On May 23, 1430, Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians, who sold her to the English.
In 1788 South Carolina became the eighth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
In 1873 Canada’s North West Mounted Police force was established.
In 1915 Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary in World War I.
In 1934 bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were shot to death in a police ambush in Bienville Parish, La.
In 1944, during World War II, Allied forces bogged down in Anzio, Italy, began a major breakout offensive.
In 1960 Israel announced it had captured former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. (Eichmann was tried in Israel, found guilty of crimes against humanity and hanged in 1962.)
In 1977 the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeals of former Nixon White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman and former Atty. Gen. John Mitchell in connection with their Watergate convictions.
In 1991, in a 5-4 vote, the U.S. 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.
In 1992 the United States and four former Soviet republics signed an agreement in Lisbon to implement the START missile-reduction treaty that had been agreed to by the Soviet Union prior to its dissolution.
In 1994 “Pulp Fiction” by American director Quentin Tarantino won the Palme d’Or, or Golden Palm, for best film at the 47th Cannes Film Festival.
In 1995 the nine-story hulk of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was demolished — after a truck bomb killed more than 160 people a month before.
In 1996 the House approved, by a vote of 281-144, election-year legislation to raise the minimum wage by 90 cents an hour.
In 1997 Iranians elected a moderate president, Mohammad Khatami, over hard-liners in the ruling Muslim clergy.
In 1998 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.
In 2001 the Senate passed an 11-year, $1.35 trillion tax-cut bill.
In 2003, by the narrowest of margins, Congress sent President Bush the third tax cut of his presidency — a $330 billion package of rebates and lower rates for families and new breaks for businesses and investors. Also in 2003 Annika Sorenstam ended her historic appearance on the PGA tour in the Colonial with a 15-foot par putt, missing the cut by four strokes.
In 2004 a river ferry with about 250 people aboard capsized in eastern Bangladesh during a storm, leaving about 100 dead. Also in 2004 a large section of roof of a new passenger terminal at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport collapsed, killing four people.
In 2006, 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 U.S. for the Sept. 11 attacks — nor anyone held at Guantanamo had anything to do with the Al Qaeda operation.
