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“Who sees the meaning of the flower uprooted in the ploughed field? The ploughman who does not look beyond its boundaries and does not raise his eyes from the ground?
>No - but the poet who sees that field in its relations with the universe, and looks oftener to the sky than on the ground. Only the dreamer shall understand realities, though, in truth, his dreaming must not be out of proportion to his waking!”
~ Margaret Fuller
Wikiquote (Margaret Fuller (May 23, 1810 – July 19, 1850) was an American journalist, critic, and women's rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movement. She was the first full-time American female book reviewer in journalism. Her book Woman in the Nineteenth Century is considered the first major feminist work in the United States.)
May 23rd, 844
Kingdom of Asturias:
844 - Battle of Clavijo; The Apostle in Saint James the Greater is said to have miraculously appeared to a force of outnumbered Spanish rebels and aided them against the forces of the Emir of Cordoba.
Wikipedia Image: Ramiro I of Asturias; 18th-century Statue in the Royal Palace of Madrid ● The Battle of Clavijo, by Corrado Giaquinto; was a legendary battle, supposedly fought on May 23rd of 844 near Clavijo between the Christians led by Ramiro I of Asturias and the Muslims led by the Emir of Córdoba.
May 23rd, 1430
Hundred Years' War, Joan of Arc:
1430 - Siege of Compiègne; Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians while leading an army to relieve Compiègne.
Wikipedia Painting: Joan of Arc: An artist's interpretation, since the only known direct portrait has not survived. (Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, Paris, AE II 2490) (1485); Joan of Arc's Death at the Stake, by Hermann Stilke (1843); Jeanne d' Arc, by Eugene Thirion (1876); Joan at the coronation of Charles VII, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres in (1854); Joan of Arc and Prophet-French Pilgrimage; Joan interrogated in her prison cell by Cardinal Winchester, by Hippolyte Delaroche, (1824); Saint Joan of Arc, Vatican City; Joan of Arc in Battle, by Hermann Anton Stilke.
May 23rd, 1498
Girolamo Savonarola is burned at the stake in Florence, Italy, on the orders of Pope Alexander VI.
Wikipedia Image: Girolamo Savonarola an Italian Dominican friar and preacher active in Renaissance Florence, and known for his prophecies of civic glory and calls for Christian renewal.
May 23rd, 1533
1533 - The marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon s declared null and void.
Wikipedia Painting: Henry VIII Coat of Arms and Seal of Henry VIII of England; Catherine of Aragon as a young widow, by court painter Michael Sittow, 1502; Anne Boleyn, Henry's second queen; a later copy of an original painted 1534; Jane Seymour, Henry's third wife; Anne of Cleves, Henry's forth wife by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1539; Catherine Howard, Henry's fifth wife, by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1540; Catherine Parr, Henry's sixth and last wife. Portrait of Catherine of Aragon by Michael Sittow, 1502. (The youngest surviving child of the 'Catholic Kings' of Spain, Katharine was born on 16 December 1485, the same year that Henry VII established the Tudor dynasty.)
May 23rd, 1568
The Netherlands declare their independence from Spain.
Wikipedia Image: Front of the Rijksmuseum, 1895; Canals of Amsterdam.
May 23rd, 1568
Eighty Years' War:
1568 - Battle of Heiligerlee The Dutch rebels led by Louis of Nassau, brother of William I of Orange, defeat Jean de Ligne, Duke of Aremberg and his loyalist troops, opening the Eighty Years' War.
Wikipedia Painting: Siege of the Schenkenschans by Gerrit van Santen; Relief of Leiden after the siege, (1574); Frederick Henry and Ernst Casimir at the siege of 'sHertogenbosch by Pauwels van Hillegaert; Disarming the waardgelders in Utrecht, 31 July 1618, by Joost Cornelisz. Droochsloot; Swearing of the Peace of Münster by Gerard ter Borch.
Battle off Lizard Point: Battle between Dutch and Spanish men-of-war. Oil on copper, Naval Museum of Madrid.
May 23rd, 1609
Plymouth Colony:
1609 - Official ratification of the Second Charter of Virginia takes place.
Wikipedia Painting: "Mayflower", The Granger Collection, New York 1905; Pilgrims landing on Cape Cod in November of 1620; The Pilgrims on the Speedwell; Mayflower arrived inside the tip of Cape Cod fishhook, November 1620 (satellite image, 1997); Landing of the Pilgrims by Michele Felice Cornè, circa 1805. Displayed in the White House.
May 23rd, 1618
Thirty Years' War:
1618 - The Second Defenestration of Prague precipitates the Thirty Years' War.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Breitenfeld (1631), The victory of Gustavus Adolphus; Bautzen circa 1620, by Matthäus Merian; Battle of Lützen by Carl Wahlbom shows the death of King Gustavus Adolphus on 16 November 1632; Bautzen 1620, by Matthäus Merian; Peace of Westphalia, Ratification of the Peace of Münster.
May 23rd, 1701
After being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore, Captain William Kidd is hanged in London.
Wikipedia Image: Captain Kidd in New York Harbor, 1920 painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris and Howard Pyle.
May 23rd, 1706
War of the Spanish Succession: Battle of Ramillies; John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, defeats a French army under Marshal Villeroi.
Wikipedia Painting: Philip V of Spain and the Duke of Vendôme commanded the Franco-Spanish charge at the Battle of Villaviciosa by Jean Alaux (1840).
May 23rd, 1788
South Carolina ratifies the Constitution of the United States and is admitted as the 8th state in the United States.
Wikipedia Painting: Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, by Howard Chandler Christy
May 23rd, 1793
French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1793 - War of the First Coalition; Flanders Campaign; Battle of Famars.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar;
Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806;
Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet;
Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani);
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo;
Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807;
Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars;
Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen;
Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford;
Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay).
May 23rd, 1846
Mexican-American War: President Mariano Paredes of Mexico unofficially declares war on the United States.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Cerro Gordo during Mexican-American War, credit National Parks System; Winfield Scott marching into Mexico City, by William Ellis.
May 23rd, 1873
The Canadian Parliament establishes the North-West Mounted Police, the forerunner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Wikipedia Image: Royal Canadian Mounted Police
May 23rd, 1900
American Civil War:
1900 - Sergeant William Harvey Carney is awarded the Medal of Honor, for his heroism in the Assault on the Battery Wagner in 1863.
Wikipedia Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
● Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
● First Battle Between Ironclads: CSS Virginia/Merrimac (left) vs. USS Monitor, in 1862 at the Battle of Hampton Roads.
● Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.
May 23rd, 1911
The New York Public Library is dedicated.
Wikipedia Photo: New York Public Library Fisheye, credit Michael.2999, Flickr ● Panoramic view of the Rose Main Reading Room, facing south.
May 23rd, 1915
World War I:
1915 - Italy joins the Allies after they declare war on Austria-Hungary.
Wikipedia Photo: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV Tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes. National Archives and Records Administration.
May 23rd, 1934
American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Black Lake, Louisiana.
Wikipedia Photo: American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde; ● Parker with 1932 Ford V-8 B-400 convertible sedan. Captured Joplin film ● Bonnie and Clyde in March 1933, in a photo found by police at the Joplin, Missouri hideout ● Blanche spent the rest of the 1930s in prison for her four-month run with the gang; she weighed just 81 pounds when captured ● Clyde Barrow in 1926, aged 16.
May 23rd, 1934
Pre World War II:
1934 - The U.S. 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.
World War II:
1939 - 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.
1945 - Heinrich Himmler, the head of the German SS, commits suicide while in Allied custody.
1945 - The Flensburg government under Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz is dissolved when its members are captured and arrested by British forces at Flensburg in Northern Germany.
Post World War II:
1948 - Thomas C. Wasson, U.S. Consul-General assassinated in Jerusalem.
1949 - Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) is established and the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany is proclaimed.
Wikipedia Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945.
USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.
Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.
May 23rd, 1951
Tibet:
1951 - Tibetans sign the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet with the People's Republic of China.
Wikipedia Photo: Simonos Petras Monastery, credit Travis Dove, National Geographic ● Tibet - Heinrich Harrer, National Geographic ● Tibet - Two yaks, wispy clouds and the grand vista of the Tibetan Plateau, credit Felix Torkar. © 2011 National Geographic ● Tibetan People.
May 23rd, 1958
Explorer program, Explorer 1 American satellite ceases transmission.
Wikipedia Photo: The launch of Explorer 6; designed for photographing the Earth's cloud cover, and transmitted the first pictures of Earth from orbit.
May 23rd, 1967
1967 - Egypt closes the Straits of Tiran and blockades the port of Eilat at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping.
Wikipedia Image: Middle East satellite image; World satellite image.
May 23rd, 1992
Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
1992 - 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 2 months later, making 1992 a turning point in the history of Italian Mafia prosecutions.)
2010 - Kingston unrest (2010); Jamaican police begin a manhunt for drug lord Christopher "Dudus" Coke, after the United States requested his extradition, leading to three days of violence during which at least 73 bystanders are killed.
2013 - Naxal attack in Darbha valley (2013); Suspected Maoist rebels kill at least 28 people and injure 32 others in an attack on a convoy of Indian National Congress politicians inChhattisgarh, India.
Wikipedia Photo: Middle East satellite image, NASA. ● Camels are seen early morning on a beach in the Marina area of Dubai October 16, 2008. (Steve Crisp, Reuters) ● A portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad burns during clashes between rebels and Syrian troops in Selehattin, near Aleppo, on July 23, 2012. (Bulent Kilic, AFP / GettyImages) ● Egyptians gather in their thousands in Tahrir Square to mark the one year anniversary of the revolution on Jan. 25, 2012 in Cairo Egypt. Tens of thousands have gathered in the square on the first anniversary of the Arab uprising which toppled President Hosni Mubarak. (Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images) ● Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tires and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (Ben Curtis, AP) ● The Iron Dome defense system fires to interecpt incoming missiles from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov, AP)
May 23rd, 1995
Oklahoma City bombing: In Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the remains of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building are imploded.
Wikipedia Photo: Oklahoma City bombing; was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. ● McVeigh and Nichols cited the federal government's actions against the Branch Davidian compound in the 1993 Waco Siege (shown above) as a reason they perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing ● The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building two days after the bombing. ● Charles Porter's photograph of firefighter Chris Fields holding the dying infant Baylee Almon won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography in 1996. A similar photo was taken by Lester LaRue.
May 23rd, 1995
The first version of the Java programming language is released.
Wikipedia Image: Java programming language released on May 23rd.
May 23rd, 2015
Tornadoes:
2015 - Texas–Oklahoma flood and tornado outbreak; At least 46 people are killed as a result of floods caused by a tornado in Texas and Oklahoma.
Wikipedia Photo: Weather Front System; Tornado near Anadarko, Oklahoma; North Dakota Tornado; F3 Category Tornado Swirls Across A South Dakota Prairie by Carsten Peter; A waterspout parallels a lightning strike over Lake Okeechobee in Florida, by Fred K. Smith, National Geographics, Extream Instability.
May 23rd, 2017
Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2017 - Battle of Marawi; Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law in Mindanao, following the Maute's attack in Marawi.
2016 - 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.
2016 - Two suicide bombings, conducted by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in Aden, Yemen coastline cities in Syria killed at least 45 potential army recruits.
2014 - Isla Vista killings; Seven people, including the perpetrator, are killed and another 14 injured in a killing spree near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara.
Wikipedia Photo: Middle East satellite image, NASA. ● Camels are seen early morning on a beach in the Marina area of Dubai October 16, 2008. (Steve Crisp, Reuters) ● A portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad burns during clashes between rebels and Syrian troops in Selehattin, near Aleppo, on July 23, 2012. (Bulent Kilic, AFP / GettyImages) ● Egyptians gather in their thousands in Tahrir Square to mark the one year anniversary of the revolution on Jan. 25, 2012 in Cairo Egypt. Tens of thousands have gathered in the square on the first anniversary of the Arab uprising which toppled President Hosni Mubarak. (Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images) ● Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tires and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (Ben Curtis, AP) ● The Iron Dome defense system fires to interecpt incoming missiles from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov, AP)