January 23
January 23 is the 23rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 342 days remaining, 343 in leap years.
Events
- 1510 - Henry VIII of England, 18, appears incognito in the lists at Richmond, and is applauded for his jousting before he reveals himself.
- 1533 - Anne Boleyn, mistress of Henry VIII of England, discovers herself pregnant.
- 1546 - Having published nothing for 11 years, Francois Rabelais brings out his sequel to Gargantua and Pantagruel: the Tiers Libre.
- 1556 - The Shaanxi earthquake, the deadliest earthquake in history, occurs with its epicenter in Shaanxi province, China. 830,000 people may have been killed.
- 1570 - The assassination of regent James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray throws Scotland into civil war.
- 1571 - The Royal Exchange opens in London.
- 1579 - The Union of Utrecht forms a Protestant republic in the Netherlands.
- 1719 - The Principality of Liechtenstein is created within the Holy Roman Empire.
- 1789 - Georgetown College becomes the first Catholic college in the United States (Washington, DC).
- 1843 - The flip of a coin determines whether a new city in Oregon is named after Boston, Massachusetts, or Portland, Maine, with Portland winning.
- 1849 - Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her MD by the Medical Institute of Geneva, New York, thus becoming the United States' first woman doctor.
- 1855 - The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota, a crossing made today by the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge.
- 1870 - Marias Massacre
- 1904 - Ålesund Fire: Norwegian coastal town Ålesund is devastated by fire, leaving 10,000 people homeless. German Kaiser Wilhelm helps rebuild the town in Jugendstil architecture.
- 1907 - Charles Curtis from Kansas, becomes the first Native American US Senator.
- 1912 - The International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague.
- 1920 - The Netherlands refuses to surrender ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to the Allies.
- 1937 - In Moscow, 17 leading Communists go on trial accused of participating in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime and assassinate its leaders.
- 1941 - Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
- 1943 - World War II: British forces capture Tripoli from the Nazis.
- 1943 - World War II: Australian and American forces finally defeat the Japanese army in Papua. This turning point in the Pacific War marks the beginning of the end of Japanese aggression.
- 1943 - Duke Ellington plays at New York City's Carnegie Hall for the first time.
- 1950 - The Knesset passes a resolution that states Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
- 1960 - The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record when by descending to the deepest point in the Pacific Ocean. (The depth was measured to be 35,813 ft (10,916 m) but later measurements show it to be 35,798 ft (10,911 m))
- 1964 - The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, is ratified.
- 1968 - North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo, claiming the ship violated their territorial waters while spying.
- 1973 - President Richard Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.
- 1975 - Barney Miller debuts on ABC.
- 1977 - The first segment of the Roots mini-series airs on ABC.
- 1978 - Sweden becomes the first nation to ban aerosol sprays that are thought to damage earth's protective ozone layer.
- 1983 - The A-Team debuts.
- 1985 - O. J. Simpson becomes the first Heisman Trophy winner elected to the Football Hall of Fame.
- 1986 - The first induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley)
- 1997 - Mir Aimal Kasi receives the death sentence for a 1993 assault rifle attack outside CIA headquarters that killed two and wounded three others.
- 1997 - Madeleine Albright becomes the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State.
- 1999 - Australian Christian missionary Graham Stewart Stains and his two sons are burned alive by radical Hindus while sleeping in their car in eastern India.
- 2002 - "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh returns to the United States under FBI custody.
- 2002 - Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and subsequently murdered in Karachi, Pakistan.
- 2005 - Viktor Yushchenko sworn in as the third President of Ukraine in Kiev, Ukraine.
Births
- 1745 - William Jessop, canal engineer (d. 1814)
- 1752 - Muzio Clementi, Italian composer (d. 1832)
- 1783 - Stendhal, French writer (d. 1842)
- 1786 - Auguste de Montferrand, French architect (d. 1858)
- 1832 - Edouard Manet, French artist (d. 1883)
- 1840 - Ernst Abbe, German physicist (d. 1905)
- 1857 - Andrija Mohorovičić, Croatian seismologist (d. 1936)
- 1862 - David Hilbert, mathematician (d. 1943)
- 1872 - Goce Delchev, Bulgarian revolutionary (d. 1903)
- 1872 - Joze Plečnik, architect (d. 1957)
- 1878 - Oton Župančič, Slovenian poet (d. 1949)
- 1884 - Ralph DePalma, race car driver (d. 1956)
- 1897 - Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, architect (d. 2000)
- 1897 - Subhas Chandra Bose
- 1898 - Sergei Eisenstein, Russian film director (d. 1948)
- 1898 - Randolph Scott, American actor (d. 1987)
- 1903 - Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, Colombian politician (d. 1948)
- 1907 - Dan Duryea, actor (d. 1968)
- 1907 - Hideki Yukawa, physicist (d. 1981)
- 1910 - Django Reinhardt, guitarist (d. 1953)
- 1915 - Potter Stewart, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (d. 1985)
- 1919 - Hans Hass, zoologist and underwater scientist
- 1919 - Ernie Kovacs, American comedian (d. 1962)
- 1920 - Ray Abrams, saxophonist
- 1920 - Gottfried Böhm, architect
- 1923 - Walter M. Miller Jr., science fiction writer (d. 1996)
- 1928 - Chico Carrasquel, the first Latin American player to appear in a MLB All-Star Game (d. 2005)
- 1928 - Jeanne Moreau, French actress
- 1930 - Derek Walcott, author
- 1933 - Chita Rivera, actress, dancer
- 1936 - Jerry Kramer, American football star
- 1938 - Shohei Baba, professional wrestler, founder of All-Japan Pro Wrestling (d. 1999)
- 1938 - Georg Baselitz, painter and sculptor
- 1939 - Arlene Golonka, American actress
- 1943 - Gil Gerard, actor
- 1944 - Rutger Hauer, actor
- 1947 - Megawati Sukarnoputri, President of Indonesia
- 1948 - Anita Pointer, American singer
- 1950 - Richard Dean Anderson, actor
- 1950 - Danny Federici, American musician (Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band)
- 1954 - Franco De Vita, singer/songwriter
- 1957 - Earl Falconer, bassist
- 1957 - Princess Caroline of Monaco
- 1963 - Gail O'Grady, actress
- 1964 - Mariska Hargitay, actress
- 1967 - Naim Suleymanoglu, Bulgaria-born Turkish weightlifter
- 1974 - Tiffani Thiessen, actress
- 1978 - Tommy <T-Bone> Huntington III- Political Activist,Renaissance Man
- 1984 - Arjen Robben, Dutch footballer
Deaths
- 1002 - Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 980)
- 1199 - Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur (b. 1160)
- 1570 - James Stewart, Earl of Moray, Regent of Scotland
- 1789 - John Cleland, novelist (b. 1709)
- 1800 - Edward Rutledge, U.S. statesman (b. 1749)
- 1805 - Claude Chappe, French telecommunications pioneer (b. 1763)
- 1837 - John Field, Irish composer (b. 1782)
- 1875 - Charles Kingsley English writer (b. 1819)
- 1883 - Gustave Doré, French artist, engraver, and illustrator (b. 1832)
- 1893 - Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, United States Supreme Court (b. 1825)
- 1923 - Max Nordau, author, philosopher, and Zionist leader (b. 1849)
- 1931 - Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina (b. 1881)
- 1937 - Marie Prevost, French actress (b. 1898)
- 1943 - Alexander Woollcott, actor, author, and bon vivant (b. 1887)
- 1944 - Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter (b. 1863)
- 1973 - Kid Ory, jazz trombonist (b. 1886)
- 1976 - Paul Robeson, actor, singer, social activist (b. 1898)
- 1978 - Jack Oakie, actor (b. 1903)
- 1978 - Terry Kath, musician (Chicago) (b. 1946)
- 1981 - Samuel Barber, American composer (b. 1910)
- 1983 - Fred Bakewell, English cricketer (b. 1908)
- 1989 - Salvador Dalí, Catalan artist (b. 1904)
- 1990 - Allen Collins, American musician
- 1991 - Northrop Frye, literary critic (b. 1912)
- 1992 - Freddie Bartholomew, actor (b. 1924)
- 1993 - Thomas Dorsey, gospel music singer (b. 1899)
- 1994 - Brian Redhead, journalist and broadcaster (b. 1929)
- 1994 - Nikolai Ogarkov, Russian marshal
- 1997 - Richard Berry, American composer, musician
- 1999 - Prince Lincoln Thompson, musician
- 2001 - Francisco "Curro" Rivera, Mexican bullfighter
- 2002 - Pierre Bourdieu, French sociologist (b. 1930)
- 2002 - Robert Nozick, philosopher (b. 1938)
- 2003 - Nell Carter, singer, actress (b. 1948)
- 2004 - Bob Keeshan, actor (b. 1927)
- 2004 - Helmut Newton, photographer (b. 1920)
- 2005 - Johnny Carson, television personality (b. 1925)
- 2005 - Morys George Lyndhurst Bruce, 4th Baron Aberdare, British politician (b. 1921)
- 2005 - Douglas Knight, university president
- 2005 - Charles Martin, American football player
- 2005 - Mutsuko Sakura (桜むつ子), Japanese actress
Holidays and observances
External links
January 22 - January 24 - December 23 - February 23 -- listing of all days
See also: January 23, 1002, 1160, 1199, 1510
