSJ, 5/24/04, p.A1)(AP, 5/25/04)
2004 May 23, Rod Hall (53),
British literary agent, was found dead in his London home. An
autopsy revealed the cause of death to be multiple stab wounds to
the chest and abdomen. On May 29 Usman Durrani, 20, a student from
east London, was charged with the murder.
(AP, 5/30/04)
2004 May 23, In France a
section of the futuristic, cylindrical passenger terminal at Paris'
Charles de Gaulle airport collapsed, killing 4 people and injuring
three.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2004 May 23, In Germany Horst
Koehler, a former head of the IMF and advocate of bolder economic
reforms, was elected as the country's 9th postwar president.
(AP, 5/23/04)(Econ, 5/22/04, p.47)
2004 May 23, In India's portion
of Kashmir suspected Islamic militants blew up a military bus,
killing at least 33 soldiers and relatives, and wounding 15.
(AP, 5/23/04)(SFC, 5/24/04, p.A7)
2004 May 23, It was reported
that Iraq faces an estimated $120 billion debt including over $21
billion creditors of the Paris Club.
(SSFC, 5/23/04, p.A1)
2004 May 23, In Iraq US troops
battled fighters loyal to a radical Muslim cleric in his stronghold
of Kufa, and at least 32 insurgents and three civilians were killed.
Gunmen killed a police captain and a university student who were
headed by car to Baghdad from Baqouba. Insurants loyal to al-Sadr
gave up control of central Karbala.
(AP, 5/23/04)(SFC, 5/24/04, p.A1)
2004 May 23, A car explosion
rocked the West Bank city of Nablus, killing at least 2 people.
Israeli military denied responsibility.
(AP, 5/23/04)
2004 May 23, In Tunisia Arab
leaders concluded a 2-day summit and committed their countries to
political reforms.
(SFC, 5/24/04, p.A7)
2005 May 23, US Senate
moderates reached a bipartisan compromise agreeing on a yes-no vote
on some disputed judicial nominees and not to block future ones
except in extraordinary circumstances. Republicans agreed to back
off a bid to end filibusters in such cases.
(WSJ, 5/24/05, p.A1)
2005 May 23, President Bush
said that US troops in Afghanistan will remain under US control
despite Afghan President Hamid Karzai's request for more authority
over them.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, Kansas City rapper
Anthony “Fat Tone” Watkins (24) and another man were found shot dead
in the Southern Highlands area of Las Vegas. Police later said that
a SF rap promoter named Andre Dow, aka “Mac Minister,” and Jason
Mathis killed the 2 men to avenge the Nov, 2004, killing of Andre
“Mac Dre” Hicks in Kansas. Mathis was arrested in 2005 in SF. Dow
was arrested in 2006 in SF.
(SFC, 5/26/05, p.B5)(SFC, 11/29/05, p.A1)(SFC,
3/3/06, p.B7)
2005 May 23, Afghan and
coalition forces killed two insurgents in a firefight in central
Afghanistan, while US aircraft bombed and destroyed a cave where
about six other rebels were believed hiding.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 23, Thousands of
British Broadcasting Corp. journalists and technicians began a
24-hour strike over proposed job cuts, severely disrupting radio and
TV programs.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, In Shenzhen,
China, 16 buildings toppled near the Hong Kong border in what state
media said was the largest urban demolition blast ever in China.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, In eastern Congo
militiamen calling themselves Rastas killed at least 18 people and
kidnapped at least 50 others in a late-night attack on the village
of Ninja, hacking their victims to death as they ran for safety.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 23, A Russian-made
plane crashed shortly after takeoff near Bunyakiri, Congo, killing
26 people.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2005 May 23, French
anti-terrorist officers captured three suspected members of the
Basque separatist group ETA in an early morning sweep in southeast
France.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, A string of car
bombs and suicide attacks across Iraq killed at least 49 Iraqis and
wounded more than 130. Militants assassinated a top national
security official. Five US troops were killed by roadside bombs and
a vehicle accident.
(AP, 5/23/05)(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 23, In Ireland a bus
full of high school students collided with two cars northwest of
Dublin on and tipped over into a ditch, killing five teenage girls
and injuring 50 people.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 23, Morocco's king
pulled out of the first North African summit in more than a decade,
over Algeria's latest comments in a long-running dispute over
independence for Western Sahara. Moroccan King Mohammed VI will be
represented at the two-day summit in Tripoli, Libya, by Morocco's
foreign minister, Mohamed Benaissa.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, The Norwegian
Petroleum Directorate announced a wildcat exploration well drilled
in the Norwegian Sea has made a promising natural gas strike,
although it was too early to say how large.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, The Palestinian
Election Commission said that parliamentary elections scheduled for
July 17 will be delayed because it needed more time to prepare for
the vote.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, Ryszard Kalisz,
Poland's interior minister, offered his resignation amid reports of
growing corruption in police forces around the country.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, The Vatican said
there was no investigation under way of allegations that Rev.
Marcial Maciel Degallado, the Mexican founder of a conservative
religious order, sexually abused seminarians more than 30 years ago.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 23, In Zimbabwe
paramilitary units armed with batons and tear gas patrolled Harare's
main roads as police warned they would not tolerate any more
protests against their crackdown on street trading, the only
livelihood for thousands in the shattered economy.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2006 May 23, Pres. Bush met
with Israel’s OM Olmert and urged him to reach out to Abbas as an
alternative to dealing with Hamas.
(WSJ, 5/24/06, p.A1)
2006 May 23, A US federal
agency charged that employees at mortgage giant Fannie Mae
manipulated accounting so that executives could collect millions in
bonuses as senior management deceived investors and stonewalled
regulators. Federal regulators expected a $400 million settlement.
(AP, 5/23/06)(SFC, 5/24/06, p.C1)
2006 May 23, In a recording
posted on the Internet, a voice purported to be that of Osama bin
Laden said neither Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in
the US for the Sept. 11 attacks, nor anyone held at Guantanamo had
anything to do with the al-Qaida operation.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2006 May 23, ABC appointed
Charles Gibson to replace Elizabeth Vargas as anchor of its "World
News Tonight" evening newscast.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2006 May 23, In California the
Hercules City Council voted unanimously to use eminent domain to
prevent Wal-Mart from building a bog box store on a 17-acre lot near
the city’s waterfront on the SF Bay.
(SFC, 5/24/06, p.B1)
2006 May 23, Washington Mutual
Inc., the nation's largest savings and loan, notified 1,400 workers
in Washington and Florida that they will lose their jobs as part of
the company's cost-saving strategy.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 23, MIT unveiled its
first working prototype of its $100 laptop designed for the Third
World under an initiative named “One Laptop Per Child.”
(SFC, 5/24/06, p.C3)
2006 May 23, Lloyd Bentsen
(b.1921), former Texas senator, died at his home in Houston. In 1988
Michael Dukakis picked him as his vice-president candidate. In 1993
he became Bill Clinton’s first treasury secretary.
(SFC, 5/24/06, p.A2)(Econ, 6/3/06, p.84)
2006 May 23, In Afghanistan
Pres. Hamid Karzai ordered an investigation into US airstrikes on a
village that killed at least 16 civilians and asked to meet with the
US commander of forces. A land mine blew up under a vehicle carrying
a team of Afghan health workers, killing a doctor, two nurses and
their driver.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, In Bangladesh
angry garment workers set fire to seven textile factories in and
around the capital after news that an employee shot in the back
during recent protests over better pay and working conditions had
died.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, Congo arrested a
group of foreign security guards on suspicion of plotting a coup
ahead of national elections. Interior Minister Theophile Mbemba said
there were three Americans, 10 Nigerians and 12 South Africans among
the group of 32 taken into custody. Mbemba said all the men had
received visits from their respective ambassadors.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 23, Fighting between
disgruntled former soldiers and the military left at least two
people dead in East Timor, as Australia and New Zealand offered to
provide troops to the tiny nation to help restore calm.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel met the Shanghai bishop from the Chinese Catholic
church on the final day of a visit in which rights issues took
center stage alongside trade.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, Warplanes from
Greece and Turkey collided over the Aegean Sea island of Karpathos
as they shadowed each other. Officials said the Turkish pilot was
rescued unhurt, and a search was launched for the Greek pilot.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, Iran’s government
closed one of the country's top three newspapers, detaining its
editor and cartoonist for publishing a caricature that caused
members of Iran's Azeri minority to riot in protest.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, A bomb went off in
a motorcycle parked in the courtyard of a Shiite mosque in Baghdad,
killing 11 people and wounding at least nine, the deadliest of the
attacks across Iraq that claimed 40 lives. A US soldier died when
his patrol was attacked by small arms fire and rocket-propelled
grenades south of Balad.
(AP, 5/23/06)(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 23, Ibrahim Hamed
(41), a top Hamas military commander, surrendered in Ramallah after
Israeli troops surrounded his hideout and threatened to demolish it
with him inside. He was linked by Israel to attacks that killed 78
people, including five Americans.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, Italy's new deputy
economics minister called the nation's economic situation "a
disaster," saying the deficit in 2006 may exceed 4.5 percent of
gross domestic product.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, Ziad Khalaf Raja
al-Karbouly, an Iraqi government contractor, confessed on Jordanian
television to kidnapping and killing on the orders of al-Qaida in
Iraq before he was lured to Jordan and arrested.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, Mexico’s Pres. Fox
began a five-day trip to the US in Utah before moving on to
Washington state and California. Immigration was the major focus of
Fox's trip as the US Senate considered legislation to strengthen
border security
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, In Mexico 3 men
were shot to death in two different attacks in the border city of
Nuevo Laredo, bringing to at least 115 the number of people slain by
violence this year.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 23, The Dutch
parliament approved new anti-terrorism measures that make it easier
to arrest suspects without strong evidence and hold them longer
without charge.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, Pakistani
officials said at least 7 people have died and thousands of others
have fallen sick after drinking contaminated water in Faisalabad, a
city famous for its textile mills. The outbreak of gastroenteritis
began May 14. The last two fatalities happened May 21.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, Serbia's president
said he recognized the results of the independence vote in
Montenegro that will separate the tiny Adriatic republic from its
union with Serbia.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, A high-level UN
delegation arrived in Sudan to press a reluctant government to
accept a large force of U.N. peacekeepers in the strife-torn Darfur
region.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, In Thailand PM
Thaksin Shinawatra resumed his duties as challenges to his hold on
power mounted even after a self-imposed leave of absence for seven
weeks.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, In northern
Thailand flash floods left thousands of people stranded on rooftops
and trapped inside trains. 9 people were reported killed.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2007 May 23, President Bush,
speaking at the US Coast Guard commencement, portrayed the Iraq war
as a battle between the US and al-Qaida and contended that Osama bin
Laden was setting up a terrorist cell in Iraq to strike targets in
America.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2007 May 23, Jordin Sparks (17)
of Glendale, Ariz., was crowned the newest and youngest "American
Idol."
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 23, The California
Energy Commission announced rules that barred municipal utilities
from signing new contracts with coal-fired power plants. Coal
generated about 20% of the state’s electricity.
(SFC, 5/28/07, p.A17)
2007 May 23, A conservation
group said dozens of European mammals faced extinction unless
immediate measures are taken to protect them. 35 of the continent’s
231 mammal species fell into the threatened category.
(SFC, 5/23/07, p.A7)
2007 May 23, A bomb in northern
Afghanistan killed a Finnish soldier and an Afghan civilian, while a
suicide attacker in Kabul killed two people, including a policeman.
Two operations in southern Afghanistan killed 18 suspected
militants, including seven "foreigners," while six people died when
a stash of ammunition exploded in the east.
(AP, 5/23/07)(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 23, Australian PM John
Howard and his Greek counterpart Kostas Karamanlis sealed a deal
which concluded a decades-long debate over pensions for one of the
world's largest expatriate Greek communities.
(AFP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, Belarus lawmakers
backed legislation stripping hundreds of thousands of disabled and
retired people and students of social benefits and other state
payments.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, The High Court in
London upheld a ruling letting families return to their Indian Ocean
island homes, from where they were forced out 30 years ago to make
way for a US military base. The Court of Appeal backed a High
Court ruling in May last year that allowed the families to return to
the Chagos Islands, except for Diego Garcia, a launchpad for US
military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(AFP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, China said it was
investigating reports that toothpaste containing a potentially
deadly chemical had been exported to Central America.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, Colombia announced
capital controls on some foreign investments to try to curb the
soaring peso, which has made greater gains against the dollar this
year than any other currency.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, The BBC reported
that Pakistani UN peacekeepers charged with disarming Congolese
militia instead engaged in gold and weapons trafficking with militia
members. The Pakistani unit in question deployed to Mongwalu in
April 2005.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 27, The inaugural
sermon was held at Mega Frater, Central America's biggest church.
The new center of the Fraternidad Cristiana, a Neo-Pentecostal
church based in the Guatemalan City, includes an auditorium that
seats 12,500, a seven-story parking tower topped with a helipad and
a day-care center for 3,000 kids.
(www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=Guatemala)
2007 May 23, An Iraqi
intelligence officer alleged in a published report that 70% percent
of insurgents fighting in Iraq come from Gulf countries via Syria
where they are provided with forged passports. A suicide bomber
walked into a packed market café in the town of
Mandali, and blew himself up, killing 15 people and wounding
20 others. A suicide bomber (17) blew himself up in the house of two
brothers who were supporting a Sunni alliance opposed to al Qaida in
the Anbar province, killing 10 people, including the men, their
wives and their children. A parked car bomb exploded in a parking
lot in Jbala, killing three civilians and wounding 15 others. Gunmen
drove into a commercial area in central Baghdad and opened fire on
shops, killing four civilians and injuring 14 others. US-led forces
discovered a cache of Iranian money and bomb-making equipment during
a raid in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City in Baghdad. Two
suspected militants were killed in the raid and 19 others detained.
At least 104 people were killed in sectarian violence or found dead,
including 32 who died in suicide bombings. US authorities examined a
body found in a river south of Baghdad and identified it as Pfc.
Joseph Anzack Jr., one of three US soldiers seized in an ambush on
May 12. 2 US soldiers were killed during combat operations in Anbar
province.
(AP, 5/23/07)(AP, 5/24/08)
2007 May 23, Japan passed a law
to fund the reorganization of US forces in Japan and help move
thousands of Marines from the country's south to the US territory of
Guam. Fire broke out at a farm in northern Japan, killing about
2,000 pigs.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, In Lebanon
hundreds of Palestinian civilians carrying their belongings in
plastic bags trickled out of a besieged refugee camp, taking
advantage of a truce in fighting that mostly held overnight.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, In western Mexico
a tractor-trailer loaded with sand smashed into a toll booth and
rebounded into other vehicles, setting off a blaze that killed 10
people.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 23, Philippine
President Gloria Arroyo said she welcomed a greater global role by
Japan as she discussed a stalled free trade agreement in Tokyo.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, Romania's
suspended President Traian Basescu was reinstated after he won a
referendum on his removal from office.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, In Serbia Slobodan
Milosevic's paramilitary commander and 11 other men were convicted
and sentenced in the assassination of Serbia's first democratically
elected prime minister, Zoran Djindjic.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, In northern Syria
14 people were killed and 20 injured when an Iraqi bus overturned on
the Raqqa-Aleppo highway about 250 miles north of Damascus.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 23, In southern
Thailand 7 people including two teenagers were killed, while 11
others were injured in a spate of bombings by suspected separatist
rebels.
(AFP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, The UN human
rights commissioner said that Burundi has agreed to set up a
tribunal to try people suspected of genocide and war crimes during
its 12-year civil war.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, Yuri Chernogayev,
an Uzbek reporter for German broadcaster, said he faces up to 10
years in prison after being accused of defaming President Islam
Karimov.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2008 May 23, Vallejo, Ca.,
officially declared Chapter 9 bankruptcy as it faced a $16 million
deficit with no money in reserve for fiscal year 2008-2009.
(SFC, 5/24/08, p.B1)
2008 May 23, In Kansas at least
17 tornadoes touched ground, one of which killed 2 people in a car
75 miles west of Wichita.
(SSFC, 5/25/08, p.A2)
2008 May 23, George Frederick
Jewett Jr. (81), former director of Potlatch Corp.,, philanthropist
and sailing buff, died in SF. He had chaired 5 America’s Cup
syndicates.
(SFC, 5/26/08, p.B3)
2008 May 23, Utah Phillips
(b.1935), a seminal figure in American folk music, died of
congestive heart failure in Nevada City, California. Born Bruce
Duncan Phillips in Cleveland, Ohio, he had performed extensively and
tirelessly for audiences on two continents for 38 years.
(www.utahphillips.org/)
2008 May 23, In eastern
Afghanistan a suicide bomber blew himself up as an Afghan army
convoy slowed to pass a pothole-riddled section of road, killing
four soldiers and a child. In southern Afghanistan several
insurgents were killed and six others detained during a US-led
coalition operation.
(AP, 5/23/08)(AP, 5/24/08)
2008 May 23, In Brazil 12 South
American leaders gathered in Brasilia to set up a Union of South
American Nations. Unasur was expected to replace the South American
Community, declared in 2004, and unite the Mercosur and Andean
Community free trade areas.
(Econ, 5/31/08, p.41)
2008 May 23, China and Russia
jointly condemned a US plan for a global missile defense system at
the start of a highly symbolic visit by new Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 23, UN peacekeepers
found over 100 bodies in three mass graves in the east of Democratic
Republic of Congo. A UN spokesman said they apparently were graves
dating back to the 1990s, but that is was difficult to know
accurately.
(Reuters, 5/24/08)
2008 May 23, Indonesia's
government raised gasoline pump prices by nearly 30 percent because
of the surging cost of oil and gas on the global market. The move
triggered generally peaceful protests throughout the vast Indonesian
archipelago.
(AP, 6/24/08)
2008 May 23, Clashes between
Israeli troops and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip left five
militants dead.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 23, Frank Phel (74),
an American tourist, was hit and killed by a train at a Rome station
as he was walking on the tracks in a daze after being drugged and
robbed. The suspected robber was arrested the next day.
(AP, 5/26/08)
2008 May 23, Japan allocated
$54 million in emergency grants to the UN to help Afghanistan,
Africa and Palestinian refugees cope with the ongoing food crisis.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 23, Mexico's attorney
general said homicides related to organized crime jumped 47 percent
in 2008, in a rare confirmation of how bad violence has become.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 23, Mexican federal
officials said they plan to clean up Acapulco's bay, where an
estimated 400 gallons (1,700 liters) of sewage spews into the
Pacific ocean every second.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 23, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Myanmar's junta agreed to allow
all aid workers into the country after weeks of refusing access to
foreign relief experts seeking to help cyclone survivors.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 23, The International
Court of Justice awarded Singapore sovereignty over a disputed
island at the eastern entrance of the Singapore Straits. The ICJ
ruled in favor of Singapore in the 28-year dispute with Malaysia
over a tiny but strategic uninhabited island the size of half a
football field. The court, however, gave Malaysia ownership of a
smaller uninhabited outcropping. Sovereignty over a third disputed
cluster of rocks was left to be determined later between the
countries when they sort our their territorial waters.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 23, In Somalia a
roadside bomb exploded near a compound housing African Union (AU)
peacekeepers in Mogadishu, causing some casualties.
(AFP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 23, South Africa's
security chief accused right wingers, linked to the former apartheid
government, of fanning xenophobic violence that has spread to Cape
Town, the second largest city and tourist center.
(Reuters, 5/23/08)
2008 May 23, In Sri Lanka Army
troops launched two separate attacks along the front lines on the
Jaffna peninsula and destroyed 13 rebel bunkers. Guerrillas said 16
civilians were killed in a roadside bomb attack carried out by
government forces deep inside Tamil Tiger territory. Rebels also
said a government airstrike elsewhere in Kilinochchi killed an
infant and a teenage girl. Other fighting in the Vavuniya and Mannar
regions bordering the rebels' de facto state in the north killed
seven rebels and one soldier.
(AP, 5/24/08)
2008 May 23, In Turkey one
rebel and one village guard were killed in a clash near the border
with Iran.
(AP, 5/24/08)
2008 May 23, A UN food aid
agency said the response to its appeal for money to help meet
soaring fuel and food costs went beyond what it had hoped to
collect, saying $500 million from Saudi Arabia means it won't have
to cut rations.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2009 May 23, Pres. Obama
selected Gen. Charles Bolden (62), a retired astronaut, to lead
NASA.
(SSFC, 5/24/09, p.A16)
2009 May 23, It was reported
that millions of bats in at least 7 US states (Connecticut, New
York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia and West
Virginia) have died from white-nose syndrome, a fungal diseases. In
2011 the fungus Geomyces destructans was identified as the cause.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.36)(SFC, 10/28/11, p.A18)
2009 May 23, In Afghanistan a
group of Taliban fighters in Ghazni province ambushed police in a
market and one civilian was killed in the firefight. The US military
updated earlier reports and said international and Afghan forces
have killed 60 militants and seized 102 tons (92 metric tons) of
opium poppy seeds, drugs and chemicals during a four-day operation
in southern Helmand province. A British soldier with the NATO-led
alliance was killed in a bomb blast in the insurgency-hit south of
the country.
(AP, 5/23/09)(AFP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 23, In Australia
thousands more people in the flood-hit east were told to leave their
homes as gale-force winds lashed the coast. Emergency services said
up to 20,000 people had been cut off.
(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 23, Horst Koehler won
a 2nd term as German president in a parliamentary vote that gave
conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel a symbolic victory months
ahead of a national election.
(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 23, Nepal’s lawmakers
elected communist party leader Madhav Kumar Nepal (56) as the new
prime minister in a move aimed at ending weeks of political turmoil.
2 people were killed, one of them a teenager, and 14 wounded when a
bomb exploded in a packed Roman Catholic church on the outskirts of
Kathmandu.
(AFP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 23, The Church of
Scotland voted in favor of appointing an openly gay minister, the
latest case involving sexuality to create a division in the Anglican
Communion. The church's ruling body voted 326 to 267 to support the
appointment of the Rev. Scott Rennie (37), who was previously
married to a woman and is now in a relationship with a man.
(AP, 5/24/09)
2009 May 23, Pakistani security
forces entered Mingora, the main town in a northwestern Taliban
stronghold, engaging in fierce street battles as they tried to
wrench the Swat Valley from militants. 17 suspected militants were
killed in the past 24 hours of the operation. Matta, another major
town in the valley, has been cleared of militants, but some 1,500 to
2,000 insurgents remain in the valley. Gunmen in southwestern
Baluchistan province kidnapped a French tourist, snatching him from
a group of compatriots.
(AP, 5/23/09)(AFP, 5/23/09)
2009 May 23, It was reported
that Saudi Arabian investors were spending $100 million to raise
wheat, barley and rise on land leased from the government of
Ethiopia. The World Food Program estimated that it would spend
almost the same amount between 2007 and 2011 to provide 230,000 tons
of food aid to some 4.6 million Ethiopians threatened by hunger and
malnutrition.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.61)
2009 May 23, Former South
Korean President Roh Moo-hyun (62) jumped to his death while hiking
in the mountains behind his rural home. His hard-won reputation as a
corruption fighter was tarnished by bribery allegations that drew in
his family and closest associates.
(AP, 5/23/09)(Econ, 5/30/09, p.88)
2010 May 23, The US government
threatened to remove BP from efforts to seal a blown-out oil well in
the Gulf of Mexico if it doesn't do enough to stop the leak, though
it acknowledged only the company and the oil industry have the
needed know-how. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said the state is not
waiting for federal approval to begin building sand barriers to
protect the coastline from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, In New Jersey a
crowd of some 30-35 thousand gathered at the Statehouse in Trenton
to protest Gov. Chris Christie’s proposed budget cuts. Christie has
called for workers to accept wage freezes and contribute to their
health benefits.
(SSFC, 5/23/10, p.A9)
2010 May 23, Jose Lima
(1972-2010), a right-hand Dominican pitcher who was a 20-game winner
and an All-Star during a 13-year major league career, died in
Pasadena, Ca., of an apparent heart attack.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, British
screenwriter Simon Monjack (39), the husband of Brittany Murphy, was
found dead at his Los Angeles home, five months after the Hollywood
actress died. Murphy, best known for her major roles in "Clueless,"
"Girl Interrupted," and "8 Mile" in 2002, died Dec. 20, at age 32
after collapsing in her home.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 23, Britain's Duchess
of York Sarah Ferguson said she was "very sorry" for her lapse of
judgment after she was recorded apparently offering to sell access
to her ex-husband Prince Andrew in return for 500,000 pounds
($724,000).
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, In southern China
a fuel rod at the Guangdong Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station
experienced a "very small leakage" that increased radioactivity
levels slightly in the nuclear reactor's cooling water. The plant
supplies power to Hong Kong.
(AP, 6/15/10)
2010 May 23, In Colombia
leftist rebels killed nine marines and wounded two in a firefight.
The marines were attacked when they entered a rebel camp in Solano,
a municipality in the southern state of Caqueta.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 23, Ethiopia held
Parliamentary elections. PM Meles Zenawi rejected opposition
complaints of fraud elections and said he expected to win on the
strength of his economic record. The ruling Ethiopian People's
Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and allied parties won 534
seats out of 536 declared, giving PM Meles Zenawi most seats in the
547-member parliament. The EU observation mission released its final
report on Nov 8. It said the electoral process was short of
international standards concerning transparency, and that state
resources were used in the ruling party's campaign.
(Reuters, 5/23/10)(Reuters, 5/26/10)(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 May 23, Iran said it will
abandon an offer to ship some of its uranium stockpile abroad if the
United States imposes new sanctions. Iran's intelligence minister
said he had no doubt three US citizens arrested last July near the
Iraq border were spies and called on Washington to propose a
prisoner swap to secure their release.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, The Iraqi cabinet
said in a statement that a court has sentenced to death a man
accused of the kidnapping and killing of five Russian embassy civil
servants.
(Reuters, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, In Jamaica masked
men defending a reputed drug lord sought by the United States
torched a police station and traded gunfire with security forces in
a patchwork of barricaded slums in Kingston.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, In Nigeria fresh
violence between Muslims and Christians in Jos left one person dead
and another seriously wounded, a day after three others were killed.
15 suspects were arrested for the previous day’s killings. Gunmen in
the delta seized 3 Chinese technicians. The men were freed on May
29.
(AP, 5/23/10)(AFP, 5/23/10)(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 23, Pakistani Foreign
Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that his country plans to boost
trade with Egypt, during a visit to Cairo where he met with
President Hosni Mubarak.
(AFP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, In Gaza masked
gunmen stormed a UN-run Gaza summer camp early on Sunday and set it
on fire, threatening "harsh measures" against the Gaza director of
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
(AFP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, Dozens of American
soldiers and a battery of Patriot missiles arrived in Poland, where
they will spend the next two years teaching the Polish military to
operate the advanced guided missile system at a base just a few
miles from the Russian border.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 23, In Somalia
Islamist militants attacked the presidential compound and other
government positions in Mogadishu. At least 15 people were killed
and 30 others wounded.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, The Swedish 1885
“Treskilling Yellow” postage stamp retained its title as the world’s
most expensive stamp following an auction in Geneva. In 1996 it had
sold for a record $2.3 million. The price this year was not
revealed.
(SSFC, 5/23/10, p.A6)
2010 May 23, Anwar Al-Awlaki, a
US-born radical preacher who has encouraged Muslims to kill American
soldiers, called for the killing of US civilians in his first video
released by a Yemeni offshoot of al-Qaida.
(AP, 5/23/10)
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