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 it descends 35,820 feet (10,750 meters) in the Pacific Ocean.
• 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, Major League Baseball player (b. 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)
  • 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
  • Danny Federici, American musician (Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band)
• 1957:
  • Earl Falconer, bassist
  • Princess Caroline of Monaco
• 1963 – Gail O'Grady, actress
• 1964 – Mariska Hargitay, actress
• 1967 – Naim Suleymanoglu, Bulgaria-born Turkish weightlifter
• 1974 – Tiffani Thiessen, actress

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

• BBC: On This Day

January 22 – January 24 – December 23 – February 23 — listing of all days