November 23Birthdays & History

On this day: November 23 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 534 BCThespis of Icaria becomes the first recorded actor to portray a character on stage.Europe
2. 1248Conquest of Seville by Christian troops under King Ferdinand III of Castile.Europe
3. 1499Seven days after being convicted of treason, Perkin Warbeck, a pretender to the throne of England, is hanged for attempting to escape from the Tower of London; his supporter John Atwater is executed with him.Europe
4. 1644John Milton publishes Areopagitica, a pamphlet decrying censorship.Europe
5. 1733The start of the 1733 slave insurrection on St. John in what was then the Danish West Indies.EuropeLatin America
6. 1808French and Poles defeat the Spanish at Battle of Tudela.Europe
7. 1863American Civil War: Battle of Chattanooga begins: Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant reinforce troops at Chattanooga, Tennessee, and counter-attack Confederate troops.North America
8. 1867The Manchester Martyrs are hanged in Manchester, England, for killing a police officer while freeing two Irish Republican Brotherhood members from custody.Europe
9. 1876Corrupt Tammany Hall leader William Magear Tweed (better known as Boss Tweed) is delivered to authorities in New York City after being captured in Spain.North AmericaEurope
10. 1890King William III of the Netherlands dies without a male heir and a special law is passed to allow his daughter Princess Wilhelmina to succeed him.Europe
11. 1910Johan Alfred Ander becomes the last person to be executed in Sweden.Europe
12. 1914Mexican Revolution: The last of U.S. forces withdraw from Veracruz, occupied seven months earlier in response to the Tampico Affair.Latin AmericaNorth America
13. 1921Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States, signs the Willis–Campbell Act into law, prohibiting doctors from prescribing beer or liquor for medicinal purposes.North America
14. 1923Thousands of Irish Republicans end the 1923 Irish hunger strikes, five die from starvation.Europe
15. 1924Edwin Hubble's discovery, that the Andromeda "nebula" is actually another island galaxy far outside our own Milky Way, is first published in The New York Times.North America
16. 1934An Anglo-Ethiopian boundary commission in the Ogaden discovers an Italian garrison at Walwal, well within Ethiopian territory. This leads to the Abyssinia Crisis.AfricaEurope
17. 1939World War II: HMS Rawalpindi is sunk by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.Europe
18. 1940World War II: Romania becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers.Europe
19. 1943World War II: Tarawa and Makin atolls fall to American forces.North America
20. 1943World 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.Europe
21. 1944World War II: The Lotta Svärd Movement is disbanded under the terms of the armistice treaty in Finland after the Continuation War.Europe
22. 1946French naval bombardment of Hai Phong, Vietnam, kills thousands of civilians.EuropeAsia
23. 1955The Cocos Islands are transferred from the control of the United Kingdom to that of Australia.EuropeOceania
24. 1959French President Charles de Gaulle declares in a speech in Strasbourg his vision for "Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals".Europe
25. 1963The first episode of Doctor Who ("An Unearthly Child") is broadcast by the BBC, which is now the world's longest running science fiction drama.Europe
26. 1971Representatives of the People's Republic of China attend the United Nations, including the United Nations Security Council, for the first time.Asia
27. 1972The Soviet Union makes its final attempt at launching the N1 rocket.Europe
28. 1974Sixty Ethiopian politicians, aristocrats, military officers, and other persons are executed by the provisional military government.Africa
29. 1976Jacques Mayol is the first man to reach a depth of 100 m (330 ft) undersea without breathing equipment.Europe
30. 1978The Geneva Frequency Plan of 1975 goes into effect, realigning many of Europe's longwave and mediumwave broadcasting frequencies.Europe
31. 1978Cyclone kills about 1,000 people in eastern Sri Lanka.Asia
32. 1980The 6.9 Mw Irpinia earthquake shakes southern Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing 2,483–4,900, and injuring 7,700–8,934.Europe
33. 1981Iran–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.Middle EastLatin America
34. 1985Gunmen hijack EgyptAir Flight 648 en route from Athens to Cairo. When the plane lands in Malta, Egyptian commandos storm the aircraft, but 60 people die in the raid.EuropeMiddle East
35. 1991Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury announces in a statement that he is HIV-positive. He dies the following day.Europe
36. 1992The first smartphone, the IBM Simon, is introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada.North America
37. 1996Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 is hijacked, then crashes into the Indian Ocean off the coast of Comoros after running out of fuel, killing 125.Africa
38. 2001The Budapest Convention on Cybercrime is signed in Budapest, Hungary.Europe
39. 2002Space Shuttle Endeavour launches on STS-113 to the International Space Station carrying the Expedition 6 crew and the P1 truss.World
40. 2003Rose Revolution: Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze resigns following weeks of mass protests over flawed elections.Europe
41. 2004The Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi, the largest religious building in Georgia, is consecrated.Europe
42. 2005Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is elected president of Liberia and becomes the first woman to lead an African country.Africa
43. 2006A series of bombings 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.Middle East
44. 2007MS 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.Latin America
45. 2009The Maguindanao massacre occurs in Ampatuan, Philippines; 58 opponents of Andal Ampatuan Jr. are kidnapped and killed.Asia
46. 2010Bombardment of Yeonpyeong: North Korean artillery attack kills two civilians and two marines on Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea.Asia
47. 2011Arab Spring: After 11 months of protests in Yemen, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh signs a deal to transfer power to the vice president, in exchange for legal immunity.Middle East
48. 2015Blue Origin's New Shepard space vehicle became the first rocket to successfully fly to space and then return to Earth for a controlled, vertical landing.North America
49. 2018Founders of Italian fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana issue an apology following a series of offensive advertisements on social media promoting a fashion show in Shanghai, China, which was canceled.EuropeAsia
50. 2019The last Sumatran rhinoceros in Malaysia, Imam, dies, making the species officially extinct in the country.Asia

Source: Wikipedia "November 23" / CC BY-SA 4.0