Historical Events on 23 Jan

Historical Events on 23 Jan

1368 - In a coronation ceremony, Zhu Yuanzhang ascends to the throne of China as the Hongwu Emperor, initiating Ming Dynasty rule over China that would last for three centuries.
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 his identity.
1533 - Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII of England, discovers herself pregnant.
1546 - Having published nothing for eleven years, Francois Rabelais publishes the Tiers Livre, his sequel to Gargantua and Pantagruel.
1556 - The deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hits Shaanxi province, China. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000.
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.
1656 - Blaise Pascal publishes the first of his Lettres provinciales.
1719 - The Principality of Liechtenstein is created within the Holy Roman Empire.
1789 - Georgetown College, first Roman Catholic college in the United States, was founded in Georgetown, Maryland (now a part of Washington, D.C.)
1793 - Russia and Prussia partition Poland.
1849 - Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Medical Institute of Geneva, New York, becoming the United States' first female 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 - In Montana, U.S. cavalrymen kill 173 Native Americans, mostly women and children, in the Marias Massacre.
1879 - Anglo-Zulu War: the Battle of Rorke's Drift ends.
1897 - Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. The resulting murder trial of her husband is perhaps the only case in United States history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction.
1899 - Emilio Aguinaldo is sworn in as President of the First Philippine Republic.
1904 - Ã…lesund Fire: the Norwegian coastal town Ã…lesund is devastated by fire, leaving 10,000 people homeless and one person dead. Kaiser Wilhelm II funds the rebuilding of the town in Jugendstil style.
1907 - Charles Curtis of Kansas becomes the first Native American U.S. 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 - Jewish-led Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
1943 - World War II: British forces capture Tripoli in Libya from the Nazis.
1943 - Duke Ellington plays at Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
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.
1945 - World War II: Karl Dönitz launches Operation Hannibal.
1950 - The Knesset passes a resolution that states Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
1958 - Overthrow in Venezuela of Marcos Pérez Jiménez
1960 - The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record by descending to 10,911 m (35,798 feet)in the Pacific Ocean.
1964 - The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, is ratified.
1967 - The diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Ivory Coast were established.
1968 - North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo, claiming the ship had violated their territorial waters while spying.
1973 - President Richard Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.
1973 - [[A volcano eruption devastates Heimaey in the Vestmannaeyjar chain of islands off the south coast of Iceland.
1978 - Sweden becomes the first nation in the world to ban aerosol sprays, believed to be damaging to earth's ozone layer.
1985 - O.J. Simpson becomes the first Heisman Trophy winner elected to the Football Hall of Fame.
1986 - The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first members: Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.
1996 - The first version of the Java programming language was released.
1997 - Madeleine Albright becomes the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State.
1997 - Antonis Daglis, a 23 year old Greek truck driver is sentenced to thirteen consecutive life sentences, plus 25 years for the serial slayings of three women and the attempted murder of six others.
2001 - The Chinese Communist Party stages a self-immolation in Tiananmen Square to frame Falun Gong and escalate the persecution.
2002 - Reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan. He was subsequently murdered .
2002 - "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh returns to the United States in Federal Bureau of Investigation custody.
2003 - Final communication between Earth and Pioneer 10
393 - Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his nine year old son Honorius co-emperor.
909 - John of Rila aka Saint Ivan and the fable of two pies.
971 - In China, the war elephant corps of the Southern Han are soundly defeated at Shao by crossbow fire from Song Dynasty troops. The Southern Han state is forced to submit to the Song Dynasty, ending not only Southern Han rule, but also the first regular war