Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/May 23
May 23: 300th Anniversary of the birth of Carolus Linnaeus (b. 1707); Shavuot in Judaism (2007)
- 1430 - Hundred Years' War: Joan of Arc was captured at the Siege of Compiègne.
- 1533 - The marriage of Henry VIII of England and his first wife Catherine of Aragon was annulled.
- 1568 - The Eighty Years' War broke out when Dutch rebels led by Louis of Nassau invaded Friesland in the Battle of Heiligerlee.
- 1873 - The North West Mounted Police was established to bring law and order to and assert Canadian sovereignty over the Northwest Territories.
- 1934 - American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed by police and killed in Black Lake, Louisiana.
- 1945 - End of World War II in Europe: Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz (pictured) was captured and his Flensburg government was dissolved.