November 23

2024 Calendar

November 23 is the 327th day of the year (328th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 38 days remaining until the end of the year.

Events

Up to 1900

800 – Charlemagne arrives at Rome to examine the alleged crimes of Pope Leo III.
1174 - Saladin enters Damascus.
1248 - Spanish Reconquista: Christian troops under Ferdinand III of Castile conquer Seville.
1510 - First campaign of the Ottoman Empire against the Kingdom of Imereti, present-day western Georgia.
1531 - The Second War of Kappel results in Switzerland's Protestant Alliance dissolving.
1644 - John Milton publishes Areopagitica, a pamphlet against censorship.
1791 - The Snares Islands to the south of New Zealand are discovered.
1810 - Sarah Booth has her first performance at the Royal Opera House.
1863 – American Civil War: Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant reinforce troops at Chattanooga, Tennessee and counter-attack Confederate troops.
1889 - The first jukebox goes into operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco, California.
1890 - King William III of the Netherlands dies. His death ends the shared monarchy between the Netherlands and Luxembourg. In the Netherlands, his daughter Wilhelmina becomes Queen, with Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont as regent. In Luxembourg, Grand Duke Adolphe becomes the next monarch.

1901 – 2000

1904 - The 1904 Olympics in St. Louis officially end.
1910 - Johan Alfred Ander becomes the last person to be executed in Sweden before the death penalty becomes illegal there.
1914 – The US Army retreats from Mexico.
1924 - Edwin Hubble's discovery of the Andromeda Galaxy is first published in a newspaper. Previously, the Milky Way was thought to be the only galaxy in existence.
1936 - Life magazine is re-published as a photograph magazine and becomes an immediate success.
1939 - World War II: German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sink the British aid ship Rawalpindi to the southeast of Iceland, killing 265 people.
1940 - World War II: Romania officially joins the Axis Powers.
1942 - World War II: British steamer Tilawa is sunk in the Indian Ocean by Japanese U-boat I-29, killing 280 people.
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."
1961 – Sturt's Desert Pea, Swainsona formosa, becomes the floral emblem of South Australia.
1963 – The first episode of the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who, "An Unearthly Child", airs on the BBC.
1971 – The representatives of the People's Republic of China first attended the United Nations, including the United Nations Security Council, as China's representatives.
1974 - Sixty Ethiopian politicians, aristocrats, military officers and other persons are executed by the provisional military government.
1976 - Jacques Mayol is the first man to reach a depth of 100 meters undersea without breathing equipment.
1978 - A cyclone kills 1,000 people in Eastern Sri Lanka.
1980 – A series of earthquakes in southern Italy kills approximately 4,800 people.
1981 – 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 it is travelling from Athens to Cairo. When the plane lands in Malta, it is stormed by Egyptian commandos, though 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.
1996 – The Republic of Angola officially joins the World Trade Organization.
1996 – A plane crash in the Indian Ocean near the Comoros kills 125 people.

From 2001

2001 - The Convention on Cybercrime is signed in Budapest.
2003 – Eduard Shevardnadze resigns as President of Georgia.
2004 - Tbilisi's Holy Trinity Cathedral is consecrated.
2005 – Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is elected President of Liberia, becoming Africa's first female President.
2006 - A series of bombings in Sadr City, Iraq, kills at least 215 people.
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.
2009 – The Maguindanao massacre occurs on the island of Mindanao, Philippines.
2010 – North Korea attacks Yeonpyeong Island, prompting a military response from neighbouring South Korea, in one of the fiercest exchanges since the Korean War.
2019 - People in the autonomous island region of Bougainville start voting on whether they want to be an independent country or whether they want to gain more autonomy as part of Papua New Guinea.

Births

Deaths

Up to 1900

947 - Berthold, Duke of Bavaria (b. 900)
955 – Edred, King of England (b. c. 923)
1407 - Louis I, Duke of Orleans (b. 1372)
1457 - King Ladislaus Posthumus of Bohemia and Hungary (b. 1440)
1499 - Perkin Warbeck, English pretender, executed
1503 - Margaret of York (b. 1446)
1572 - Bronzino, Italian painter and poet (b. 1503)
1585 – Thomas Tallis, English composer (b. 1505)
1616 - Richard Hakluyt, English priest and author (b. 1552)
1814 – Elbridge Gerry, Vice President of the United States (b. 1744)
1826 - Johann Elert Bode, German astronomer (b. 1747)
1833 - Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, French general and politician (b. 1762)
1864 – Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, German-born Russian astronomer (b. 1793)
1866 - Cave Johnson, American politician (b. 1793)
1890 – King William III of the Netherlands (b. 1817)

1901 – 2000

1902 – Walter Reed, American bacteriologist (b. 1851)
1910 - Hawley Harvey Crippen, American physician and murderer (b. 1862)
1923 - Urmuz, Romanian judge and author (b. 1883)
1934 - Giovanni Brunero, Italian cyclist (b. 1895)
1937 - Jagdish Chandra Bose, Indian physicist (b. 1858)
1941 - Horace F. Graham, American politician, Governor of Vermont (b. 1862)
1965 - Elisabeth of Bavaria, Queen of Belgium (b. 1876)
1966 – Séan T Ó Ceallaigh, 2nd President of Ireland (b. 1882)
1970 – Yusof bin Ishak, Singaporean politician (b. 1910)
1972 - Marie Wilson, American actress (b. 1916)
1973 - Sessue Hayakawa, Japanese actor, director and producer (b. 1889)
1974 - Massacre of Sixty in Ethiopia:
- Abiye Abebe, Ethiopian general and politician (b. 1918)
- Aman Andom, President of Ethiopia (b. 1924)
- Aklilu Habte-Wold, Prime Minister of Ethiopia (b. 1912)
- Asrate Medhin-Kassa, Ethiopian commander (b. 1922)
- Endelkachew Makonnen, Prime Minister of Ethiopia (b. 1927)
1976 - André Malraux, French theorist and author (b. 1901)
1979 - Merle Oberon, British actress (b. 1911)
1983 – Tom Evans, English guitarist and songwriter (b. 1947)
1990 – Roald Dahl, Welsh writer (b. 1916)
1991 – Klaus Kinski, German actor (b. 1926)
1992 - Roy Acuff, American country musician (b. 1903)
1992 - Jean-François Thiriart, Belgian politician (b. 1922)
1995 - Louis Malle, French director (b. 1932)
1995 - Junior Walker, American singer and saxophonist (b. 1931)

From 2001

2001 - Gerhard Stoltenberg, German politician (b. 1928)
2001 – Mary Whitehouse, British campaigner (b. 1910)
2002 – Roberto Matta, Chilean painter (b. 1911)
2005 - Constance Cummings, American-English actress (b. 1910)
2006 – Alexander Litvinenko, Russian spy (b. 1962)
2006 – Philippe Noiret, French actor (b. 1930)
2006 - Anita O'Day, American singer (b. 1919)
2006 - Willie Pep, American boxer (b. 1922)
2010 - Ingrid Pitt, British actress (b. 1937)
2011 – Montserrat Figueras, Spanish operatic soprano (b. 1942)
2012 - Larry Hagman, American actor (b. 1931)
2013 - Jay Leggett, American actor, director, producer and screenwriter (b. 1963)
2014 - Marion Barry, American politician, Mayor of Washington, DC (b. 1936)
2014 - Dorothy Cheney, American tennis player (b. 1916)
2014 - Pat Quinn, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1943)
2015 - Yoram Tsafrir, Israeli archaeologist (b. 1938)
2015 - Manmeet Bhullar, Canadian politician (b. 1980)
2015 - Douglass North, American economist (b. 1920)
2015 - Dan Fante, American author and playwright (b. 1944)
2016 - Ralph Branca, American baseball player (b. 1926)
2016 - Abdul-Karim Mousavi Ardebili, Iranian cleric and jurist (b. 1926)
2016 - Rita Barbera, Spanish politician, former Mayor of Valencia (b. 1948)
2016 - Andrew Sachs, German-born English actor (b. 1930)
2017 - Stela Popescu, Romanian actress (b. 1935)
2018 - Kevin Austin, English-Trinidadian footballer (b. 1973)
2018 - Betty Bumpers, former First Lady of Arkansas (b. 1925)
2018 - Menahem Degani, Israeli basketball player (b. 1927)
2018 - Mick McGeough, Canadian ice hockey referee (b. 1956)
2018 - Bob McNair, American businessman (b. 1937)
2018 - Nicolas Roeg, English film director (b. 1928)
2018 - George Ty, Filipino banker (b. 1932)
2018 - Gerard Unger, Dutch graphic and type designer (b. 1942)
2019 - Asunción Balaguer, Spanish actress (b. 1925)
2019 - Francesc Gambús, Spanish politician (b. 1974)
2019 - Barbara Hillary, American adventurer (b. 1931)
2019 - Catherine Small Long, American politician (b. 1924)

Holidays and observances

Bahá'í Faith – Feast of Qawl (Speech) – First day of the 14th month of the Bahá'í calendar
Georgia – St George's Day
Japan – Kinro kansha no hi (Labour Thanksgiving Day)
Slovenia – Rudolf Maister Day

Events

Up to 1900

1901 – 2000

From 2001

Births

Up to 1900

1901 – 1950

1951 – 1975

From 1976

Deaths

Up to 1900

1901 – 2000

From 2001

Holidays and observances