Events on July 23 51
Year 811
Byzantine emperor Nikephoros I plunders the Bulgarian capital of Pliska and captures Khan Krum's treasury.
Year 1319
A Knights Hospitaller fleet scores a crushing victory over an Aydinid fleet off Chios.
Year 1793
Roger Sherman, a Connecticut Patriot and member of the Committee of Five selected to draft the Declaration of Independence, dies of typhoid in New Haven, Connecticut, at age 72.
Year 1821
While the Mora Rebellion continues, Greeks capture Monemvasia Castle. Turkish troops and citizens are transferred to Minor Asia coasts.
Year 1829
In the United States, William Austin Burt patents the typographer, a precursor to the typewriter.
Year 1874
Aires de Ornelas e Vasconcelos is appointed the Archbishop of the Portuguese colonial enclave of Goa, India.
Year 1881
The Boundary Treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina is signed in Buenos Aires.
Year 1914
Austria-Hungary issues a series of demands in an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia demanding Serbia to allow the Austrians to determine who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Serbia accepts all but one of those demands and Austria declares war on July 28.
Year 1921
The Communist Party of China (CPC) is established at the founding National Congress.
Year 1926
Fox Film buys the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound onto film.
Year 1936
In Catalonia, Spain, the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia is founded through the merger of Socialist and Communist parties.
Year 1940
The United States' Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles issues a declaration on the U.S. non-recognition policy of the Soviet annexation and incorporation of three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Year 1942
World War II: The German offensives Operation Edelweiss and Operation Braunschweig begin.
Year 1942
Bulgarian poet and Communist leader Nikola Vaptsarov is executed by firing squad.
Year 1943
World War II: The British destroyers HMS Eclipse and HMS Laforey sink the Italian submarine Ascianghi in the Mediterranean after she torpedoes the cruiser HMS Newfoundland.
Year 1952
General Muhammad Naguib leads the Free Officers Movement (formed by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the real power behind the coup) in overthrowing King Farouk of Egypt.
Year 1962
Telstar relays the first publicly transmitted, live trans-Atlantic television program, featuring Walter Cronkite.
Year 1967
Detroit Riots: In Detroit, one of the worst riots in United States history begins on 12th Street in the predominantly African American inner city. It ultimately kills 43 people, injures 342 and burns about 1,400 buildings.
Year 1968
Glenville shootout: In Cleveland, Ohio, a violent shootout between a Black Militant organization and the Cleveland Police Department occurs. During the shootout, a riot begins and lasts for five days.
Year 1968
The only successful hijacking of an El Al aircraft takes place when a Boeing 707 carrying ten crew and 38 passengers is taken over by three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The aircraft was en route from Rome, to Lod, Israel.
Year 1970
Qaboos bin Said al Said becomes Sultan of Oman after overthrowing his father, Said bin Taimur initiating massive reforms, modernization programs and end to a decade long civil war.
Year 1974
The Greek military junta collapses, and former Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis is invited to lead the new government, beginning Greece's metapolitefsi era.
Year 1980
Phạm Tuân becomes the first Vietnamese citizen and the first Asian in space when he flies aboard the Soyuz 37 mission as an Intercosmos Research Cosmonaut.
Year 1982
Outside Santa Clarita, California, actor Vic Morrow and two children are killed when a helicopter crashes onto them while shooting a scene from Twilight Zone: The Movie.
Year 1983
Thirteen Sri Lanka Army soldiers are killed after a deadly ambush by the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Year 1983
Gimli Glider: Air Canada Flight 143 runs out of fuel and makes a deadstick landing at Gimli, Manitoba.
Year 1988
General Ne Win, effective ruler of Burma since 1962, resigns after pro-democracy protests.
Year 1992
A Vatican commission, led by Joseph Ratzinger, establishes that limiting certain rights of homosexual people and non-married couples is not equivalent to discrimination on grounds of race or gender.
Year 1995
Comet Hale-Bopp is discovered; it becomes visible to the naked eye on Earth nearly a year later.
Year 2005
Three bombs explode in the Naama Bay area of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, killing 88 people.
Year 2016
Kabul twin bombing occurred in the vicinity of Deh Mazang when protesters, mostly from the Shiite Hazara minority, were marching against route changing of the TUTAP power project. At least 80 people were killed and 260 were injured.