May 23
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Featured Event
© Racing One—ISC Archives/Getty Images; Photo Illustration Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
On this day in 1903, Horatio Nelson Jackson and Sewall Crocker embarked on the first transcontinental automobile trip. At the time there were few paved roads, questionable maps, no gas stations, no rest stops, and no fast food. The 5,600-mile journey—from San Francisco to New York City—took just over 63 days and required 800 gallons of gas. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Captain Kidd, a British privateer and semilegendary pirate celebrated in literature as one of the most colourful outlaws of all time, was hanged in London this day in 1701 after being found guilty of murder and piracy.
Famous Birthdays
More on May 23
Money Shaman—EPA/REX/Shutterstock.com
2015
American mathematician John Nash, who won the 1994 Nobel Prize for Economics for his landmark work on game theory and who struggled with paranoid schizophrenia, died at age 86. [Test your knowledge of the Nobel Prize.]
© Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
2000
American rapper Eminem released The Marshall Mathers LP, which became the fastest-selling album in the history of rap. [Take our hip-hop quiz.]
© 1980 Warner Brothers, Inc. with Hawk Films
1980
The horror classic The Shining, Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Stephen King’s 1977 novel, was released in theaters; it starred Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. [How much do you know about scary movies?]
© FrankvandenBergh/iStock.com
1951
China formally annexed Tibet as an autonomous region, giving rise to a Tibetan independence movement—led by the Dalai Lama, winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize—that continued into the early 21st century. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about China.]
New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (neg. no. cph 3c34474)
1934
Bonnie and Clyde, notorious American outlaws, were killed in a police shoot-out near Gibsland, Louisiana, ending a crime spree that had lasted 21 months; the couple, along with various accomplices, were believed to have killed 13 people and committed numerous robberies.[Test your knowledge of famous outlaws.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1915
Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary, entering World War I on the side of the Allies. [Sort fact from fiction in our World War I quiz.]
© Photos.com/Thinkstock
1707
Swedish botanist and explorer Carolus Linnaeus, the first to frame principles for defining genera and species of organisms and to create a uniform system for naming them, was born in Råshult. [Test your knowledge of botany.]
Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London
1706
Allied (Anglo-Dutch) forces led by the duke of Marlborough recorded a major victory over the French at the Battle of Ramillies, a turning point in the War of the Spanish Succession. [Match the battle with the war in our quiz.]
Hemis/Alamy
1618
The Defenestration of Prague occurred in response to religious persecution, helping set the stage for the Thirty Years’ War. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about European history.]
© G. Dagli Orti—DeAgostini/Getty Images
1430
Joan of Arc was captured by Burgundians near Compiègne, France. [Watch an overview of Joan of Arc’s life.]