On this day: January 23

Events on January 23

• 1229 The episcopal seat is moved from Nousiainen to Koroinen (located near the current centre of Turku) by the permission of Pope Gregory IX. The date is starting to be considered as the founding of Turku. Wikipedia
• 1368 The Hongwu Emperor ascended the throne, initiating the Ming dynasty, which would rule China for three centuries. Wikipedia
• 1556 The deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hits Shaanxi province, China. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000. 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
• 1656 Blaise Pascal publishes the first of his Lettres provinciales. Wikipedia
• 1719 The Principality of Liechtenstein is created within the Holy Roman Empire. Wikipedia
• 1793 The Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia partitioned the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth for the second time. Wikipedia
• 1870 In Montana, U.S. cavalrymen kill 173 Native Americans, mostly women and children, in what becomes known as the Marias Massacre. Wikipedia
• 1912 The First International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague. Wikipedia
• 1937 The trial of the anti-Soviet Trotskyist center sees seventeen mid-level Communists accused of sympathizing with Leon Trotsky and plotting to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime. Wikipedia
• 1941 Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler. Wikipedia
• 1942 World War II: Japan began an invasion of the island of New Britain in the Australian Territory of New Guinea. Wikipedia
• 1942 World War II: The Battle of Rabaul commences Japan's invasion of Australia's Territory of New Guinea. Wikipedia
• 1943 World War II: Troops of the British Eighth Army capture Tripoli in Libya from the German–Italian Panzer Army. Wikipedia
• 1950 The Knesset resolves that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Wikipedia
• 1958 After a general uprising and rioting in the streets, President Marcos Pérez Jiménez leaves Venezuela. Wikipedia
• 1967 Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Ivory Coast are established. Wikipedia
• 1967 Milton Keynes (England) is founded as a new town by Order in Council, with a planning brief to become a city of 250,000 people. Its initial designated area enclosed three existing towns and twenty-one villages. The area to be developed was largely farmland, with evidence of continuous settlement dating back to the Bronze Age. Wikipedia
• 1982 World Airways Flight 30 overshoots the runway at Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, and crashes into Boston Harbor. Two people are missing and presumed dead. Wikipedia
• 1986 The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first members: Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley. Wikipedia
• 1993 The first version of Mosaic, created by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina, was released, becoming the first popular web browser. Wikipedia
• 2002 American journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and later murdered by al-Qaeda agents in Karachi, Pakistan. Wikipedia
• 2002 U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan and subsequently murdered. 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
• 1786 Auguste de Montferrand, French-Russian architect, designed Saint Isaac's Cathedral and Alexander Column (died 1858) 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
• 1920 Walter Frederick Morrison, American businessman, invented the Frisbee (died 2010) 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
• 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
• 1803 Arthur Guinness, Irish brewer, founded Guinness (born 1725) 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
• 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

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 2026-10-09 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. We picked the 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths with the widest coverage across Wikipedia's language editions (counted from Wikidata) and sorted them by year; the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures.