On this day: January 23

Events on January 23

• 393 Roman emperor Theodosius I proclaims his eight-year-old son Honorius co-emperor. Wikipedia
• 1264 King Louis IX of France issued the Mise of Amiens, a settlement between King Henry III of England and barons led by Simon de Montfort heavily favouring the former, which later led to the Second Barons' War. Wikipedia
• 1368 The Hongwu Emperor ascended the throne, initiating the Ming dynasty, which would rule China for three centuries. Wikipedia
• 1556 One of the deadliest earthquakes in history struck Shaanxi, China, resulting in at least 100,000 direct deaths. Wikipedia
• 1570 James Hamilton killed James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, in the first recorded assassination of a head of government using a firearm. Wikipedia
• 1571 Queen Elizabeth I opened the Royal Exchange in London, giving it its royal title. Wikipedia
• 1579 The Union of Utrecht forms a Protestant republic in the Netherlands. Wikipedia
• 1719 The Principality of Liechtenstein is created within the Holy Roman Empire. Wikipedia
• 1789 Bishop John Carroll purchased a plot of land that would become the home of the future Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic university in the United States. Wikipedia
• 1793 The Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia partitioned the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth for the second time. Wikipedia
• 1849 Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from Geneva Medical College in New York, making her the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States. Wikipedia
• 1870 American Indian Wars: In the Marias Massacre, the United States Army killed about 200 Piegan Blackfeet, mostly women, children, and the elderly. Wikipedia
• 1902 In the most fatal recorded mountaineering accident, 199 of the 210 members of an Imperial Japanese Army unit perished in a blizzard on the Hakkōda Mountains. Wikipedia
• 1909 Two men committed an armed robbery in Tottenham, London, and led police on a two-hour chase, partially by tram, that ended in the perpetrators' suicides. Wikipedia
• 1915 Rebels led by John Chilembwe attacked local plantation owners, beginning an uprising regarded as a key moment in the history of Malawi. Wikipedia
• 1942 World War II: Japan began an invasion of the island of New Britain in the Australian Territory of New Guinea. Wikipedia
• 1950 The Knesset resolves that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Wikipedia
• 1957 American inventor Fred Morrison sold the rights to his "flying disc" to the Wham-O toy company, who later renamed it the "Frisbee" Wikipedia
• 1967 Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Ivory Coast are established. Wikipedia
• 1968 USS Pueblo was seized by North Korean forces, who claimed that it had violated their territorial waters while spying. Wikipedia
• 1993 The first version of Mosaic, created by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina, was released, becoming the first popular web browser. Wikipedia
• 1997 Madeleine Albright was sworn in as the first female United States Secretary of State, becoming the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government at that time. Wikipedia
• 2001 Five people attempted to set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, an act that many later claimed to have been staged by the Chinese Communist Party to frame Falun Gong and thus escalate their persecution. Wikipedia
• 2002 American journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and later murdered by al-Qaeda agents in Karachi, Pakistan. Wikipedia
• 2003 The final signal was detected from the NASA space probe Pioneer 10, then about 12 billion kilometres (7.5 billion miles) from Earth. Wikipedia
• 2018 The China–United States trade war begins when President Donald Trump places tariffs on Chinese solar panels and washing machines. Wikipedia

Born on January 23

• 1783 Stendhal, French novelist (died 1842) Wikipedia
• 1828 Saigō Takamori, Japanese samurai (died 1877) Wikipedia
• 1832 Édouard Manet, French painter (died 1883) Wikipedia
• 1840 Ernst Abbe, German physicist and engineer (died 1905) Wikipedia
• 1862 David Hilbert, German mathematician and academic (died 1943) Wikipedia
• 1872 Paul Langevin, French physicist and academic (died 1946) Wikipedia
• 1876 Otto Diels, German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1954) Wikipedia
• 1897 Subhas Chandra Bose, Indian freedom fighter and politician (died 1945) Wikipedia
• 1907 Hideki Yukawa, Japanese physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1981) Wikipedia
• 1910 Django Reinhardt, Belgian guitarist and composer (died 1953) Wikipedia
• 1915 W. Arthur Lewis, Saint Lucian-Barbadian economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1991) Wikipedia
• 1918 Gertrude B. Elion, American biochemist and pharmacologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1999) Wikipedia
• 1928 Jeanne Moreau, French actress (died 2017) Wikipedia
• 1929 John Polanyi, German-Canadian chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate Wikipedia
• 1930 Derek Walcott, Saint Lucian poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2017) Wikipedia
• 1938 Georg Baselitz, German painter and sculptor (died 2026) Wikipedia
• 1944 Rutger Hauer, Dutch actor, director, and producer (died 2019) Wikipedia
• 1946 Boris Berezovsky, Russian-English businessman and mathematician (died 2013) Wikipedia
• 1947 Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesian politician, 5th president of Indonesia Wikipedia
• 1984 Arjen Robben, Dutch footballer Wikipedia
• 1985 Doutzen Kroes, Dutch model and actress Wikipedia
• 1998 XXXTentacion, American rapper (died 2018) Wikipedia

Died on January 23

• 1002 Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor (born 980) Wikipedia
• 1516 Ferdinand II of Aragon (born 1452) Wikipedia
• 1744 Giambattista Vico, Italian historian and philosopher (born 1668) Wikipedia
• 1806 William Pitt the Younger, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1759) Wikipedia
• 1883 Gustave Doré, French engraver and illustrator (born 1832) Wikipedia
• 1931 Anna Pavlova, Russian-English ballerina (born 1881) Wikipedia
• 1944 Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter and illustrator (born 1863) Wikipedia
• 1986 Joseph Beuys, German sculptor and painter (born 1921) Wikipedia
• 1989 Salvador Dalí, Spanish painter and sculptor (born 1904) Wikipedia
• 2002 Pierre Bourdieu, French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher (born 1930) Wikipedia
• 2002 Robert Nozick, American philosopher, author, and academic (born 1938) Wikipedia
• 2015 Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (born 1924) Wikipedia
• 2021 Hal Holbrook, American actor and director (born 1925) Wikipedia
• 2021 Larry King, American journalist and talk show host (born 1933) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Bounty Day (Pitcairn Islands) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Abakuh Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Marianne of Molokai Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Emerentiana Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Espousals of the Blessed Virgin Mary Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Ildefonsus of Toledo Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Phillips Brooks (Episcopal Church (USA)) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: January 23 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's Jayanti (Assam, Orissa, Tripura, and West Bengal, India) Wikipedia
• World Freedom Day (Taiwan and South Korea) Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “January 23” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/January 23” — the anniversaries editors chose for the date and the article each one is about (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikidata — in how many language editions each entry's own article exists, used to fill the lists (CC0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• vacanza/holidays (open-source holiday rules, MIT licence) — holiday rules used to build the lists (checked 2026-10-15)

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “January 23” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-15 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. Every anniversary that Wikipedia's editors selected for January 23 stays on the list; the remaining places, up to 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths, go to the entries whose own article — about the event itself, or else the person or thing it is about — appears in the most language editions (counted from Wikidata); an article about a person or thing, which covers far more than one day, counts half. An entry with no article of its own counts, also at half, by the least covered article it links, and one that links only places counts for nothing. Each list runs by year, and the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures, audio and video.