These historical events took place on May 23rd:
1785: Benjamin Franklin announces his invention of bifocals.
1788: South Carolina becomes 8th state to ratify United States constitution.
1845: New York City Police Department (NYPD) is formed, replacing an old night watch system.
1865: Flag flown at full mast over White House for the first time since Lincoln was shot.
1878: Attorney John Henry Smyth named United States minister to Liberia.
1900: William Harvey Carney becomes the first African-American soldier awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Civil War at the Battle of Fort Wagner.
1903: First automobile trip across United States leaves San Francisco for New York and arrives on July 26th.
1934: American outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow – Bonnie and Clyde – are killed by police in an ambush near Sailes, Louisiana.
1939: Submarine USS Squalus sinks in the Gulf of Maine, drowning 26, 33 remaining crew rescued from a depth of 243 ft (74 m) by divers using newly developed heliox air systems, divers later awarded the Medal of Honor.
1970: Grateful Dead’s first performance outside United States, as part of ‘The Hollywood Rock Music Festival’, in Newcastle under Lyme, England.
1977: United States Supreme Court refuses to hear appeals of Watergate wrong doers H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman & John Mitchell.
1984: “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”, second in the film series, directed by Stephen Spielberg, produced by George Lucas, and starring Harrison Ford, opens in the United States.