Today In History – This Day In History Funny Events

The Battle of Clavijo is a mythical battle, believed for centuries to be historical, which became a popular theme of Spanish traditions regarding the Reconquista. Stories about the battle first arose in the 13th century. According to these stories, it was fought near Clavijo between Christians led by Ramiro I of Asturias and Muslims led by the Emir of Córdoba. The Diccionario de historia de España (1968) and the historiographical criticism of Juan Francisco Masdeu have made it be considered today a legendary battle, whose inclusion in the chronicles would be due to Archbishop Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, in the 1200's that would include, mixing and mythologizing data from other battles of different times and locations, although it is, broadly speaking, the mythification of the Battle of Monte Laturce. However, the battle was celebrated as an element of shaping Spanish national history and the origin of the pilgrimage of the way of Saint James.

Battle of Clavijo: The Apostle Saint James the Greater is said to have miraculously appeared to a force of outnumbered Asturians and aided them against the forces of the Emir of Cordoba.

Joan of Arc is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronation of Charles VII of France during the Hundred Years' War. Stating that she acted under divine guidance, she became a military leader who gained recognition as a savior of France.

Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians while leading an army to raise the Siege of Compiègne.

Girolamo Savonarola, OP, also referred to as Jerome Savonarola, was an Italian ascetic Dominican friar from Ferrara and a preacher active in Renaissance Florence. He became known for his prophecies of civic glory, his advocacy of the destruction of secular art and culture, and his calls for Christian renewal. He denounced clerical corruption, despotic rule, and the exploitation of the poor.

Girolamo Savonarola is burned at the stake in Florence, Italy.

This list of kings and reigning queens of the Kingdom of England begins with Alfred the Great, who initially ruled Wessex, one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which later made up modern England. Alfred styled himself king of the Anglo-Saxons from about 886, and while he was not the first king to claim to rule all of the English, his rule represents the start of the first unbroken line of kings to rule the whole of England, the House of Wessex.

The marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon is declared null and void.

Louis of Nassau was a Dutch nobleman, the third son of William I, Count of Nassau-Siegen and Juliana of Stolberg, and the younger brother of Prince William of Orange Nassau.

Dutch rebels led by Louis of Nassau, defeat Jean de Ligne, Duke of Arenberg, and his loyalist troops in the Battle of Heiligerlee, opening the Eighty Years' War.

The Second Virginia Charter, also known as the Charter of 1609, is a document that provided "a further Enlargement and Explanation of the said [first] Grant, Privileges, and Liberties", which gave the London Company adventurers influence in determining the policies of the company, extended the Company's rights to land extending "up into the Land throughout from Sea to Sea", and allowed English merchant companies and individuals to invest in the colonization effort. The charter includes a detailed list of the names of some 650 noblemen, gentlemen, officials, companies, and individuals who subscribed as investors.

Official ratification of the Second Virginia Charter takes place.

The Defenestrations of Prague were three incidents in the history of Bohemia in which people were defenestrated. Though already existing in Middle French, the word defenestrate is believed to have first been used in English in reference to the episodes in Prague in 1618 when the disgruntled Protestant estates threw two royal governors and their secretary out of a window of the Hradčany Castle and wrote an extensive apologia explaining their action. In the Middle Ages and early modern times, defenestration was not uncommon—the act carried elements of lynching and mob violence in the form of murder committed together.

The Second Defenestration of Prague precipitates the Thirty Years' War.

Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically intending to steal cargo and valuable goods, or take hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, and vessels used for piracy are called pirate ships. The earliest documented instances of piracy date to the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilisations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy, as well as for privateering and commerce raiding.

After being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore, Captain William Kidd is hanged in London.

General John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, 1st Prince of Mindelheim, 1st Count of Nellenburg, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire was a British army officer and statesman. From a gentry family, he served as a page at the court of the House of Stuart under James, Duke of York, through the 1670s and early 1680s, earning military and political advancement through his courage and diplomatic skill. He is known for never having lost a battle.

John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, defeats a French army under Marshal François de Neufville, duc de Villeroy in the Battle of Ramillies.

South Carolina is a state in the Southeastern, South Atlantic and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia to the west and south across the Savannah River. Along with North Carolina, it makes up the Carolinas region of the East Coast. South Carolina is the 11th-smallest and 23rd-most populous U.S. state, with a population of 5.12 million at the 2020 census. South Carolina is composed of 46 counties. Its capital is Columbia, while its most populous city is Charleston. Other urban areas include the Upstate, the state's largest metropolitan area which includes Greenville and Spartanburg, as well as Myrtle Beach.

South Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution as the eighth American state.

The Battle of Famars was fought on 23 May 1793 during the Flanders Campaign of the War of the First Coalition. An Allied Austrian, Hanoverian, and British army under Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld defeated the French Army of the North led by François Joseph Drouot de Lamarche. The battle occurred near the village of Famars in northern France, five km south of Valenciennes.

Battle of Famars during the Flanders Campaign of the War of the First Coalition.

Accordions are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type. The essential characteristic of the accordion is to combine in one instrument a melody section, also called the diskant, usually on the right-hand keyboard, with an accompaniment or Basso continuo functionality on the left-hand. The musician normally plays the melody on buttons or keys on the right-hand side, and the accompaniment on bass or pre-set chord buttons on the left-hand side. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist.

Accordion patent granted to Cyrill Demian in Vienna, Austrian Empire.

The Báb was an Iranian religious leader who founded Bábism, and is also one of the central figures of the Baháʼí Faith. The Báb gradually and progressively revealed his claim in his extensive writings to be a Manifestation of God, of a status as great as Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, receiving revelations as profound as the Torah, Gospel, and Quran. This new revelation, he claimed, would release the creative energies and capacities necessary for the establishment of global unity and peace.

Declaration of the Báb the evening before the 23rd: A merchant of Shiraz announces that he is a Prophet and founds a religious movement that would later be brutally crushed by the Persian government. He is considered to be a forerunner of the Bahá'í Faith; Bahá'ís celebrate the day as a holy day.

The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, was an invasion of Mexico by the United States. It followed the 1845 American annexation of Texas, which Mexico still considered its territory because it refused to recognize the Treaties of Velasco, signed by President Antonio López de Santa Anna after he was captured by the Texian Army during the 1836 Texas Revolution. The Republic of Texas was de facto an independent country, but most of its Anglo-American citizens who had moved from the United States to Texas after 1822 wanted to be annexed by the United States.

Mexican-American War: President Mariano Paredes of Mexico unofficially declares war on the United States.

The North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) was a Canadian paramilitary police force, established in 1873, to maintain order in the new Canadian North-West Territories (NWT) following the 1870 transfer of Rupert's Land and North-Western Territory from the Hudson's Bay Company to Canada. The Red River Rebellion and reports of lawlessness in the West, demonstrated by the subsequent Cypress Hills Massacre and fears of United States military incursions into Canada's new hinterland had pushed the Canada government to provide the means of enforcement of law and order. The NWMP, later renamed the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, combined military, police and judicial functions along similar lines to the Royal Irish Constabulary. A small, mobile police force was chosen as the best way to reduce potential for tensions with the United States and with First Nations. The NWMP uniforms included red coats deliberately reminiscent of British and Canadian military uniforms.

The Canadian Parliament establishes the North-West Mounted Police, the forerunner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

American Civil War: Sergeant William Harvey Carney is awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism in the Assault on the Battery Wagner in 1863.

Unicameralism is a type of legislature consisting of one house or assembly that legislates and votes as one. Unicameralism has become an increasingly common type of legislature, making up nearly 60% of all national legislatures and an even greater share of subnational legislatures.

The unicameral Parliament of Finland gathers for its first plenary session.

The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress and one of the largest public libraries in the world. It is a private, non-governmental, independently managed, nonprofit corporation operating with both private and public financing.

The New York Public Library is dedicated.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as The Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific. The war saw important developments in weaponry including tanks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, it resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million military and civilian casualties and genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic.

World War I: Italy joins the Allies, fulfilling its part of the Treaty of London.

Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is also the world's fifth-largest country by area and the seventh-largest by population, with over 213 million people. Brazil is a federation composed of 26 states and a Federal District, which hosts the capital, Brasília. Its most populous city is São Paulo, followed by Rio de Janeiro. Brazil has the most Portuguese speakers in the world and is the only country in the Americas where Portuguese is an official language.

In Brazil, four students are shot and killed during a manifestation against the Brazilian dictator Getúlio Vargas, which resulted in the outbreak of the Constitutionalist Revolution several weeks later.

Bank robbery is the criminal act of stealing from a bank, specifically while bank employees and customers are subjected to force, violence, or a threat of violence. This refers to robbery of a bank branch or teller, as opposed to other bank-owned property, such as a train, armored car, or (historically) stagecoach. It is a federal crime in the United States.

Infamous American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

The Toledo Auto-Lite strike was a strike by a federal labor union of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) against the Electric Auto-Lite company of Toledo, Ohio, from April 12 to June 3, 1934.

The Auto-Lite strike culminates in the "Battle of Toledo", a five-day melée between 1,300 troops of the Ohio National Guard and 6,000 picketers.

The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and is designated as the navy of the United States in the Constitution. With 290 combat vessels, it is the world's second largest navy, behind the People's Liberation Army Navy, and by far the largest by displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, one undergoing trials, two new carriers under construction, and six other carriers planned as of 2024. The Navy is a part of the Department of Defense and is one of six armed forces and eight uniformed services of the United States.

The U.S. Navy submarine USS Squalus sinks off the coast of New Hampshire during a test dive, causing the death of 24 sailors and two civilian technicians. The remaining 32 sailors and one civilian naval architect are rescued the following day.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides, including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

World War II: Heinrich Himmler, head of the Schutzstaffel, commits suicide while in Allied custody.

The Flensburg Government, also known as the Flensburg Cabinet, the Dönitz Government, or the Schwerin von Krosigk Cabinet, was the rump government of Nazi Germany during a period of three weeks around the end of World War II in Europe. The government was formed following the suicide of Adolf Hitler on 30 April 1945 during the Battle of Berlin. It was headed by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Reichspräsident and Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk as the Leading Minister. The administration was referred to as the "Flensburg Government" because Dönitz's command relocated to Flensburg in northern Germany and near the Denmark–Germany border on 3 May 1945. The sports school at the Mürwik Naval School was used as the government headquarters. The cabinet was not legitimised according to the Weimar Constitution, which was still formally in force.

World War II: The Flensburg Government under Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz is dissolved when its members are captured and arrested by British forces.

Thomas Campbell Wasson was an American diplomat who was assassinated while serving as the Consul General for the United States in Jerusalem. He was also a member of the United Nations Truce Commission.

Thomas C. Wasson, the US Consul-General, is assassinated in Jerusalem, Israel.

West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It was sometimes known as the Bonn Republic after its capital city of Bonn, or as the Second German Republic. During the Cold War, the western portion of Germany and the associated territory of West Berlin were parts of the Western Bloc. West Germany was formed as a political entity during the Allied occupation of Germany after World War II, established from twelve states formed in the three Allied zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.

The Federal Republic of Germany is established and the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany is proclaimed.

Tibet is a region in the southwestern part of China, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau. It is the homeland of the Tibetans. Other ethnic groups also reside on the plateau, including Mongols, the Lhoba, Monpa, Qiang, Sherpa, and since the 20th century, Han and Hui peoples. Tibet is the highest region on Earth, with an average elevation of 4,380 m (14,000 ft). Lying within the Himalayas, the highest point in Tibet is Mount Everest – the highest peak on Earth, standing 8,848 m (29,000 ft) above sea level.

Tibetans sign the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet with China.

A tsunami is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions above or below water all have the potential to generate a tsunami. Unlike normal ocean waves, which are generated by wind, or tides, which are in turn generated by the gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun, a tsunami is generated by the displacement of water from a large event.

A tsunami killed 61 people in Hilo, Hawaii.

Giovanni Falcone was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Sicilian Mafia. After a long and distinguished career, culminating in the Maxi Trial in 1986–1987, on 23 May 1992, Falcone was assassinated by the Corleonesi Mafia in the Capaci bombing, on the A29 motorway near the town of Capaci.

Italy's most prominent anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three body guards are killed by the Corleonesi clan with a half-ton bomb near Capaci, Sicily. His friend and colleague Paolo Borsellino will be assassinated less than two months later, making 1992 a turning point in the history of Italian Mafia prosecutions.

Java is a high-level, general-purpose, memory-safe, object-oriented programming language. It is intended to let programmers write once, run anywhere (WORA), meaning that compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need to recompile. Java applications are usually compiled to bytecode that can run on any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of the underlying computer architecture. The syntax of Java is similar to C and C++, but has fewer low-level facilities than either of them. The Java runtime provides dynamic abilities usually unavailable in traditional compiled languages.

The first version of the Java programming language is released.

The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) or Belfast Agreement is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of the Troubles, an ethnic and national conflict in Northern Ireland since the late 1960s. It was a major development in the Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s. It is made up of the Multi-Party Agreement between most of Northern Ireland's political parties, and the British–Irish Agreement between the British and Irish governments. Northern Ireland's present devolved system of government is based on the agreement.

The Good Friday Agreement is accepted in a referendum in Northern Ireland with roughly 75% voting yes.

The Kyoto Protocol (Japanese: 京都議定書, Hepburn: Kyōto Giteisho) was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that global warming is occurring and that human-made CO2 emissions are driving it. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. There were 192 parties (Canada withdrew from the protocol, effective December 2012) to the Protocol in 2020.

The "55 parties" clause of the Kyoto Protocol is reached after its ratification by Iceland.

A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a typically conical volcano built up by many alternating layers (strata) of hardened lava and tephra. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile with a summit crater and explosive eruptions. Some have collapsed summit craters called calderas. The lava flowing from stratovolcanoes typically cools and solidifies before spreading far, due to high viscosity. The magma forming this lava is often felsic, having high to intermediate levels of silica, with lesser amounts of less viscous mafic magma. Extensive felsic lava flows are uncommon, but can travel as far as 8 kilometres.

Alaskan stratovolcano Mount Cleveland erupts.

The International Court of Justice, or colloquially the World Court, is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN). It settles legal disputes submitted to it by states and provides advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by other UN organs and specialized agencies. The ICJ is the only international court that adjudicates general disputes between countries, with its rulings and opinions serving as primary sources of international law. It is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) awards Middle Rocks to Malaysia and Pedra Branca (Pulau Batu Puteh) to Singapore, ending a 29-year territorial dispute between the two countries.

Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, serving several large cities on the West Coast, including San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle. It is the only continuous Interstate highway to touch both the Mexican and Canadian borders. Upon crossing the Mexican border at its southern terminus near San Diego, the highway continues to Tijuana, Baja California as Mexican Federal Highway 1 (Fed. 1). Upon crossing the Canadian border at its northern terminus in Blaine, Washington, it continues to Vancouver, British Columbia as British Columbia Highway 99 (BC 99).

The Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River collapses in Mount Vernon, Washington.

On the evening of May 23, 2014, multiple misogynistic terrorist attacks occurred in Isla Vista, California, United States. Elliot Rodger murdered six people and injured fourteen others by gunshot, stabbing, and vehicle ramming near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), before fatally shooting himself.

Seven people, including the perpetrator, are killed and another 14 injured in a killing spree near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara.

Preceded by more than a week of heavy rain, a slow-moving storm system dropped tremendous precipitation across much of Texas and Oklahoma during the nights of May 24–26, 2015, triggering record-breaking floods. Additionally, many areas reported tornado activity and lightning. Particularly hard hit were areas along the Blanco River in Hays County, Texas, where entire blocks of homes were leveled. On the morning of May 26, the National Weather Service issued a flash flood emergency for southwest Harris County and northeast Fort Bend County. The system also produced deadly tornadoes in parts of Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. This flood significantly contributed to the wettest month ever for Texas and Oklahoma.

At least 46 people are killed as a result of floods caused by a tornado in Texas and Oklahoma.

The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and by its Arabic acronym Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist militant organisation and internationally unrecognised quasi-state. IS occupied a significant amount of territory in Iraq and Syria from 2013 to 2016, but lost most of it between 2017 and 2019. In 2014, the group proclaimed itself to be a worldwide caliphate and claimed religious and political authority over all Muslims worldwide, a claim not accepted by the vast majority of Muslims. It is designated as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations and many countries around the world, including Muslim countries.

Two suicide bombings, conducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, killed at least 45 potential army recruits in Aden, Yemen.

The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and by its Arabic acronym Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist militant organisation and internationally unrecognised quasi-state. IS occupied a significant amount of territory in Iraq and Syria from 2013 to 2016, but lost most of it between 2017 and 2019. In 2014, the group proclaimed itself to be a worldwide caliphate and claimed religious and political authority over all Muslims worldwide, a claim not accepted by the vast majority of Muslims. It is designated as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations and many countries around the world, including Muslim countries.

Eight bombings were carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in Jableh and Tartus, coastline cities in Syria. One hundred eight-four people were killed and at least 200 people injured.

Rodrigo Roa Duterte is a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the 16th president of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. He had served as the mayor of Davao City in the past. Duterte is the first Philippine president from Mindanao, and is the oldest person to assume office, beginning his term at age 71. Duterte is the chairman of Partido Demokratiko Pilipino, the ruling party during his presidency.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law in Mindanao, following the Maute's attack in Marawi.