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

   * 1556 - The deadliest earthquake in history kills 830,000 people in
     Shanxi Province, China.
   * 1570 - The assassination of regent James Stewart, 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).
   * 1849 - Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her MD by the Medical Institute
     of Geneva, New York, thus becoming the United States' first woman
     doctor.
   * 1851 - The flip of a coin determines whether or not a new city in
     Oregon is named after Boston, Massachusetts, or Portland, Maine, with
     Portland winning.
   * 1907 - Charles Curtis from Kansas, becomes the first Native American US
     Senator.
   * 1920 - The Netherlands refuses to surrender ex-Kaiser Willhelm 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 United States 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 - 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 - Thirteen years after its proposal and nearly two years after the
     measure had been passed by the United States Senate 77-16, 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
   * 2002 - John Walker Lindh returned to the United States under FBI
     custody

Births

   * 1737 - John Hancock, statesman and U.S. revolutionary (+ 1793)
   * 1783 - Stendhal, writer (+ 1842)
   * 1786 - Auguste de Montferrand, architect (+ 1858)
   * 1832 - Edouard Manet, impressionist artist (+ 1883)
   * 1862 - David Hilbert, Mathematician
   * 1898 - Sergei Eisenstein, director (+ 1948)
   * 1903 - Randolph Scott, actor (+ 1987)
   * 1907 - Dan Duryea, actor (+ 1968)
   * 1910 - Django Reinhardt, guitarist (+ 1953)
   * 1919 - Hans Haas, zoologist and underwater scientist
   * 1919 - Ernie Kovacs, comedian (+ 1962)
   * 1920 - Ray Abrams, tenor saxophonist
   * 1920 - Gottfried Bšhm, architect
   * 1928 - Jeanne Moreau, actress
   * 1930 - Derek Walcott, author
   * 1933 - Chita Rivera, actress, dancer
   * 1936 - Jerry Kramer, American football star
   * 1938 - Georg Baselitz, painter and sculptor
   * 1944 - Rutger Hauer, actor
   * 1950 - Richard Dean Anderson, actor
   * 1957 - Earl Falconer, bassist
   * 1957 - Princess Caroline of Monaco
   * 1963 - Gail O'Grady, actress
   * 1974 - Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, actress
   * 1980 - Joy Debnath, martial artist
   * 1991 - Erika Winner, ski racer

Deaths

   * 1002 - Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor
   * 1570 - James Stewart, Earl of Moray, regent of Scotland
   * 1805 - Claude Chappe, telecommunications pioneer (semaphores)
   * 1837 - John Field, composer
   * 1875 - Charles Kingsley, English writer
   * 1893 - Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, the only United States Supreme
     Court justice from Mississippi
   * 1931 - Anna Pavlova, ballerina
   * 1937 - Marie Prevost, actress
   * 1943 - Alexander Woolcott, bon vivant
   * 1973 - Kid Ory, musician
   * 1976 - Paul Robeson, actor, singer, social activist
   * 1978 - Jack Oakie, actor
   * 1978 - Terry Kath, musician ("Chicago (band)")
   * 1981 - Samuel Barber, American composer
   * 1983 - George Cukor, director
   * 1989 - Salvador Dal’, artist
   * 1992 - Freddie Bartholomew, actor
   * 1993 - Thomas Dorsey, gospel music singer
   * 2002 - Robert Nozick, philosopher
   * 2002 - Pierre Bourdieu, French sociologist