On this day in History - Jan. 23

• 0638 - Start of Islamic calendar.
• 1002 - Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor dies (b. 0980).
• 1199 - Yaqub, Almohad Caliph dies.
• 1350 - Vincent Ferrer was born (d. 1419). Spanish missionary and saint.
• 1510 - Henry VIII of England, then 18 years-old, appears incognito in the lists at Richmond, and is applauded for his jousting before he reveals himself.
• 1516 - Ferdinand II dies at 63. King of Aragon / Sicily.
• 1546 - Having published nothing for 11 years, Francois Rabelais brings out his sequel to Gargantua and Pantagruel: the Tiers Livre.
• 1548 - Bernardo Pisano dies (b. 1490). Italian composer.
• 1549 - Johannes Honter dies (b. 1498). Transylvanian Saxon humanist and theologian.
• 1556 - The deadliest earthquake on record killed 830,000 in Shaanxi, China.
• 1567 - Jiajing dies (b. 1507). Emperor of China.
• 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.
• 1622 - William Baffin dies (b. 1584). English explorer.
• 1639 - Francisco Maldonado da Silva Solis, Peruvian poet, was burned at stake.
• 1648 - Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla dies at 40. Spanish Poet (Del Rey Abajo).
• 1668 - England, Netherlands & Sweden signs Triple Alliance against French .
• 1719 - John Landen was born (d. 15 Jan 1790). British mathematician who made important contributions on elliptic integrals.
• 1719 - The Principality of Liechtenstein is created within the Holy Roman Empire.
• 1737 - John Hancock was born (d. 1793). American Revolutionist.
• 1744 - Giambattista Vico dies (b. 1668). Italian philosopher and historian.
• 1745 - William Jessop was born (d. 1814). English Canal engineer .
• 1769 - Portugal: Decreto que cria, em Pombal, uma fábrica de chapéus finos de propriedade régia.
• 1783 - Stendhal [Marie Henri Boyle] was born (d. 23 Mar 1842). French novelist (Le Rouge et Le Noir).
• 1785 - Matthew Stewart dies (b. 1717). Scottish mathematician.
• 1786 - Auguste de Montferrand was born (d. 1858). French architect.
• 1789 - Georgetown College becomes the first Catholic college in the United Stat (Washington, DC).
• 1789 - John Cleland dies (b. 1709). English novelist.
• 1789 - Frances Brooke dies (b. 1724). English writer.
• 1796 -Karl Karlovich Klaus was born (d. 24 Mar 1864). Russian chemist and biologist (of German origin) who discovered the ruthenium (1844).
• 1800 - Edward Rutledge dies (b. 1749). U.S. statesman.
• 1803 - Arthur Guinness dies (b. 1727). Irish brewer.
• 1805 - Claude Chappe dies (b. 25 Dec 1763). French engineer, telecommunications pioneer (semaphores)
• 1806 - William Pitt, primeiro-ministro da Grã-Bretanha falece aos 46 anos. Aos 24 anos de idade, ele havia se tornado o mais jovem primeiro-ministro na história do país.
• 1808 - Chegada de Dom João VI e a Família Real Portuguesa à Bahia.
• 1810 - Los franceses avanzan fácilmente por Andalucía y en este día se apoderan de Jaén y Córdoba.
• 1812 - Robert Craufurd dies in battle (b. 1764). British general.
• 1813 - Camilla Collett was born. Norwegian novelist, essayist, and literary critic .
• 1814 - Sir Alexander Cunningham was born ( d. 28 Nov 1893). British army officer and archaeologist who excavated many sites in India, including Sarnath and Sanchi.
• 1827 - Takamori Saigo was born (d. 1877). Samurai, leader of Satsuma rebellion.
• 1832 - Edouard Manet was born in Paris (d. 30 Apr 1883). French artist and impressionist painter. His 'Dejeuner sur l'herbe/Picnic on the grass' 1863 and Olympia 1865 (both Musee d'Orsay, Paris) offended conservative tastes in their matter-of-fact treatment of the nude body.
• 1833 - Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth dies (b. 1757). British admiral.
• 1837 - John Field dies (b. 1782). Irish composer.
• 1840 - Ernst Abbe was born (d. 14 Jan 1905). German physicist (Carl Zeiss Optics Company) who made theoretical and technical innovations in optical theory.
• 1849 - Patent granted for an envelope-making machine .
• 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 a new city in Oregon is named after Boston, Massachusetts, or Portland, Maine, with Portland winning.
• 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.
• 1857 - Andrija Mohorovičić was born (d. 18 Dec. 1936). Croatian metereologist and geophysicist who discovered the boundary between the Earth's crust and mantle, a boundary now named the Mohorovicic discontinuity.
• 1862 - David Hilbert was born (d. 14 Feb 1943). German Mathematicianwho reduced geometry to a series of axioms and contributed substantially to the establishment of the formalistic foundations of mathematics ("Foundations of Geometry").
• 1864 - Johann Lukas Schönlein dies, (b. 30 Nov 1793) German physician whose attempts to establish medicine as a natural science helped create modern methods for the teaching and practice of clinical medicine.
• 1864 - Michele Puccini, composer, dies at 50 .
• 1870 - Marias Massacre : In Montana, U.S. cavalrymen kill 173 Indians, most women and children.
• 1872 - Paul Langevin was born (d. 19 Dec 1946). French physicist who was the first scientist to explain the effects of paramagnetism and diamagnetism (the weak attraction or repulsion of substances in a magnetic field), in 1905, using statistical mechanics.
• 1872 - Goce Delchev was born (d. 1903). Bulgarian revolutionary.
• 1872 - Joze Plečnik was born (d. 1957). Slovenian architect.
• 1875 - Charles Kingsley dies (b. 1819). English writer.
• 1875 - Cândido José de Araújo Viana (Marquês de Sapucaí) dies (b. 15 Sep 1793). Marquis of Sapucaí, Brazilian politician.
• 1876 - Otto Diels was born (d. 7 Mar 1954); German organic chemist who with Kurt Alder was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1950 for their joint work in developing a method of preparing cyclic organic compounds.
• 1878 - Oton Župančič, was born, Slovenian poet (d. 1949).
• 1879 - Anglo-Zulu War of 1879: Rorke's DriftFollowing an overnight battle at Rorke's Drift, 150 British and Imperial soldiers successfully defended this isolated station against a force of more than 3,000 Zulu warriors, at a cost of 15 dead and ten wounded. Hailed as heroes across the British Empire, 11 of the defenders were awarded the Victoria Cross. (It was only in 1999 that a memorial was finally constructed to the brave Zulu warriors who fought for their beleaguered nation.)
• 1883 - Gustave Doré dies (b. 6 Jan 1832). French artist, engraver and painter.
• 1884 - Ralph DePalma was born (d. 1956). Race car driver.
• 1884 - Manuel Viriato Correia Baima do Lago Filho was born Pirapemas, Maranhão (d. 10 Apr 1967). Brazilian journalista, dramatist and writer; member of The Brazilian Academy of Letters.
• 1888 - Eugéne-Marin Labiche dies (b. 05 May 1815). French dramatist.
• 1893 - Jose Zorrilla y Moral dies at 75. Spanish Poet (Granada).
• 1893 - Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar dies (b. 1825). U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
• 1896 - Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg was born (d. 1985).
• 1897 - Subhas Chandra Bose was born (d. 1945). Indian independence fighter.
• 1897 - Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky was born (d. 2000). Austrian architect.
• 1898 - Randolph Scott was born (d. 2 Mar 1987). Actor (Last of the Mohicans, The Nevadan, Ride the High Country, To the Shores of Tripoli, Man in the Saddle, Go West Young Man, Bombardier) .
• 1898 - Sergei Eisenstein was born in Riga (d. 11 Feb 1948). Film director.
• 1899 - Humphrey (DeForest) Bogart,was born (d. 14. Jan. 1957);Academy Award-winning actor, (The African Queen [1951], The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Caine Mutiny, The Barefoot Contessa, Tokyo Joe, Key Largo, Action in the North Atlantic, High Sierra [over 50 films]).
• 1903 - Colonel Arthur Alfred Lynch is found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death for leading the "Irish Commando" against British forces in the Anglo-Boer War.
• 1903 - Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was born. Colombian politician .
• 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.
• 1905 - Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro dies. Famous Portuguese ceramist (Zé Povinho).
• 1907 - Charles Curtis from Kansas, becomes the first Native American US Senator.
• 1907 - Dan Duryea was born (d. 1968). Actor.
• 1907 - Hideki Yukawa was born (d. 08 Sept 1981). Japanese physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1949 for research in the theory of elementary particles.
• 1909 - Tatiana Proskouriakoff was born in Tomsk, Liberia (d. 1974). Archeologist and investigator of Maya's culture.
• 1910 - Django Reinhardt was born (d. 1953). Belgian guitarist.
• 1912 - The International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague.
• 1915 - Potter Stewart was born (d. 1985). U.S. Supreme Court Justice
• 1915 - Arthur Lewis was born. Nobel Prize in Economics in 1979.
• 1918 - Gertrude Belle Elion was born (d. 21 Feb 1999). American pharmacologist who, along with George H. Hitchings and Sir James W. Black, received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1988 for their development of drugs used to treat several major diseases.
• 1919 - Hans Hass was born. Austrian zoologist and underwater scientist .
• 1919 - Ernie Kovacs was born (d. 1962). American comedian.
• 1920 - Ray Abrams was born. Tenor saxophonist .
• 1920 - Gottfried Böhm was born. Architect.
• 1920 - The Netherlands refuses to surrender ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to the Allies.
• 1923 - Walter M. Miller Jr. was born (d. 1996). American Science fiction writer.
• 1923 - Max Nordau dies (b. 1849). Austrian author, philosopher and Zionist leader.
• 1928 - Chico Carrasquel was born (d. 2005). Venezuelan Major League Baseball player.
• 1928 - Jeanne Moreau was born. French actress (Going Places, Jules & Jim).
• 1929 - John C. Polanyi was born; Chemist and educator who, with Dudley R. Herschbach and Yuan T. Lee, received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1986 for his contribution to the field of chemical-reaction dynamics.
• 1930 - Derek Walcott was born. Dramatist and poet ( Nobel 1992) .
• 1931 - Espanha e Portugal fazem um acordo e é abolido a necessidade de passaporte entre os dois países.
• 1931 - Anna Pavlova dies (b. 1881). Russian ballerina.
• 1932 - El Salvador army kills 4,000 protesting farmers .
• 1933 - Chita Rivera was born. Puero Rican actress, dancer.
• 1933 - Joãosinho Trinta was born. Brazilian coreographer and Carnival animator.
• 1935 - French colonial troops are massacred by Abyssinian tribesmen in Somaliland .
• 1936 - Jerry Kramer was born. American football star .
• 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.
• 1937 - Marie Prevost dies (b. 1898). Canadian actress.
• 1937 - Orso Mario Corbino dies (b. 1876). Italian physicist.
• 1938 - Georg Baselitz was born. German painter and sculptor.
• 1938 - Shohei Baba was born (d. 1999). Japanese professional wrestler.
• 1939 - Matthias Sindelar dies in Wien (b. 10 Feb 1903). Austrian footballer.
• 1940 - Pianist Ignaz Paderewski becomes Premier of Polish government in exile .
• 1941 - Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
• 1941 - João Ubaldo Ribeiro was born in Itaparica Island, Bahia. Brazilian journalist and writer (Setembro Não faz Sentido - 1963, Sargento Getúlio - 1971)
• 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.
• 1943 - Gil Gerard was born. Actor (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Sidekicks, Hooch, Soldier’s Fortune).
• 1943 - After nine days of talks in Casablanca, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed to put an invasion of Italy ahead of opening a second front in northwestern Europe.
• 1943 - Gil Gerard was born. American actor.
• 1943 - Alexander Woollcott dies (b. 1887). American actor, author, and bon vivant.
• 1944 - Edvard Munch dies (b. 1863). Norwegian painter (The Scream).
• 1944 - Rutger Hauer was born. Dutch actor (Lady Hawke, Nighthawks, Blade Runner, Beyond Justice, Forbidden Choices).
• 1947 - Megawati Sukarnoputri was born. President of Indonesia
• 1947 - Thomas R. Carper was born. U.S. Senator from Delaware.
• 1947 - Pierre Bonnard dies (b. 1867). French painter See here his work
• 1948 - Anita Pointer was born. American singer.
• 1950 - Richard Dean Anderson was born. American actor .
• 1950 - The Knesset passes a resolution that states Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
• 1950 - Luis Alberto Spinetta was born. Argentine musician and composer.
• 1950 - Danny Federici was born. American musician (Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band)
• 1952 - Henrique da Costa Mecking (Mequinho) was born. Brazilian chess player, world champion.
• 1954 - Franco De Vita was born. Venezuelan singer and songwriter
• 1955 - In a crash of the York-Bristol express train at Sutton Coldfield, England, 17 people were killed and 43 injured.
• 1957 - Earl Falconer, was born, bassist UB40, 1983 UK No.1 and US 1988 US No.1 single Red Red Wine, Food for Thought, If It Happens Again, Don’t Break My Heart, Sing Our Own Song.
• 1957 - Princess Caroline of Monaco was born, daughter of Prince Ranier and Princess Grace of Monaco.
• 1958 - Dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez flees Venezuela, Larrazábal takes power.
• 1958 - In Assunción, Paraguay is inaugurated the new headoffices of the South American Soccer Confederation (Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol).
• 1960 - The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record when it descends 35,820 feet (10,750 meters) in the Pacific Ocean - deepest point known to exist on earth, in the Marianas Trench near the island of Guam.
• 1961 - Wilhelm Koppers dies (b. 8 Feb 1886) Roman Catholic priest and cultural anthropo logist.
• 1961 - Venezuela adopts constitution .
• 1962 - Libya, Morocco, Algeria & Tunisia plan to form United Arab Maghreb.
• 1963 - Gail O'Grady was born. American actress
• 1964 - The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, is ratified .
• 1964 - Mariska Hargitay was born. American actress.
• 1967 - Naim Suleymanoglu was born. Bulgaria-born Turkish weightlifter .
• 1968 - North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo, claiming the ship violated their territorial waters while spying.
• 1968 - Petr Korda was born in Prague Czechoslovakia. Tennis star (1993 Doubles-Cincinnati OH).
• 1969 - Andrei Kanchelskis was boprn. Ukrainian-Russian footballer.
• 1970 - The first Jumbo jet landed at London's Heathrow airport.
• 1972 - Marcel Wouda was born. Dutch swimmer.
• 1973 - President Richard Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.
• 1973 - George Foreman took the heavyweight boxing title away from ‘Smokin’ Joe Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica .
• 1973 - Jordan Air crash at Kano, Nigeria kills 176 Moslem pilgrims.
• 1973 - Kid Ory dies (b. 1886). American jazz trombonist.
• 1974 - Tiffani - Amber Thiessen was born in Long Beach CA, actress (Saved by Bell, Beverly Hills90210, Son in Law).
• 1975 - Barney Miller debuts on ABC.
• 1976 - Paul Robeson dies (b. 1898). American actor, singer, and social activist.
• 1978 - Sweden becomes the first nation to ban aerosol sprays that are thought to damage earth's protective ozone layer.
• 1978 - Terry Kath dies, in Los Angeles, while trying to prove a gun was not loaded. He pointed it at his head and pulled the trigger, killing himself instantly. Member of the rock group Chicago.
• 1978 - Jack Oakie dies (b. 1903). American actor.
• 1981 - Samuel Barber dies (b. 1910). American composer.
• 1982 - Maria Emília Archer dies (b. 1905). Portuguese writer.
• 1983 - The A-Team debuts.
• 1983 - George Cukor dies (b. 1899). Film director.
• 1983 - Soviet satellite Cosmos 1402 entered Earth's atmosphere and crashed into the Indian Ocean.
• 1983 - David Firth was born. British animator/musician.
• 1984 - Arjen Robben was born. Dutch footballer.
• 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)
• 1986 - Morrem 38 pessoas no incêndio de um hotel de luxo em Nova Delhi.
• 1988 - the experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first nonstop, around the world flight without refueling. They landed it safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
• 1988 - 45th Golden Globes: Last Emperor, Sally Kirkland, Michael Douglas .
• 1989 - Salvador Dalí dies (b. 11 May 1904). Spanish Surrealist painter.
• 1990 - Mariano Rumor dies. Italy's PM (1968-70, 73-1974).
• 1993 - 50th Golden Globes: Scent of a Woman, wins.
• 1993 - The first African-American to sit on the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall, died.
• 1993 - Indian Airlines B737 crashes art Aurangabad, 61 die .
• 1994 - Worldwide Day for peace in Bosnia-Hercegovina .
• 1995 - Jacques Delors formally stepped down as European Commission president, handing over to Jacques Santer after 10 years of steering Europe towards closer union.
• 1996 - The first version of the Java programming language is released.
• 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.
• 1998 - Pope John Paul II condemns US embargo against Cuba .
• 1998 - Hilla Limann President of Ghana in (1979-81), dies.
• 1998 - La Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol inaugura su nueva sede en Asunción.
• 1999 - "La Niña de tus ojos", de Fernando Trueba, é o filme ganhador da XIII edição dos Prêmios da Academia de Cinema.
• 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.
• 2002 - Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped by the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty.
• 2002 - Pierre Bourdieu dies (b. 1930). French sociologist.
• 2002 - Robert Nozick dies (b. 1938). American philosopher.
• 2003 - R Kelly was arrested on new child pornography charges.
• 2003 - Nell Carter dies (b. 1948). American singer and actress.
• 2004 - Bob Keeshan dies (b. 1927). American actor.
• 2004 - The European Space Agency claimed to have discovered evidence of water on the surface of the planet Mars.
• 2005 - Morys George Lyndhurst Bruce, 4th Baron Aberdare dies (b. 1921). British politician.
• 2005 - Viktor Yushchenko is sworn in as the third President of Ukraine.
• 2005 - Johnny Carson dies (b. 1925). American television personality.
• 2005 - Douglas Knight dies (b. 1921). American university president.
• 2006 - A Canadian federal election will be held after the fall of Paul Martin's Liberal minority government.