Today in history 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 worlds longest running science fiction drama. 1971 Representatives of the Peoples 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.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 07:19:01 +0000
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