Today is Wednesday, May 23, the 144th day of 2012. There are 222
days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On May 23,
1937, industrialist and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller,
founder of the Standard Oil Co. and the Rockefeller Foundation,
died in Ormond Beach, Fla., at age 97. On this date: In 1430,
Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians, who sold her to the
English. In 1533, the marriage of England’s King Henry VIII to
Catherine of Aragon was declared null and void. In 1701, William
Kidd was hanged in London after he was convicted of piracy and
murder. In 1788, South Carolina became the eighth state to
ratify the United States Constitution. In 1873, Canada’s
Parliament voted to establish the North West Mounted Police
force. In 1911, the newly completed New York Public Library was
dedicated by President William Howard Taft, Gov. John Alden Dix
and Mayor William Jay Gaynor. In 1934, bank robbers Clyde Barrow
and Bonnie Parker were shot to death in a police ambush in
Bienville Parish, La. In