August 23
(Redirected from 23 August)
August 23 is the 235th day of the year (236th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 130 days remaining until the end of the year.
Events
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 Budé, French scholar
- 1591 – Luis Ponce de León, 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 Schröter, 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 Waldmüller, Austrian painter (b. 1793)
- 1866 – Auguste Barthélémy, 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 – 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 Boumédiène, 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 – Raúl 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 – 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
- 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 Ebossé 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)
Births
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
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 – Abdülmecid 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)
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)