November
23
Events
November
23
534 BC –
Thespis of Icaria becomes the first recorded actor to portray
a character onstage.
1248 – Conquest of Seville by the Christian troops under King
Ferdinand III of Castile.
1499 – Pretender to the throne Perkin Warbeck is hanged for
reportedly attempting to escape from the Tower of London. He
had invaded England in 1497, claiming to be the lost son of
King Edward IV of England.
1510 – First campaign of Ottoman Empire against Kingdom of Imereti
(modern western Georgia). Ottoman armies sack its capital Kutaisi
and burn Gelati Monastery.
1531 – The Second war of Kappel results in the dissolution of
the Protestant alliance in Switzerland.
1644 – John Milton publishes Areopagitica, a pamphlet decrying
censorship.
1808 – French and Poles defeat the Spanish at battle of Tudela
1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Chattanooga begins – Union
forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant reinforce troops at Chattanooga,
Tennessee and counter-attack Confederate troops.
1867 – The Manchester Martyrs are hanged in Manchester, England
for killing a police officer while freeing two Irish nationalists
from custody.
1876 – Corrupt Tammany Hall leader William Magear Tweed (better
known as Boss Tweed) is delivered to authorities in New York
City after being captured in Spain.
1889 – The first jukebox goes into operation at the Palais Royale
Saloon in San Francisco.
1890 – King William III of the Netherlands dies without a male
heir and a special law is passed to allow his daughter Princess
Wilhelmina to become his heir.
1910 – Johan Alfred Ander becomes the last person to be executed
in Sweden.
1914 – Mexican Revolution: The last of U.S. forces withdraw
from Veracruz, occupied seven months earlier in response to
the Tampico Affair.
1918 – Heber J. Grant succeeds Joseph F. Smith as the seventh
president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
1934 – An Anglo-Ethiopian boundary commission in the Ogaden
discovers an Italian garrison at Walwal, well within Ethiopian
territory. This leads to the Abyssinia Crisis.
1936 – Life magazine is reborn as a photo magazine and enjoys
instant success.
1940 – World War II: Romania becomes a signatory of the Tripartite
Pact, officially joining the Axis Powers.
1943 – World War II: The Deutsche Opernhaus on Bismarckstraße
in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg is destroyed. It
will eventually be rebuilt in 1961 and be called the Deutsche
Oper Berlin.
1943 – World War II: Tarawa and Makin atolls fall to American
forces.
1946 – French Navy fire in Hai Phong, Viet Nam, kills 6,000
civilians.
1955 – The Cocos Islands are transferred from the control of
the United Kingdom to Australia.
1959 – General Charles de Gaulle, President of France, declares
in a speech in Strasbourg his vision for a "Europe, "from
the Atlantic to the Urals."
1963 – The BBC broadcasts the first ever episode of Doctor Who
(starring William Hartnell) which is the world's longest running
science fiction drama.
1971 – Representatives of the People's Republic of China attend
the United Nations, including the United Nations Security Council,
for the first time.
1972 – The Soviet Union makes its final attempt at successfully
launching N-1 Rocket.
1972 – The intel 4004, first microporecesor was released.
1976 – Apneist Jacques Mayol is the first man to reach a depth
of 100 m undersea without breathing equipment.
1979 – In Dublin, Ireland, Provisional Irish Republican Army
member Thomas McMahon is sentenced to life in prison for the
assassination of Lord Mountbatten.
1980 – A series of earthquakes in southern Italy kills approximately
3,000 people.
1981 – Iran-Contra Affair: Ronald Reagan signs the top secret
National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), giving the
Central Intelligence Agency the authority to recruit and support
Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
1985 – Gunmen hijack EgyptAir Flight 648 while en route from
Athens to Cairo. When the plane lands in Malta, Egyptian commandos
storm the aircraft, but 60 people die in the raid.
1990 – The first all woman expedition to the South Pole (3 Americans,
1 Japanese and 12 Russians) sets off from Antarctica on the
1st leg of a 70 day, 1287 kilometre ski trek.
1993 – Rachel Whiteread wins both the £20,000 Turner Prize award
for best British modern artist and the £40,000 K Foundation
art award for the worst artist of the year.
1996 – Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 is hijacked, then crashes
into the Indian Ocean off the coast of Comoros after running
out of fuel, killing 125.
2001 – The Convention on Cybercrime is signed in Budapest, Hungary.
2003 – Rose Revolution: the Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze
resigns following weeks of mass protests over flawed elections.
2004 – The Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi, the largest religious
building in Georgia, is consecrated.
2005 – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is elected president of Liberia
and becomes the first woman to lead an African country.
2006 – A series of bombing kills at least 215 people and injures
257 others in Sadr City, making it the second deadliest sectarian
attack since the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003.
2007 – MS Explorer, a cruise liner carrying 154 people, sinks
in the Antarctic Ocean south of Argentina after hitting an iceberg
near the South Shetland Islands. There are no fatalities.
2009 – The Maguindanao massacre occurs in Ampatuan, Maguindanao,
Mindanao, Philippines
2010 – The Bombardment of Yeonpyeong occurs on Yeonpyeong Island,
South Korea. The North Korean artillery attack kills 2 civilians
and 2 South Korean marines.
2011 – Arab Spring: After 11 months of protests in Yemen, The
Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh signs a deal to transfer
power to the vice president, in exchange for legal immunity.
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Alexander Nevsky (Repose, Russian Orthodox Church)
Columbanus
Felicitas of Rome
Pope Clement I (Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion,
and the Lutheran Church)
November 23 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Earliest day on which Black Friday can fall, while November
29 is the latest; observed on the day after Thanksgiving. (United
States), and its related observances:
Feast of Qawl (Speech) – The first day of the 14th month of
the Bahá'í calendar. (Bahá'í Faith)
Labour Thanksgiving Day (Japan)
Rudolf Maister Day (Slovenia)
St George's Day or Giorgoba (Georgia)
For details, contact Datacentre
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