Historical EventsToday: 23 September

Events

• 1122 - Concordat of Worms.


• 1459 - Battle of Blore Heath, the first major battle of the English Wars of the Roses, is fought at Blore Heath in Staffordshire.


• 1529 - The Siege of Vienna begins as Suleiman I begins his attack on the city.


• 1642 - First commencement exercises occur at Harvard College.


• 1779 - American Revolution; squadron commanded by John Paul Jones in USS Bonhomme Richard wins the Battle of Flamborough Head, off the coast of England, against two British warships.


• 1780 - American Revolution; British Major John André arrested as a spy by American soldiers exposing Benedict Arnold's treason.


• 1803 - Second Anglo-Maratha War: Battle of Assaye.


• 1806 - Lewis and Clark return to St. Louis, after exploring the Pacific Northwest of the United States.


• 1818 - Border demarcation markers for Moresnet formally installed.


• 1821 - Fall of Tripolitsa, Greece, massacre of 30.000 Turks.


• 1845 - The Knickerbockers Baseball Club, the first baseball team to play under the modern rules, is founded in New York.


• 1846 - Discovery of Neptune by French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier and British astronomer John Couch Adams; verified by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle.


• 1848 - First commercial production of chewing gum by John Curtis on a stove at his home in Bangor, Maine in the United States and marketed as 'The State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum'.


• 1868 - Grito de Lares (Lares Revolt) occurs in Puerto Rico against Spanish rule.


• 1875 - William Bonney ("Billy the Kid") is arrested for the first time.


• 1884 - Herman Hollerith patents his mechanical tabulating machine.


• 1889 - Nintendo Koppai (Later Nintendo Company, Limited) founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce and market the playing card game Hanafuda.


• 1905 - Norway and Sweden sign the "Karlstad treaty", peacefully dissolving the Union between the two countries.


• 1912 - First Mack Sennett "Keystone Cops" comedy is released.


• 1922 - Gdynia Seaport Construction Act passed by the Polish parliament.


• 1932 - The Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd is renamed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.


• 1941 - The first gas murder experiments are conducted at Auschwitz.


• 1942 - First day of the September Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as United States Marine Corps forces attack Imperial Japanese Army units along the Matanikau River.


• 1952 - Richard Nixon makes his "Checkers speech".


• 1959 The M/S Princess of Tasmania Australia’s first passenger RO/RO diesel ferry makes maiden voyage across Bass Strait.


• 1962 - Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City opens with the first building completed, Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall) home of the New York Philharmonic. ABC broadcasts in color for the first time, airing the initial episode of "The Jetsons."


• 1969 - The Chicago Eight trial opens in Chicago.


• 1972 - Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos announces over television and radio the implementation of martial law and signs General Order No. 1 which orders the arrest of opposition leaders, media censorship, banning travel to other countries except for diplomatic missions, abolishing the Philippine Congress, establishing dictatorial government, take-over or sequestering of public and private corporations and suspension of classes for one week in the Philippines.


• 1973 - Juan Perón returns to power in Argentina.


• 1983 - Saint Kitts and Nevis joins the United Nations.


• 1983 - Gerrie Coetzee of South Africa becomes the first African boxing world heavyweight champion.


• 1988 - José Canseco of the Oakland Athletics becomes the first member of the 40-40 club.


• 1999 - NASA announces that it has lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter.


• 1999 - Qantas Flight 1 overruns the runway in Bangkok during a storm. While some passengers only received minor injuries, it is still the worst crash in Qantas's history to date.


• 2002 - The first public version of the web browser Mozilla Firefox ("Phoenix 0.1") is released.


• 2004 - At least 1,070 in Haiti reported killed by floods due to Hurricane Jeanne


• 2005 - FBI killing of Filiberto Ojeda on Plan Bonito Hormigueros, Puerto Rico.