See what makes December 23 special at Famous Daily.
History, birthdays, holiday, and a quote!
What happened on December 23
- December 23, 0619 Boniface V begins his reign as Catholic Pope
- December 23, 1493 Georg Alt's German translation of Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle is published.
- December 23, 1569 St Philip of Moscow martyred by Ivan the Terrible
- December 23, 1620 Construction on the Plymouth Settlement Begins
- December 23, 1672 "Giovanni Cassini discovers Rhea, a satellite of Saturn"
- December 23, 1776 "Continental Congress negotiates a war loan of $181,500 from France"
- December 23, 1776 "Thomas Paine writes ""These are the times that try men's souls"""
- December 23, 1779 Benedict Arnold court-martialed for improper conduct
- December 23, 1783 "George Washington resigns as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland."
- December 23, 1788 Maryland votes to cede a 10 mile area for District of Columbia
- December 23, 1793 "The Battle of Savenay, decisive defeat of the royalist counter-revolutionaries in Revolt in the Vende during the French Revolution."
- December 23, 1823 """Visit from St Nicholas"" by C Moore published in Troy (New York) Sentinel"
- December 23, 1823 The poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (AKA The Night Before Christmas) is published in the Sentinel.
- December 23, 1834 Joseph Hansom of London receives patent for Hansom cabs
- December 23, 1852 "First Chinese theater in US, Celestial John, opens in San Francisco"
- December 23, 1862 "Union General Ben ""Beast"" Butler is proclaimed a ""felon, outlaw & common enemy of mankind"" by Jefferson Davis"
- December 23, 1867 First self-made millionairess (Sarah Breedlove-hair straightener)
- December 23, 1888 "Vincent van Gogh cuts off the lower part of his left ear, takes it to a brothel, and gives it to a prostitute named Rachel."
- December 23, 1893 "The opera ""Hansel und Gretel"" is produced (Weimar)"
- December 23, 1907 "First all-steel passenger railroad coach completed, Altoona, Pa"
- December 23, 1909 Albert becomes king of Belgium
- December 23, 1911 Stanislavski and Craig's seminal production of Hamlet opened at the Moscow Arts Theatre.
- December 23, 1911 "The opera ""I Giojelli Della Madonna"" is produced (Berlin)"
- December 23, 1913 "The Federal Reserve Act is signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve."
- December 23, 1914 "World War I: Australian and New Zealand troops arrive in Cairo, Egypt."
- December 23, 1919 First hospital ship built to move wounded naval personnel launched
- December 23, 1920 "Ireland divided into 2 parts, each with its own parliament"
- December 23, 1921 Visva-Bharati University is inaugurated.
- December 23, 1928 "NBC sets up a permanent, coast-to-coast network"
- December 23, 1930 Police Bureau of Criminal Alien Investigation started in New York NY
- December 23, 1936 Colombia becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
- December 23, 1937 First flight of the Vickers Wellington bomber.
- December 23, 1938 Discovery of the first modern coelacanth in South Africa.
- December 23, 1940 World War II: Greek submarine Papanikolis (-2) sinks the Italian motor ship Antonietta.
- December 23, 1941 American forces on Wake Island surrender to Japanese
- December 23, 1943 "First telecast of a complete opera (Hansel and Gretel), Schenectady NY"
- December 23, 1944 HMCS Clayoquot (Minesweeper) torpedoed off Halifax
- December 23, 1947 The transistor is first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.
- December 23, 1947 "Transistor invented by Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley in Bell Labs"
- December 23, 1948 Former Japanese prime minister is executed along with six other top Japanese leaders for their war crimes during World War II
- December 23, 1948 Seven Japanese convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East are executed at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo.
- December 23, 1954 "The first human kidney transplant is performed by Dr. Joseph E. Murray at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts."
- December 23, 1958 "Dedication of Tokyo Tower, world's highest self-supporting iron tower."
- December 23, 1962 Cuba starts returning US prisoners from the Bay of Pigs invasion
- December 23, 1966 "Britains rock TV show, ""Ready Steady Go,"" last program"
- December 23, 1968 82 members of US intelligence ship `Pueblo' released by North Korea
- December 23, 1968 "Borman, Lovell and Anders become first men to orbit Moon"
- December 23, 1968 First US case of space motion sickness
- December 23, 1968 The United States won the release of 82 sailors by issuing a writing apology to North Korea for spying on the Communist country.
- December 23, 1972 "16 plane crash survivors rescued after 70 days, survived by cannibalism"
- December 23, 1972 "Earthquake destroys central Managua, Nicaragua"
- December 23, 1972 Number one hit on UK music charts - Little Jimmy Osmond - Long Haired Lover From Liverpool
- December 23, 1972 "The 16 survivors of the Andes flight disaster are rescued after 73 days, having survived by cannibalism."
- December 23, 1972 "The Nicaraguan capital of Managua is struck by a 6.5 magnitude earthquake, killing more than 10,000."
- December 23, 1972 "The Pittsburgh Steelers win their first ever post-season NFL game, defeating the Oakland Raiders 13-7, on a last second play that would become known as the Immaculate Reception."
- December 23, 1973 """The Young and the Restless"" premiers on TV"
- December 23, 1973 6 Persian Gulf nations double their oil prices
- December 23, 1975 Congress passes Metric Conversion Act
- December 23, 1979 "Soviet war in Afghanistan: Soviet forces occupy Kabul, the Afghan capital."
- December 23, 1983 Journal Science publishes first report on nuclear winter
- December 23, 1986 "Voyager completes global flight, Rutan and Yeager make around-the-world flight without refueling"
- December 23, 1986 "Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world."
- December 23, 1987 "Lynette ""Squeaky"" Fromme, serving a life sentence for attempted assassination of President Gerald R Ford escapes from Alderson Prison"
- December 23, 1989 Number one hit on UK music charts - Band Aid II - Do They Know It's Christmas
- December 23, 1990 "History of Slovenia: In a referendum, 88% of Slovenia's population vote for independence from Yugoslavia."
- December 23, 1990 Slovenians vote to secede from Yugoslavia
- December 23, 1991 New York Daily News publisher Kevin Maxwell resigns
- December 23, 2002 "A MQ-1 Predator is shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25, making it the first time in history that an aircraft and an unmanned drone had engaged in combat."
- December 23, 2004 Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean is hit by an 8.1 magnitude earthquake.
- December 23, 2005 "Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 217 from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Aktau, Kazakhstan crashes shortly after takeoff killing 23 people."
- December 23, 2005 "Chad declares a state of war against Sudan following a December 18th attack on Adr, which left about 100 people dead."
- December 23, 2007 A grand conjunction in which the solar system will align with the galactic center.
- December 23, 2009 39-year-old Russian Orthodox priest Father Alexander Filippov is fatally shot in the back outside his home in Satino-Russkoye after challenging a group of drunks who were urinating in his hallway.
- December 23, 2009 "A Dutch court hears a case taken by Kurdish survivors of poison gas attacks in Halabja against businessman Frans van Anraat, who sold chemicals to Saddam Hussein during the 1980s."
- December 23, 2009 "Afghan senator Mohammad Younus and his son/driver are fatally shot by police in Puli Khumri, Baghlan Province."
- December 23, 2009 "American Airlines Flight 331, with 154 people onboard, overshoots the runway at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, Jamaica, injuring 44."
- December 23, 2009 "Authorities in Uzbekistan fell trees, some of which are more than a century old, in the capital Tashkent, in a controversy which has drawn protests."
- December 23, 2009 "Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin Jim Moriarty resigns, the second bishop to do so following the publication of the Murphy Report."
- December 23, 2009 Clashes between police and protesters take place in the Iranian city of Isfahan at a memorial service for Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri.
- December 23, 2009 "Farouk Adamu Aliyu of the All Nigeria Peoples Party initiates legal action in a bid to tempt the unwell President of Nigeria Umaru Yar'Adua, who is hospitalised in Saudi Arabia, to resign the position on health grounds."
- December 23, 2009 G.vle's giant straw goat a traditional symbol of yuletide in Scandinavia is burned down for the 24th time.
- December 23, 2009 "President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf voluntarily imprisons herself in Bella Yalla prison, an old maximum security prison in the northern jungle, which is to be renamed and turned into a museum."
- December 23, 2009 "Sa'dah insurgency in northern Yemen led to the deaths of 73 Saudi soldiers, while more than 100 Houthis have been killed in recent days."
- December 23, 2009 "Soyuz TMA-17, carrying an international crew of one Russian, one American, and one Japanese astronaut, docks with the International Space Station."
- December 23, 2009 "The body of Luis Francisco Cu‚llar, the governor of Caquet department in Colombia kidnapped the previous day, is found."
- December 23, 2009 The Supreme Court of Pakistan orders the government to recognise hijras (eunuchs and transgender individuals) as a distinct gender.
- December 23, 2009 The trial of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo on charges of subversion begins.
- December 23, 2009 The United Nations imposes sanctions of a ban on arms importation and frozen bank accounts on Eritrea for supporting Somali rebels.
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