August 23

From Wikinfo

[[fr:23 ao�t]]

August 23 is the 235th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (236th in leap years), with 130 days remaining.

Events

1328 - Battle of Kassel: French troops stop an uprising of Flemish farmers
1566 - Calvinists are granted rights in the Netherlands
1614 - The University of Groningen is established
1617 - In London, the first one-way street is established
1784 - Eastern Tennessee declares itself an independent state under the name of Franklin; the step is rejected by Congress one year later
1821 - Mexico gains its independence from Spain
1833 - Slavery abolished in the British colonies
1839 - The UK captures Hong Kong
1864 - The Union Navy captures Fort Morgan, Alabama, thus breaking Confederate dominance of all ports on the Gulf of Mexico
1866 - Austro-Prussian War ends with the Treaty of Prague
1889 - First wireless message from a ship to the shore received
1904 - The automobile tire chain is patented
1914 - Japan declares war on Germany and bombs Qingdao, China
1923 - Edgar F. Codd, founder of theory of relational databases
1924 - The distance between Earth and Mars is the smallest since the 10th century
1927 - Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed
1939 - Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In a secret addition to the pact, Poland is divided between the two nations
1940 - The Germans start bombing London
1942 - Beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad
1943 - Kharkov liberated
1944 - Marseilles liberated
1944 - The Romanian pro-Nazi government is dismissed. Romania switches sides from the Axis to the Allies
1948 - World Council of Churches is formed
1952 - The Arab League goes into effect
1960 - In Equatorial Guinea, the world's largest frog (3.3 kg) is caught
1962 - First live television connection between the United States and Europe, via the Telstar satellite
1966 - Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon
1973 - The Intelsat communication satellite is launched
1975 - Successful Communist coup in Laos
1976 - A major earthquake in China kills thousands of people
1979 - Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defects to the United States
1985 - Hans Tiedge, top counter-spy of West Germany, defects to East Germany
1987 - Heavy rains and floods in Bangladesh kill hundreds of victims
1988 - Singing Revolution: two million people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania stood on the Vilnius-Tallinn road, holding hands
1990 - Saddam Hussein appears on Iraqi state television with a number of Western "guests" (actually hostages to try to prevent the Gulf War)
1990 - Armenia declares its independence from the Soviet Union
1990 - West Germany and East Germany announce that they will unite on October 3