May 23 in History

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.

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.

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.

Abdülhamid II or Abdul Hamid II was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1876 to 1909, and the last sultan to exert effective control over the fracturing state. He oversaw a period of decline with rebellions, and presided over an unsuccessful war with the Russian Empire (1877–78), the loss of Egypt, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Tunisia, and Thessaly from Ottoman control (1877–1882), followed by a successful war against Greece in 1897, though Ottoman gains were tempered by subsequent Western European intervention.

The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a chartered public library system in New York City in New York, United States. 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. It is a private, non-governmental, independently managed, nonprofit corporation operating with both private and public financing.

Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji, also known as Mahmud Hafid Zadeh was a Kurdish leader who led a series of Kurdish uprisings against the British Mandate of Iraq. He was sheikh of a Qadiriyah Sufi family of the Barzanji clan from the city of Sulaymaniyah, which is now in the Kurdistan Region. He was subsequently given the title King of Kurdistan after the uprisings.

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.

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.

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was a German Nazi politician and military leader. He was the 4th Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel from 1929 to 1945. He was a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful figures in Nazi Germany. He was also one of the main architects of the Holocaust, the genocide of European Jews during World War II.

On May 23–24, 1946, a tornado outbreak occurred across the Central and Midwestern United States. Over two days at least 15 significant tornadoes struck parts of Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma, killing four people and injuring 42 others. The storm system also caused numerous other impacts including hail, heavy rains, and damaging lightning strikes.

The entirety of Germany was occupied and administered by the Allies of World War II, from the Berlin Declaration on 5 June 1945 to the establishment of West Germany on 23 May 1949. Nazi Germany was stripped of its sovereignty and its government was entirely dissolved. After Germany formally surrendered on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, the four countries representing the Allies asserted joint authority and sovereignty through the Allied Control Council (ACC).

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.

The Grand Hotel Bucharest is a 24-story 87 m (285 ft) high-rise five-star hotel situated near University Square, Bucharest, in Sector 1. Opened in 1971 as the Inter-Continental Bucharest, it is a city landmark.

The Shining is a 1980 psychological horror film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick and co-written with novelist Diane Johnson. It is based on Stephen King's 1977 novel and stars Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd and Scatman Crothers. The film presents the descent into insanity of a recovering alcoholic and aspiring novelist who takes a job as winter caretaker for a mountain resort hotel with his wife and clairvoyant son.

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.

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.

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.

Interstate 5 (I-5) is an Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States that serves as the region's primary north–south route. It spans 277 miles (446 km) across the state of Washington, from the Oregon state border at Vancouver, through the Puget Sound region, to the Canadian border at Blaine. Within the Seattle metropolitan area, the freeway connects the cities of Tacoma, Seattle, and Everett.

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.

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.

On 23 May 2021, an aerial tram on the Stresa–Alpino–Mottarone Cable Car crashed to the ground after a traction or haulage cable snapped about five metres (16 ft) from the summit of Mottarone, a mountain near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy. Normally, a hydraulic safety brake would have stopped the runaway car immediately but the cable car was operating illegally with the brake disabled. The crash killed fourteen passengers in the cable car, and seriously injured one child.