January 23, 393 – Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaimed his eight-year old son Honorius co-emperor. 971 – In China, the war elephant corps of the Southern Han were soundly defeated at Shao by crossbow fire from Song Dynasty troops. 1556 – The deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hit Shaanxi province, China with a death toll as high as 830,000. 1570 – James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, regent for the infant King James VI of Scotland, was assassinated by firearm, the 1st recorded instance of such. 1579 – The Union of Utrecht formed a Protestant northern republic in the Netherlands, a reaction of the Protestant provinces to the 1579 Union of Arras in which the southern provinces declared their support for Roman Catholic Spain. 1656 – Blaise Pascal published the 1st of his Lettres provinciales. 1789 – Georgetown College, the 1st Catholic University in the United States, was founded in Georgetown, MD (DC). 1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell was awarded her M.D. by the Medical Institute of Geneva, NY, becoming the 1st U. S. female doctor. 1855 – The 1st bridge over the Mississippi River opened in what is now Minneapolis. 1870 – In Montana, U.S. cavalrymen killed 173 Piegan Blackfeet , mostly women, children, and elderly men, in the Marias Massacre. 1900 – The Battle of Spion Kop between the South African Republic and the Orange Free State and British forces ended in British defeat in the Second Boer War. 1912 – The International Opium Convention was signed by Germany, the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Persia, Portugal, Russia, and Siam at The Hague in response to the increasing opium trade. 1941 – Charles Lindbergh testified before Congress and recommended that the U.S. negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler. 1943 – Troops of Montgomerys 8th Army captured Tripoli from the German-Italian Panzer Army. 1943 – Australian and American forces defeated the Japanese army in Papua. 1945 – German admiral Karl Dönitz initiated Operation Hannibal to evacuate over 800,000 refugees and 350,000 troops across the Baltic Sea to Germany and German-occupied Denmark. 1950 – The Knesset passed a resolution that stated Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. 1960 – The bathyscaphe USS Trieste broke a depth record by descending to 10,911 metres (35,797 ft) in the Pacific Ocean. 1964 – The 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, was ratified. 1968 – North Korea seized the USS Pueblo, claiming the ship had violated its territorial waters while spying. 1973 – President Richard Nixon announced that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 06:17:32 +0000
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