May 23 is
Lucky Penny Day – “See a penny, pick it up… All day long you’ll have good luck.”
Superstitions related to Lucky Penny
World Turtle Day
National Taffy Day
South Carolina Admission Day 1788 as the eighth state
- Capital: Columbia
- Nickname: Palmetto State
- Bird: Carolina Wren
- Flower: Yellow Jessamine
- Tree: Palmetto
- Motto: Prepared in mind and resources/While I breathe, I hope
See our page on South Carolina for more interesting facts and trivia about South Carolina.
May 23, 1568 – The Netherlands declared independence from Spain.
1701 – After being convicted of piracy and of the murder of gunner, William Moore, Captain William Kidd was hanged in London, England.
1829 – Accordion patent granted to Cyrill Demian in Vienna, Austrian Empire. Demian’s instrument bore little resemblance to modern instruments. It only had a left hand buttonboard, with the right hand simply operating the bellows.
1873 – The Canadian Parliament established the North-West Mounted Police, the forerunner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
1934 – The American bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were ambushed by police and killed in Black Lake, Louisiana.
1945 – World War II: Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Schutzstaffel, (Nazi SS) committed suicide while in Allied custody. On Hitler’s behalf, Himmler formed the Einsatzgruppen and built extermination camps. As facilitator and overseer of the concentration camps, Himmler directed the killing of some six million Jews, between 200,000 and 500,000 Romani people, and other victims; the total number of civilians killed by the regime is estimated at eleven to fourteen million people. Most of them were Polish and Soviet citizens.
May 23, 1949 – The Federal Republic of Germany was founded. Commonly called West Germany, it reunited with East Germany in 1990.