Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 23
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This is a list of selected December 23 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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Clement Clarke Moore -
1912 book cover of A Visit from St. Nicholas -
Several transistors, with a centimeter tape, for scale -
Voyager -
Tokyo Tower at night -
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Flooding in Toowoomba
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| 1793 – French Revolution: A Royalist counter-revolutionary army was decisively defeated at the Battle of Savenay, although fighting continued in the War in the Vendée for years afterward. | refimprove section |
| 1823 – A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, was first published anonymously. Authorship was later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore. | refimprove section |
| 1876 – The Constantinople Conference opened, which resulted in political reforms in Bosnia and the Ottoman territories with a majority Bulgarian population. | appears on January 20 |
| 1913 – U.S. president Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act, establishing a central banking system of the United States, the Federal Reserve. | Act: unreferenced section; Reserve: expansion, outdated |
| 1938 – The first living specimen of a coelacanth, long believed to be extinct, was discovered in a South African fisherman's catch. | Page numbers needed banner |
| 1947 – The transistor, invented by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley, was first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories. | refimprove section |
| 1954 – Drs. Joseph Murray and J. Hartwell Harrison performed the first successful kidney transplant. | refimprove |
| 1972 – The Nicaraguan capital of Managua was struck by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake, killing more than 10,000 people. | refimprove |
| 1972 – In one of the most famous plays in the history of American football, Pittsburgh Steelers running back Franco Harris made the Immaculate Reception of a pass by quarterback Terry Bradshaw near the end of a playoff game. | refimprove section, too many quotes |
| 1986 – Piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, the Rutan Voyager became the first aircraft to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California after a nine-day trip. | refimprove section |
Eligible
- 583 – Yohl Ikʼnal acceded to the throne of the Maya city-state of Palenque.
- 1783 – George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis (painting shown).
- 1815 – Jane Austen's novel Emma was first published.
- 1919 – The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act was enacted, lifting most of the existing common-law restrictions on women in the United Kingdom.
- 1958 – Tokyo Tower, then the world's tallest freestanding tower, opened.
- 1984 – An engine fire caused Aeroflot Flight 3519 to crash shortly after takeoff from Krasnoyarsk, USSR, killing all but one of the 111 people on board.
- 1990 – About 88 percent of eligible voters in Slovenia voted to secede from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
- 1997 – The Pioneer Helmet, one of only six Anglo-Saxon helmets to be discovered, was first placed on public display.
- Born/died: | Francis Tresham |d|1605| Gharib Nawaz |b|1690| Augustus Hervey, 3rd Earl of Bristol |d|1779| Joseph Smith |b|1805| Edward Blyth |b|1810| Madam C. J. Walker |b|1867| Arthur Gilligan |b|1894| Anna J. Harrison |b|1912| Quentin Bryce |b|1942| Joan Lindsay |d|1984| P. V. Narasimha Rao |d|2004|
December 23: Night of the Radishes in Oaxaca City, Mexico; Festivus
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: American troops, overwhelmed by British reinforcements, retreated from the Battle of Iron Works Hill.
- 1888 – During a bout of mental illness, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (pictured) severed part of his left ear and gave it to a woman in a brothel in Arles, France.
- 1916 – First World War: Allied forces gained a strategic victory at the Battle of Magdhaba on the Sinai Peninsula.
- 1957 – Leading the Australia national cricket team, Ian Craig became the youngest-ever Test cricket captain at the time.
- 2008 – The Guinean military engineered a coup d'état, announcing that it planned to rule the country for two years prior to a new presidential election.
- Carl Gustaf Wrangel (b. 1613)
- Dost Mohammad Khan (b. 1792)
- Carla Bruni (b. 1967)
- Chryssa (d. 2013)