May 23 Birthday
On May 23, 1934, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were ambushed and killed by a posse of six lawmen near Gibsland, Louisiana. The posse, led by former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, had been tracking the pair for three months. They set up an ambush on a rural road. When Clyde's Ford V8 approached, the posse opened fire. 130 rounds were fired. Bonnie and Clyde were killed instantly — Bonnie was still holding a sandwich. They had been on the run for two years, robbing banks and killing nine people. Bonnie was twenty-three, Clyde was twenty-five. The folk-hero image they cultivated was mostly media invention — they were desperate, violent criminals who lived in their car. Adolf Eichmann was captured by Israeli Mossad agents in Buenos Aires on May 11, 1960. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion announced the capture on May 23. Eichmann had been living in Argentina under the name Ricardo Klement. He had organized the logistics of the Holocaust — the train schedules, the deportation timetables, the coordination of mass murder. He had escaped to Argentina after the war. The Mossad agents drugged him, disguised him as an El Al flight attendant, and flew him to Israel on an official flight. Argentina protested the violation of its sovereignty. Eichmann was tried in Jerusalem in 1961. His defense — that he was a bureaucrat following orders — was described by Hannah Arendt as "the banality of evil." He was hanged in 1962. People born on May 23 fall under the zodiac sign of Gemini. The birthstone is Emerald and the birth flower is Lily of the Valley. Historical events on May 23 include 1934: Bonnie and Clyde killed in police ambush near Gibsland, Louisiana, 1949: Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) established, 1960: Israeli prime minister announces capture of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. Famous people born on May 23 include Joan Collins (1933), Marvelous Marvin Hagler (1954), Drew Carey (1958).