What Happened on September 23rd in History
30 historical events on this date
On the night of 23–24 September, the steamship Arctique runs aground near Cape Virgenes leading to the discovery of nearby placer gold, beginning the Tierra del Fuego gold rush.
Cape Virgenes is the southeastern promontory of continental Argentina in South America. A little to the south-west, the southernmost point of land is Punta Dúngeness. Ferdinand Magellan reached it...
Philippine-American War: the American Asiatic Squadron destroys a Filipino battery at the Battle of Olongapo.
The Philippine–American War, known alternatively as the Filipino–American War, Philippine Insurrection, or Tagalog Insurgency, emerged in early 1899 following the United States' annexation of the...
Norway and Sweden sign the Karlstad Treaty, peacefully dissolving the Union between the two countries.
The dissolution of the union between the kingdoms of Norway and Sweden under the House of Bernadotte, was set in motion by a resolution of the Storting on 7 June 1905. Following some months of...
The United Mine Workers of America launch a strike which eventually escalated into the Colorado Coalfield War.
The United Mine Workers of America is a North American labor union best known for representing coal miners. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers...
World War I: The Battle of Haifa takes place in present-day Israel, part of the Ottoman Empire at that time.
World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the...
The Louisiana hurricane dissipates over Kansas after forcing around 4,500 people to evacuate and causing $1.45 million in damages.
The 1920 Louisiana hurricane was a strong tropical cyclone that caused significant damage in parts of Louisiana in September 1920. The second tropical storm and hurricane of the annual hurricane...
Saudi National Day: Crown Prince (later king) Faisal of Saudi Arabia, on behalf of Ibn Saud, proclaims the unification of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the current iteration of the Third Saudi State.
Saudi National Day is a public holiday in Saudi Arabia celebrated annually on 23 September to commemorate the proclamation that renamed the Kingdom of Nejd and Hejaz as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia...
World War II: The Matanikau action on Guadalcanal begins: U.S. Marines attack Japanese units along the Matanikau River.
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...
A magnitude 6.9 earthquake strikes South Khorasan in Iran, killing over 500 people.
The 1947 Dustabad earthquake, also known as the Charmeh earthquake, occurred in South Khorasan province of northeastern Iran on 23 September. The mainshock had a magnitude of Mw 6.9 and maximum...
Korean War: The Battle of Hill 282 is the first US friendly-fire incident on British military personnel since World War II.
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...
George VI, king of the United Kingdom, has his left lung removed in an operation after a malignant tumour was found.
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death in 1952. He was also the last Emperor of India from 1936 until the...
After being accused of financial improprieties, Senator Richard Nixon delivers his "Checkers speech" nationwide on television and radio, defending his actions and successfully salvaging his nomination as the Republican candidate for Vice President.
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he represented California in both houses of the...
An all-white jury in Mississippi finds Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam not guilty in the torture-murder of 14-year-old African American boy Emmett Till.
Mississippi is a state in the Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the...
A tropical storm originating in the eastern Pacific Ocean passes into the Gulf of Mexico and is upgraded and named Hurricane Flossy just hours before striking the Gulf Coast and causing 15 deaths and an estimated USD$24.8 million in damages.
A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy...
Little Rock schools integration crisis: President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas, and federalizes the Arkansas National Guard, ordering both to support the integration of Little Rock Central High School.
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the...
U.S. President John F. Kennedy nominates African American civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, although pro-segregation Southern senators manage to delay his confirmation until September 11, 1962.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person elected president, at 43 years,...
Flying Tiger Line Flight 923, a Lockheed L-1049H Super Constellation registered as N6923C, ditches into the Atlantic Ocean killing 28 out the 76 occupants onboard. The remaining 48 were rescued six hours later.
Flying Tiger Line Flight 923 was a chartered military transport flight that ditched in the North Atlantic Ocean on September 23, 1962. The Lockheed Constellation L-1049H was transporting 68 military...
Typhoon Wilda, one of the strongest typhoons to ever strike Japan, makes landfall, causing at least 30 fatalities and sinking at least 64 ships.
Typhoon Wilda was an intense typhoon that was tied for lowest central pressure of any typhoon in 1964, along with Typhoon Sally. As the twenty-fourth named storm of the season, it origins can be...
Seven people die, 46 people are injured, and more than 150 boats capsize when a squall hits Lake Michigan during Michigan's first coho salmon sport fishing season.
The 1967 Coho Salmon Fishing Disaster refers to a squall over Lake Michigan, off the coast of Michigan in the United States, which occurred on September 23, 1967. Hundreds of small fishing boats...
Argentine general election: Juan Perón returns to power in Argentina.
Presidential elections were held in Argentina on 23 September 1973.
Gulf Air Flight 771 is destroyed by a bomb, killing all 112 people on board.
Gulf Air Flight 771 was an international scheduled passenger flight from Jinnah International Airport, Karachi, Pakistan, to Abu Dhabi International Airport, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. On 23...
Qantas Flight 1 overruns a runway in Bangkok during a storm, causing minor injuries to some passengers.
Qantas Flight 1 (QF1/QFA1) was a Qantas passenger flight between Sydney and London with a stop in Bangkok-Don Mueang. On 23 September 1999, the aircraft operating as Flight 1 had departed from...
Over 3,000 people die in Haiti after Hurricane Jeanne produces massive flooding and mudslides.
Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country in the Caribbean on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica and south of The Bahamas. It occupies the western...
Matti Saari kills ten people at a school in Finland before committing suicide.
On 23 September 2008, a school shooting occurred at the Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences (SeAMK) in Kauhajoki, Finland. The gunman, 22-year-old student Matti Juhani Saari, shot and killed...
Teresa Lewis becomes the first woman to be executed by the U.S. state of Virginia since 1912, and the first woman in the state to be executed by lethal injection.
Teresa Wilson Bean Lewis was an American murderer who was the only woman on death row in Virginia prior to her execution. She was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murders of her...
Twenty-five people are killed after Typhoon Usagi passes Hong Kong and China.
Typhoon Usagi, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Odette, was a tropical cyclone which affected Taiwan, the Philippines, China, and Hong Kong in mid September 2013. Usagi was the fourth typhoon and...
Twenty people die on the first of two days of rioting in Papua and West Papua over an alleged racist incident.
The 2019 Papua protests were a series of protests by Papuans in Indonesia that began on 19 August 2019 and mainly took place across Indonesian Papua region in response to the arrests of 43 Papuan...
A grand jury in Kentucky declines to indict three police officers for the shooting death of Breonna Taylor in a drug raid gone wrong, leading to nationwide protests in the U.S.
A grand jury is a jury empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena...
Voting begins in the five-day sham annexation referendums in Russian-occupied Ukraine, leading to Russian annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a portion or all of a population or group votes to choose an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office or other position...
Israel launches airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, killing more than 490 people.
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. It is bordered by Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan to the east, and Egypt to the...