August 23

Events
Up to 1900
30 BC - After a successful invasion of Egypt, Octavian has Marcus Antonius Antyllus and Caesarion executed.
79 - Mount Vesuvius starts to show activity, a day before it erupted, destroying Pompeii and Herculaneum.
406 - Gothic king Radagaisus is executed after he is defeated by Roman general Stilicho.
476 - Odoacer, chieftain of the Germanic tribes, is proclaimed King of Italy by his troops.
1244 - Siege of Jerusalem: The city's citadel, the Tower of David, surrenders to the Kharezmian Empire.
1305 - William Wallace is executed.
1328 - Battle of Kassel: French troops stop an uprising of Flemish farmers
1328 - King Philip VI of France is crowned.
1382 - Siege of Moscow: The Golden Horde led by khan Tokhtamysh lays siege to the capital of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.
1521 - Christian II of Denmark is deposed as King of Sweden and Gustav Vasa is elected regent.
1540 - French explorer Jacques Cartier lands near Quebec City in his third voyage to Canada.
1566 - Calvinists are granted rights in the Netherlands.
1592 - Japanese invasions of Korea: Yeongwon Castle is besieged by the Japanese Fourth Division, led by Ito Suketaka.
1614 - The University of Groningen is established.
1617 - In London, the first one-way street is established.
1628 - George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham is assassinated by John Felton.
1651 - Charles II enters Worcester and starts a battle.
1655 - Battle of Sobota: The Swedish Empire led by Charles X Gustav defeats the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1784 - Eastern Tennessee declares itself an independent state under the name of Franklin; the step is rejected by Congress one year later.
1793 - French Revolution: a levee en masse was decreed by the National Convention.
1799 - Napoleon leaves Egypt for France en route to seize power.
1813 - At the Battle of Grossbeeren, the Prussians under Von Bulow repulse the French army.
1821 - Mexico gains its independence from Spain.
1833 - Slavery abolished in the British colonies.
1839 - The UK captures Hong Kong.
1858 - The Round Oak rail accident occurs in Brierley Hill in the Black Country, England.
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.
1873 - The Albert Bridge is opened across the Thames in Chelsea, London, England, United Kingdom.
1889 - First wireless message from a ship to the shore received.
1896 - Start of the Philippines Revolution.
1901 1950
1904 - The automobile tire chain is patented.
1913 - A statue of the Little Mermaid is put up in Copenhagen.
1914 - World War I: Japan declares war on Germany and bombs Qingdao, China.
1921 - British airship R-38 experiences a structural failure over Kingston-Upon-Hull and crashes into the Humber estuary.
1924 - The distance between Earth and Mars is the smallest since the 10th century.
1927 - Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti are executed in Boston, Massachusetts.
1929 - Arabs attack Jews in Israel.
1938 - English cricketer Len Hutton sets the world record for the highest individual test innings of 364, against Australia.
1939 - World War II: Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In a secret addition to the pact, Baltic states, Finland and Poland are divided between the two nations.
1940 - World War II: The Germans start bombing London.
1942 - World War II: Beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad
1943 - World War II: Kharkov liberated.
1944 - World War II: Marseille liberated.
1944 - World War II: King Michael of Romania dismisses the pro-Nazi government of General Antonescu. Romania switches sides from the Axis to the Allies.
1944 - A US Army Air Force B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into a school in Freckleton, England killing 61 people.
1944 - World War II: Ion Antonescu, Prime Minister of Romania, is arrested and a new government is established. Romania exits the war against Russia joining the Allies.
1946 - Three states are created in the British occupation zone of post-World War II Germany: North Rhine-Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein, and the short-lived state of Hanover.
1947 - The Maynard Midgets beat Lock Haven 16-7 to win the first-ever Little League World Series championship.
1948 - World Council of Churches is formed.
1950 - The Subansiri Dam break in India kills 532 people.
1951 2000
1952 - The Arab League goes into effect.
1958 - Chinese Civil War: The Second Taiwan Strait crisis begins with the People's Liberation Army's bombardment of Quemoy.
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.
1968 - Ringo Starr temporarily quits The Beatles
1973 - The Intelsat communication satellite is launched.
1973 - Salvador Allende, President of Chile, named Augusto Pinochet as Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army. Just 19 days later, Pinochet takes power in a coup, overthrowing Allende, who is killed.
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.
1982 - Bachir Gemayel is elected President of Lebanon during his country's civil war. He will not become president, as he is killed on September 14, before he can take office.
1985 - Hans Tiedge, top counter-spy of West Germany, defects to East Germany.
1987 - Heavy rains and floods in Bangladesh kill hundreds of victims.
1989 - Singing Revolution: two million people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania stand on the Vilnius-Tallinn road, holding hands (Baltic way).
1989 - All of Australia's 1,645 domestic airline pilots resign after the airlines threaten to sack them and sue them over a dispute.
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.
1991 - Tim Berners-Lee opens the World Wide Web to new users.
1992 - Hurricane Andrew hits South Florida.
1993 - The Galileo spacecraft discovers a moon orbiting around an asteroid; Dactyl orbits around the asteroid 243 Ida.
1999 - The Federal Republic of Germany is governed from Berlin from this day.
2000 - A Gulf Air Airbus A320 crashes into the Persian Gulf near Manama, Bahrain, killing 143 people.
2000 - Nicaragua becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty. This basically replaced the Buenos Aires Convention treaty, because as of this date, all members of the BA Convention were also signatories to Berne.
From 2001
2005 - Hurricane Katrina forms as a tropical depression.
2006 - In Austria, Natascha Kampusch manages to escape from 8 years of captivity. Her captor Wolfgang Priklopil commits suicide soon after.
2010 - Nine people, including the hostage taker, are killed in a hostage crisis on board a bus in Manila, Philippines.
2011 - 2011 Virginia earthquake: A magnitude 5.8 earthquake strikes near Mineral, Virginia, and is felt all the way along the eastern seaboard of the United States. No one is killed, but damage is reported on buildings, including monuments in Washington, DC.
2018 - Sexual harassment allegations against former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond are made public.
Births
Up to 1900
686 Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne (d. 741)
963 Richard II, Duke of Normandy (d. 1027)
1486 Sigismund von Herberstein, Austrian diplomat and historian (d. 1566)
1517 Francis I of Lorraine (d. 1545)
1524 Francois Hotman, French lawyer and writer (d. 1590)
1623 Stanislaw Lubieniecki, Polish astronomer (d. 1675)
1724 Abraham Yates, American Continental Congressman (d. 1796)
1740 Tsar Ivan VI of Russia (d. 1764)
1741 Jean-Francois de Galaup, comte de La Perouse, French explorer (d. 1788)
1754 King Louis XVI of France (d. 1792)
1756 Francois Chabot, French priest and politician (d. 1794)
1757 Marie Magdalene Charlotte Ackermann, German actress (d. 1775)
1769 Georges Cuvier, French biologist and statesman (d. 1832)
1783 William Tierney Clark, English civil engineer (d. 1852)
1785 Oliver Hazard Perry, American naval officer (d. 1819)
1797 Adhemar Jean Claude Barre de Saint-Venant, French scientist (d. 1886)
1805 Anton von Schmerling, Austrian politician and jurist (d. 1893)
1811 Auguste Bravais, French physicist (d. 1863)
1814 James Roosevelt Bayley, American archbishop (d. 1877)
1829 Moritz Cantor, German mathematician (d. 1920)
1836 Marie Henriette of Austria, Queen of Belgium (d. 1902)
1839 James Geikie, Scottish geologist (d. 1915)
1846 Alexander Milne Calder, American sculptor (d. 1923)
1847 Sarah Frances Whiting, American physicist and astronomer (d. 1927)
1849 William Ernest Henley, British poet, critic, and editor (d. 1903)
1850 John Cockburn, Scottish-Australian politician, 18th Premier of South Australia (d. 1929)
1852 Arnold Toynbee, English economist and social reformer (d. 1883)
1852 Climaco Calderon, President of Colombia (d. 1913)
1854 Moritz Moszkowski, Polish composer and pianist (d. 1925)
1864 Eleftherios Venizelos, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1936)
1868 Edgar Lee Masters, American writer (d. 1950)
1872 Tanguturi Prakasam, Indian politician (d. 1957)
1875 William Eccles, English radio pioneer (d. 1966)
1880 Alexander Grin, Russian writer (d. 1932)
1883 Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright IV, American general (d. 1953)
1884 Will Cuppy, American humorist (d. 1949)
1887 Albert Gutterson, American athlete (d. 1965)
1887 Friedrich Zander, Baltic German rocket engineer (d. 1933)
1890 Harry Frank Guggenheim, American businessman and publisher (d. 1971)
1896 Jacques Rueff, French politician (d. 1978)
1900 Ernst Krenek, Austrian-born composer (d. 1991)
1901 1950
1901 John Sherman Cooper, U.S. Senator from Kentucky (d. 1991)
1902 Ida Siekmann, German victim of the Berlin Wall (d. 1961)
1903 William Primrose, Scottish violist (d. 1982)
1905 Constant Lambert, British composer (d. 1951)
1909 Leila Danette, American actress (d. 2012)
1910 Giuseppe Meazza, Italian footballer (d. 1979)
1911 Birger Ruud, Norwegian athlete (d. 1998)
1911 Betty Robinson, American athlete (d. 1999)
1912 Gene Kelly, American dancer and actor (d. 1996)
1912 Alexey Sudayev, Russian inventor (d. 1946)
1912 Ed Benedict, American animator (d. 2006)
1913 Bob Crosby, American singer, actor and bandleader (d. 1993)
1917 Tex Williams, American singer (d. 1985)
1917 Antonio Innocenti, Italian cardinal (d. 2008)
1918 Bernard Fisher, American surgeon (d. 2019)
1919 Vladimir Rokhlin, Soviet mathematician (d. 1984)
1921 Kenneth Arrow, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2017)
1921 Franco Ossola, Italian footballer (d. 1949)
1922 Jean Darling, American actress and singer (d. 2015)
1922 George Kell, American baseball player (d. 2009)
1923 Edgar F. Codd, English computer scientist (d. 2003)
1924 Ephraim Kishon, Israeli writer (d. 2005)
1924 Robert Solow, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
1925 Robert Mulligan, American movie director (d. 2008)
1926 Leo Leandros, Greek singer, composer and music producer
1927 Dick Bruna, Dutch illustrator (d. 2017)
1928 Marian Seldes, American actress (d. 2014)
1929 Vera Miles, American actress
1929 Peter Thomson, Australian golfer (d. 2018)
1930 Michel Rocard, former Prime Minister of France (d. 2016)
1931 Hamilton O. Smith, American microbiologist
1932 Houari Boumediene, President of Algeria (d. 1978)
1932 Mark Russell, American comedian, musician, and political commentator
1933 Robert Curl, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
1933 Pete Wilson, former Governor of California
1934 Barbara Eden, American actress
1934 Sonny Jurgensen, American football player
1934 Carlos Amigo Vallejo, Archbishop of Seville and cardinal
1936 Henry Lee Lucas, American serial killer (d. 2001)
1940 Thomas A. Steitz, American molecular biologist and biochemist (d. 2018)
1943 Donald Kalpokas, former Prime Minister of Vanuatu (d. 2019)
1943 Raul Cubas Grau, former President of Paraguay
1943 Nelson DeMille, American novelist
1943 Pino Presti, Italian bass player, arranger, composer, conductor, record producer
1944 Antonia Novello, 14th Surgeon General of the United States
1945 Bob Peck, British actor (d. 1999)
1945 Rita Pavone, Italian singer
1945 Rayfield Wright, American football player
1946 Keith Moon, English singer and drummer (The Who) (d. 1978)
1947 David Robb, British actor
1947 Willy Russell, British playwright
1948 Andrei Plesu, Romanian philosopher, journalist and politician
1949 Shelley Long, American actress
1949 Rick Springfield, Australian singer and actor
1950 Luigi Delneri, Italian football manager
1950 Roza Otunbayeva, former President of Kyrgyzstan
1951 1975
1951 Queen Noor of Jordan
1951 Akhmad Kadyrov, President of Chechnya (d. 2004)
1951 Jimi Jamison, American rock music singer and songwriter (d. 2014)
1952 Vicky Leandros, Greek singer
1952 Santillana, Spanish footballer
1953 Bobby G, English singer (Bucks Fizz)
1953 Arturas Paulauskas, Lithuanian politician
1954 Marc Vann, American actor
1954 Halimah Yacob, 8th President of Singapore
1956 Andreas Floer, German mathematician (d. 1991)
1956 Valgerd Svarstad Haugland, Norwegian politician
1959 Edwyn Collins, Scottish singer
1959 Jorginho Putinatti, Brazilian footballer
1961 Alexandre Desplat, French composer
1961 Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, 54th Mayor of Tehran
1961 Gary Mabbutt, English footballer
1962 Martin Cauchon, Canadian lawyer and politician
1962 Shaun Ryder, British musician
1963 Park Chan-wook, South Korean film director, screenwriter and producer
1963 Richard Illingworth, English cricketer
1963 Kenny Wallace, American race car driver
1964 Johan Bruyneel, Belgian cyclist
1965 Richard Avary, Canadian movie and television producer, screenwriter and director
1966 Alberto Acosta, Argentine footballer
1966 Rik Smits, Dutch basketball player
1966 Charley Boorman, English actor and adventurer
1967 Jim Murphy, Scottish politician
1967 Ant, American comedian and actor
1968 Chris DiMarco, American golfer
1968 Laura Claycomb, American operatic soprano
1968 Hajime Moriyasu, Japanese footballer
1969 Tinus Linee, South African rugby player (d. 2014)
1970 Jay Mohr, American actor and comedian
1970 River Phoenix, American actor (d. 1993)
1971 Demetrio Albertini, Italian footballer
1971 Gretchen Whitmer, American politician, Governor of Michigan
1972 Souad Massi, Algerian singer and guitarist
1972 Mark Butcher, English cricketer
1973 Casey Blake, American baseball player
1973 Chelsi Smith, American singer and beauty pageant winner (d. 2018)
1974 Toni Brunner, Swiss politician
1974 Konstantin Novoselov, Russian-British physicist
1974 Ray Park, British actor
1974 Benjamin Limo, Kenyan athlete
1975 Eliza Carthy, English singer and fiddler
From 1976
1978 Kobe Bryant, American basketball player (d. 2020)
1978 Julian Casablancas, American musician
1979 Jessica Bibby, Australian basketball player
1980 Diamondog, Angolan rapper and journalist
1980 Nenad Vuckovic, Serbian handball player
1981 Carlos Cuellar, Spanish footballer
1982 Natalie Coughlin, American swimmer
1982 Trevor Wright, American actor
1983 Sun Ming Ming, Chinese basketball player
1983 James Collins, Welsh footballer
1983 J. C. Bailey, American professional wrestler (d. 2010)
1984 Glen Johnson, English footballer
1984 Ashley Williams, English-Welsh footballer
1986 SkyBlu, American rapper (LMFAO)
1986 Vic Wild, American-Russian snowboarder
1986 Neil Cicierega, American comedian, actor, singer and director
1988 Carl Hagelin, Swedish ice hockey player
1988 Vaani Kapoor, Indian actress
1988 Niki Leinso, Croatian singer and songwriter
1988 Jeremy Lin, American basketball player
1988 Kim Matula, American actress
1990 Reimond Manco, Peruvian footballer
1991 Jennifer Abel, Canadian diver
1994 Roberto Bellarosa, Belgian singer
1996 David Gore, American actor
Deaths
Up to 1900
30 BC Marcus Antonius Antyllus, Roman soldier, eldest son of Mark Antony (b. 47 BC)
30 BC Caesarion, last king of Egypt's Ptolemaic Dynasty, son of Cleopatra
93 Gnaeus Julius Agricola, Roman Governor of Britain (b. 40)
406 Radagaisus, Gothic king
634 Abu Bakr, Arabian caliph
1106 Magnus, Duke of Saxony (b. 1045)
1176 Emperor Rokujo of Japan (b. 1164)
1305 William Wallace, Scottish patriot (executed) (b. 1272)
1329 Frederick IV, Duke of Lorraine (b. 1282)
1387 King Olav IV of Norway (b. 1370)
1498 Isabella, Princess of Asturias (b. 1470)
1507 Jean Molinet, French writer (b. 1435)
1519 Philibert Berthelier, Swiss patriot
1540 Guillaume Bude, French scholar
1591 Luis Ponce de Leon, Spanish poet and mystic (b. 1527)
1618 Gerbrand Adriaensz Bredero, Dutch writer (b. 1585)
1628 George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, English statesman (b. 1592)
1652 John Byron, 1st Baron Byron, English royalist politician (b. 1600)
1723 Increase Mather, New England Puritan minister (b. 1639)
1802 Corona Schroter, German singer and actress (b. 1751)
1806 Charles Augustin de Coulomb, French physicist (b. 1736)
1813 Alexander Wilson, Scottish-born ornithologist (b. 1766)
1819 Oliver Hazard Perry, American naval officer (b. 1785)
1838 Ferenc Kolcsey, Hungarian poet and politician (b. 1790)
1865 Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller, Austrian painter (b. 1793)
1866 Auguste Barthelemy, French poet (b. 1796)
1883 Sarah Yorke Jackson, First Lady of the United States (b. 1805)
1892 Deodoro da Fonseca, 1st President of Brazil (b. 1827)
1900 Kuroda Kiyotaka, 2nd Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1844)
1901 2000
1926 Rudolph Valentino, Italian actor (b. 1895)
1927 Nicola Sacco, Italian anarchist (executed) (b. 1891)
1927 Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian anarchist (executed) (b. 1888)
1933 Adolf Loos, Austrian architect (b. 1870)
1937 Albert Roussel, French composer (b. 1869)
1944 Abdulmecid II, Ottoman Caliph (b. 1868)
1958 Roger Martin du Gard, French writer (b. 1881)
1960 Oscar Hammerstein II, American lyricist (b. 1895)
1962 Walter Anderson, German folklorist (b. 1885)
1962 Hoot Gibson, American actor (b. 1892)
1966 Francis X. Bushman, American actor (b. 1883)
1977 Naum Gabo, Russian artist (b. 1890)
1982 Stanford Moore, American biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1913)
1987 Didier Pironi, French racing driver (b. 1952)
1989 R. D. Laing, Scottish psychiatrist (b. 1927)
1997 John Kendrew, British molecular biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (b. 1917)
1997 Eric Gairy, 1st Prime Minister of Grenada (b. 1922)
From 2001
2001 Peter Maas, American novelist (b. 1929)
2002 Hoyt Wilhelm, baseball player (b. 1922)
2003 Imperio Argentina, Argentine singer and actress (b. 1906)
2003 Bobby Bonds, baseball player and manager (b. 1946)
2003 Jack Dyer, Australian footballer (b. 1913)
2005 Brock Peters, American actor (b. 1927)
2006 Wolfgang Priklopil, Austrian kidnapper (b. 1961)
2008 Thomas Huckle Weller, American bacteriologist and parasitologist (b. 1915)
2010 Satoshi Kon, Japanese movie director (b. 1963)
2012 Steve Van Buren, Honduran-born American football player (b. 1920)
2012 Jerry Nelson, American puppeteer (b. 1934)
2013 Gilbert Taylor, British cinematographer (b. 1914)
2014 Birgitta Stenberg, Swedish author (b. 1932)
2014 Annefleur Kalvenhaar, Dutch cyclist (b. 1994)
2014 Hajo Meyer, German-Dutch physicist (b. 1924)
2014 Jaume Vallcorba Plana, Spanish philologist (b. 1949)
2014 Dan Magill, American tennis coach (b. 1921)
2014 Ahti Pekkala, Finnish politician (b. 1924)
2014 Marcel Rigout, French politician (b. 1928)
2014 Philippine de Rothschild, French winemaker and baroness (b. 1933)
2014 Albert Ebosse Bodjongo, Cameroonian footballer (b. 1989)
2015 Guy Ligier, French rugby player and racing driver (b. 1930)
2015 Yosi Piamenta, Israeli musician (b. 1951)
2016 Steven Hill, American actor (b. 1922)
2016 Reinhard Selten, German economist (b. 1930)
2017 Joe Klein, American baseball executive (b. 1942)
2017 Eduardo Angeloz, Argentine politician (b. 1931)
2017 Viola Harris, American actress (b. 1926)
2017 Jack Rosenthal, Israeli-American journalist (b. 1935)
2017 Engelbert Jarek, Polish footballer (b. 1935)
2017 George A. Keyworth II, American physicist (b. 1939)
2017 Izak Parviz Nazarian, Iranian-American businessman (b. 1929)
2017 Jeannie Rousseau, French Allied intelligence agent (b. 1919)
2018 Russ Heath, American comic book artist (b. 1926)
2018 Dieter Thomas Heck, German actor and television presenter (b. 1937)
2018 Kuldip Nayar, Indian journalist (b. 1923)
2018 George Sheldon, American politician (b. 1947)
2018 George Walker, American composer (b. 1922)
2018 Franck Venaille, French poet and writer (b. 1936)
2018 Dominik Kalata, Slovakian Roman Catholic prelate (b. 1925)
2019 Amath Dansokho, Senegalese politician (b. 1937)
2019 Carlo Delle Piane, Italian actor (b. 1936)
2019 David Koch, American businessman (b. 1940)
2019 Roaring Lion, British-bred racehorse (b. 2015)
2019 Rick Loomis, American game designer (b. 1946)
2019 Massimo Mattioli, Italian cartoonist (b. 1943)
2019 Egon Zimmermann, Austrian ski racer and businessman (b. 1939)
Observances
International Day for Abolition of Slave Trade (UNESCO)
European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Nazism and Stalinism (European Union)
Liberation from Fascist Occupation Day (Romania)
Flag Day (Ukraine)
Father's Day (Nepal)
Days of the year