23 August

The **23rd o August** is the 235t day o the year (236t in lowp years) in the Gregorian Calendar, wi 130 days bidin.

## Events

* 1305 - Scots patriot William Wallace is executit in Lunnon.
* 1328 - King Philip VI o Fraunce is crouned.
* 1821 - Mexico gains full unthirldom frae Spain.
* 1833 - Sclavery is abolished in Breetish colonies.
* 1839 - The Unitit Kinrick captures Hong Kong.
* 1866 - The Austrick-Proushie War ends wi the Treaty o Prague.
* 1873 - The Albert Brig across the River Thames in Lunnon opens.
* 1913 - A statue o the Little Marmaid (frae Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale) is put up in Copenhagen.
* 1914 - Warld War I: Japan declares war on Germany.
* 1924 - The distance atween the Yird an Mars is the smallest syne the 10t century.
* 1940 - Warld War II: German bombin o Lunnon stairts.
* 1942 - Warld War II: Stairt o the Battle o Stalingrad.
* 1943 - Warld War II: Kharkiv is liberatit.
* 1944 - Warld War II: Marseille is liberatit bi the Allies.
* 1944 - Warld War II: Romanie exits the war an switches sides frae the Axis tae the Allies.
* 1944 - A Unitit States bomber plane crashes intae a schuil in Freckleton, Ingland, killin 61 fowk.
* 1946 - Three states are creatit in post-war Germany's Breetish occupation zone: North Rhine-Westphalie, Schleswig-Holstein an the short-lived state o Hanover.
* 1950 - The Subansiri Dam Break in Indie kills 532 fowk.
* 1966 - Lunar Orbiter 1 taks the first foto o the Yird frae the Muin's orbit.
* 1973 - In Chile, Salvador Allende names Augusto Pinochet as militar chief; Pinochet's militar coup on 11 September would result in Allende's suicide.
* 1987 - Heavy rains an floods kill 100s o fowk in Bangladesh.
* 1989 - Twa million fowk jyn hands frae Tallinn, Estonie tae Vilnius, Lithuanie in the Singin Revolution.
* 1990 - It is agreed that Germany will be reunitit on 3 October.
* 1990 - Armenie declares unthirldom frae the Soviet Union.
* 1991 - Tim Berners-Lee opens the Warld Wide Web tae new users.
* 2005 - Hurricane Katrina forms.
* 2008 - Barack Obama chooses Joe Biden as his Vice Presidential Runnin Mate for the 2008 US Presidential election.
* 2010 - Nine fowk, incluidin the hostage taker, are kilt in a hostage crisis on a bus in Manila, the Philippines.
* 2018 - Sexual harrassment allegations against umwhile First Meenister o Scotland Alex Salmond are made public.
* 2020 - Polis in Kenosha, Wisconsin shuit an injure 29-year-auld African American Jacob Blake, stairtin major protests.

## Births

* 1579 - Thomas Dempster, Scots scholart an historian (d. 1625)
* 1740 - Ivan VI o Roushie (d. 1764)
* 1754 - King Louis XVI o Fraunce (d. 1793)
* 1769 - Georges Cuvier, French naitularist an zoologist (d. 1832)
* 1839 - James Geikie, Scots geologist (d. 1915)
* 1848 - Henry Dyer, Scots ingineer (d. 1918)
* 1864 - Eleftherios Venizelos, Prime meenister o Greece (d. 1936)
* 1910 - Giuseppe Meazza, Italian fitbawer (d. 1979)
* 1912 - Gene Kelly, American actor an dancer (d. 1996)
* 1921 - Kenneth Arrow, American economist (d. 2017)
* 1930 - Michel Rocard, umwhile Prime meenister o Fraunce (d. 2016)
* 1933 - Robert Curl, American chemist
* 1933 - David White, Scots fitbawer
* 1942 - Susana Vieira, Brazilian actress
* 1946 - Alex Rae, Scots fitbawer
* 1949 - Rick Springfield, Australie muisicker, sangster an sangwriter
* 1950 - Roza Otunbayeva, umwhile Preses o Kyrgyzstan
* 1959 - Edwyn Collins, Scots sangster (Orange Juice)
* 1967 - Jim Murphy, Scots politeecian
* 1970 - River Phoenix, American actor (d. 1993)
* 1974 - Konstantin Novoselov, Roushie-Breetish pheesicist
* 1978 - Kobe Bryant, American basketbaw player (d. 2020)
* 1982 - Steven MacLean, Scots fitbawer
* 1984 - Ashley Williams, Welsh fitbawer
* 1984 - Glen Johnson, Inglis fitbawer

## Daiths
* 93 - Gnaeus Julius Agricola, Gallo-Roman general (b. 40)
* 634 - Abu Bakr, 1st Caliph o Rashidun Caliphate (b. 573)
* 1305 - William Wallace, Scots patriot
* 1892 - Deodoro da Fonseca, 1st Preses o Brazil (b. 1827)
* 1926 - Rudolph Valentino, Italian-American actor (b. 1895)
* 1989 - R. D. Laing, Scots psychiatrist (b. 1927)

## Halidays
* Day of Remembrance frae the Victims o Nazism an Stalinism
* Liberation Day (Romanie)