On October 23rd...

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4004 B.C. The world was created, according to Archbishop James Ussher.

1091 A tornado struck the heart of London, England, killing two persons and demolishing the London Bridge.

1642 King Charles I beat English parliamentarian forces at the Battle of Edgehill.

1715 Tsar Peter II was born.

1739 British Prime Minister Robert Walpole declared war on Spain.

1760 The first Jewish prayer books were printed in the United States.

1775 The Continental Congress approved a resolution barring blacks from the Continental Army.

1790 Slaves revolted in Haiti.

1805 The sailing ship Aeneus sank off Newfoundland, killing 340 persons.

1813 The Pacific Fur Company trading post in Astoria, Oregon, was turned over to the British North West Company.

1814 The first plastic surgery was performed, in England.

1817 James Denver, American politician and Civil War general, was born.

1835 American politician Adlai Stevenson was born.

1844 Actress Sarah Bernhardt was born.

1864 A Kansas Militia force defeated a Confederate army force at Westport, Missouri.

1867 Seventy-two Senators were summoned by Royal Proclamation to serve as the first members of the Canadian Senate.

1869 Football player John Heisman was born.

1892 Comic actor Gummo Marx was born.

1893 The World's Columbian Exposition closed in Chicago.

1895 U.S. Congressman Fontaine Maury Maverick was born.

1905 U.S. Congressman Jeremiah "Sockless Jerry" Simpson died.

1906 Long-distance swimmer Gertrude Ederle was born.

1910 Blanche Scott became the first woman to solo a public airplane flight.

1915 25,000 women marched up Fifth Avenue in New York City demanding the right to vote.

1917 The 1st Infantry Division, "Big Red One," fired the first U.S. shots in the First World War.

1921 The Green Bay Packers played their first NFL game, a 7-6 win over Minneapolis.

1925 Talk show host Johnny Carson was born.

1933 John Dillinger and his gang robbed the Central National Bank in Greencastle, Indiana (they took $75, 000).

1935 Dutch Schultz, Abe Landau, Otto Berman, and Bernard Rosencrantz were fatally shot at a saloon in Newark, New Jersey.

1939 Author Zane Grey died.

1941 The Disney film Dumbo was released.

1942 The British began an offensive at El Alamein.
1942 All 12 persons aboard an American Airlines DC-3 were killed when it was struck by a U.S. Army Air Forces bomber near Palm Springs, California.
1942 Author Michael Crichton was born.

1944 The Battle for Leyte Gulf began.
1944 The Soviet Army invaded Hungary.

1950 Singer Al Jolson died.

1954 The Allied occupation of West Germany ended.

1956 The first video recording on magnetic tape was televised coast-to-coast.
1956 Singer Dwight Yoakam was born.

1957 The U.S. Air Force announced that it had successfully sent a 4-stage rocket into space as part of Project Far Side.
1957 Herbert Brownell, Jr., resigned as Attorney General of the United States.
1957 A total solar eclipse was seen in Antarctica and South Africa.
1957 Fashion designer Christian Dior died.

1958 An underground earth shift in the Cumberland Railway and Coal Company's No. 2 mine at Springhill, Nova Scotia, killed 75 men.
1958 Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover was elevated to the rank of Vice Admiral of the U.S. Navy.
1958 A bus plunged into a ravine near Toluca, Mexico, killing 25 of the 26 persons aboard.
1958 Television journalist Nancy Grace was born.

1959 Bell Telephone Laboratories received a patent for a picture telephone.
1959 The U.S. Air Force announced that it had successfully sent a 4-stage rocket into space as part of Project Far Side.
1959 Herbert Brownell, Jr., resigned as Attorney General of the United States.
1959 A total solar eclipse was seen in Antarctica and South Africa.

1962 Football player Doug Flutie was born.

1970 Gary Gabelich set an auto speed record of 622.4 mph.

1977 Paleontologist Elso Barghoorn announced the discovery of a 3.4-billion year old one-celled fossil.

1979 More than 200,000 people demonstrated against nuclear power in New York City, New York.
1979 The military governor of the Basque province of Guipúzcoa, Spain, was assassinated.

1983 A suicide bomber drove a truck packed with explosives into the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut, killing 243 military personnel.

1988 The U.S. Senate rejected Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court.

1989 Hungary proclaimed itself a republic and declared an end to communist rule.

1992 Akihito became the firstEmperor of Japan to stand on Chinese soil.

1997San Francisco, California, experienced a power blackout due to sabotage.

2001 Apple released its iPod.

2002 Chechen rebels seized the House of Culture Theatre in Moscow, Russia, and took approximately 700 theater-goers hostage.

2003 Madame Chiang Kai-shek, widow of Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, died.

2004 An earthquake hit Niigata Prefecture, Japan, killing 35 persons, injuring 2,200, and leaving 85,000 homeless or evacuated.

2011 A 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Van Province, Turkey, killing 582 persons.

2012 Twelve persons were killed and another 40 injured in a hospital fire in Tainan, Taiwan.

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This page was last updated on October 23, 2018.