What Happened on December 23rd in History
30 historical events on this date
World War I: Battle of Magdhaba: Allied forces defeat Turkish forces in the Sinai Peninsula.
The Battle of Magdhaba took place on 23 December 1916 during the Defence of Egypt section of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in the First World War. The attack by the Anzac Mounted Division took...
Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 becomes law in the United Kingdom, allowing women to serve as lawyers, civil servants, and in other professions, as well as to serve on juries.
The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It became law when it received royal assent on 23 December 1919. The act enabled women to join the...
Colombia becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country located in South America, with insular regions in North America. Colombia's mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north,...
Spanish Civil War: The Spanish Republic legalizes the Regional Defence Council of Aragon.
The Spanish Civil War was fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalist rebels. Republicans loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic...
World War II: After 15 days of fighting, the Imperial Japanese Army occupies Wake Island.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major...
The transistor is first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electrical signals and power. It is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semiconductor material,...
Seven Japanese military and political leaders convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East are executed by Allied occupation authorities at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo, Japan.
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asian mainland, it is bordered to the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of...
Korean War: General Walton Walker dies in a jeep accident and is replaced by General Matthew Ridgway in the Eighth United States Army.
The Korean War was an armed conflict fought on the Korean Peninsula between North Korea and South Korea and their allies. North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union, while South Korea...
First successful kidney transplant is performed by J. Hartwell Harrison and Joseph Murray.
Kidney transplant or renal transplant is the organ transplant of a kidney into a patient with end-stage kidney disease (ESRD). Kidney transplant is typically classified as deceased-donor or...
The first film adaptation of VÀinö Linna's novel The Unknown Soldier, directed by Edvin Laine, premieres.
The Unknown Soldier is a Finnish war film directed by Edvin Laine that premiered in December 1955. It is based on The Unknown Soldier, a novel by VÀinö Linna. The story is about the Continuation War...
Hilkka Saarinen née PylkkÀnen is murdered in the so-called "oven homicide" case in Krootila, KokemÀki, Finland.
The oven homicide refers to the homicide of Hilkka Hillevi Saarinen née PylkkÀnen, in the village of Krootila in KokemÀki, Finland in December 1960. It is one of Finland's best-known homicide cases,...
The 82 sailors from the USSÂ Pueblo are released after eleven months of internment in North Korea.
USS Pueblo (AGER-2) is a Banner-class technical research ship, placed into service during World War II, then converted to a spy ship in 1967 by the United States Navy. She gathered intelligence and...
The North Tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York, New York is topped out at 417 metres (1,368Â ft), making it the tallest building in the world.
The original One World Trade Center was one of the Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center complex in New York City. It started construction in 1968 and completed in 1972. It stood at a...
The Democratic Republic of the Congo officially becomes a one-party state.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo or less often Zaire, is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is the...
The Immaculate Reception is caught by Franco Harris to win the Pittsburgh Steelers their first ever playoff victory, after defeating the Oakland Raiders.
The Immaculate Reception is one of the most famous plays in the history of American football. It was a touchdown which occurred in the AFC divisional playoff game of the National Football League...
A 6.5 magnitude earthquake strikes the Nicaraguan capital of Managua killing more than 10,000.
The 1972 Nicaragua earthquake occurred at 12:29:44Â a.m. local time on 23 December near Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. It had a moment magnitude of 6.3 and a maximum MSK intensity of IX...
The 16 survivors of the Andes flight disaster are rescued after 73 days, surviving by cannibalism.
Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 was the chartered flight of a Fairchild FH-227D from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Santiago, Chile, that crashed in the Andes mountains in Argentina on 13 October 1972. The...
Alitalia Flight 4128 crashes into the Tyrrhenian Sea while on approach to Falcone Borsellino Airport in Palermo, Italy, killing 108.
Alitalia Flight 4128 was a scheduled flight from Leonardo da Vinci Airport, in Rome, Italy, to Palermo International Airport in Palermo, Italy, with 129 on board. On 23 December 1978, the McDonnell...
SovietâAfghan War: Soviet Union forces occupy Kabul, the Afghan capital.
The SovietâAfghan War took place in Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989. Marking the beginning of the 47-year-long Afghan conflict, it saw the Soviet Union and the Communist-led Afghan...
After experiencing an engine fire, Aeroflot Flight 3519 attempts to make an emergency landing at Krasnoyarsk International Airport but crashes, killing 110 of the 111 people on board.
Aeroflot Flight 3519 was a scheduled flight, operated by a Tupolev Tu-154 that crashed on December 23, 1984, due to an engine failure. 110 occupants were killed; one passenger survived the accident.
Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world without aerial or ground refueling.
The Rutan Model 76 Voyager is an aircraft designed by Burt Rutan that became the first to fly around the world without stopping or refueling. It was piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager. The...
History of Slovenia: In a referendum, 88.5% of Slovenia's overall electorate vote for independence from Yugoslavia.
The history of Slovenia chronicles the period of the Slovenian territory from the 5th century BC to the present. In the Early Bronze Age, Proto-Illyrian tribes settled an area stretching from...
A U.S. MQ-1 Predator is shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25 in the first combat engagement between a drone and conventional aircraft.
The General Atomics MQ-1 Predator is an American remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) built by General Atomics that was used primarily by the United States Air Force (USAF) and Central Intelligence...
An explosion at the PetroChina Chuandongbei natural gas field in Kai County, Chongqing, China, kills at least 234.
PetroChina Company Limited is a Chinese oil and gas company and is the listed arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), headquartered in Dongcheng District, Beijing. The...
An Antonov An-140, Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 217 from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Aktau, Kazakhstan, heading across the Caspian Sea, crashes, killing 23 people.
The Antonov An-140 is a turboprop regional airliner, designed by the Ukrainian Antonov ASTC bureau as a successor to the Antonov An-24, with extended cargo capacity and the ability to use unprepared...
An agreement is made for the Kingdom of Nepal to be abolished and the country to become a federal republic with the Prime Minister becoming head of state.
The Kingdom of Nepal, also known as the Gorkha Empire, was a Hindu monarchy in South Asia that existed from 1768 to 2008. The kingdom was formed out of the expansion of the Gorkha Kingdom by King...
A coup d'état occurs in Guinea hours after the death of President Lansana Conté.
On 23 December 2008, a coup d'état occurred in Guinea, shortly after the death of long-time president Lansana Conté. A junta called the National Council for Democracy and Development, headed by...
A bomb explodes at Istanbul's Sabiha Gökçen Airport, killing one airport cleaner. The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks claim responsibility for the attack four days later.
The Sabiha Gökçen Airport bombing took place on 23 December 2015 in the apron area of Sabiha Gökçen International Airport in Istanbul, Turkey. The explosion, which occurred at approximately 02:05...
A series of massacres targeting Berom civilians unfold in the Plateau State in Nigeria, killing over 200 people and further injuring over 500. No group claims responsibility.
A series of armed attacks occurred between 23 and 25 December 2023 in Plateau State in central Nigeria. They affected at least 17 rural communities in the Nigerian local government areas of Bokkos...
The crash of Harmony Jets Flight 185 killed all eight people on board, including the Libyan Army chief Mohammed al-Haddad in Ankara, Turkey.
Harmony Jets Flight 185 was a charter flight from Ankara EsenboÄa Airport, Turkey to Mitiga International Airport, Tripoli, Libya. On 23 December 2025, the aircraft operating the flight, a Dassault...