Events on June 23 53
Year 1280
The Battle of Moclín takes place in the context of the Spanish Reconquista pitting the forces of the Kingdom of Castile against the Emirate of Granada. The battle resulted in a Granadian victory.
Year 1314
First War of Scottish Independence: The Battle of Bannockburn (south of Stirling) begins.
Year 1532
Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France sign a secret treaty against Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
Year 1594
The Action of Faial, Azores. The Portuguese carrack "Chagas", loaded with slaves and treasure, is attacked and sunk by English ships with only 13 survivors out of over 1000 on board.
Year 1611
The mutinous crew of Henry Hudson's fourth voyage sets Henry, his son and seven loyal crew members adrift in an open boat in what is now Hudson Bay; they are never heard from again.
Year 1683
William Penn signs a friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania.
Year 1713
The French residents of Acadia are given one year to declare allegiance to Britain or leave Nova Scotia, Canada.
Year 1757
Battle of Plassey: Three thousand British troops under Robert Clive defeat a 50,000-strong Indian army under Siraj ud-Daulah at Plassey.
Year 1758
Seven Years' War: Battle of Krefeld: Allied (British, Hanoverian, and Prussian) forces defeat French troops at Krefeld in Germany.
Year 1780
American Revolution: Battle of Springfield fought in and around Springfield, New Jersey (including Short Hills, formerly of Springfield, now of Millburn Township).
Year 1812
War of 1812: Great Britain revokes the restrictions on American commerce, thus eliminating one of the chief reasons for going to war.
Year 1865
American Civil War: At Fort Towson in the Oklahoma Territory, Confederate, Brigadier General Stand Watie surrenders the last significant rebel army.
Year 1868
Typewriter: Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for an invention he called the "Type-Writer."
Year 1887
The Rocky Mountains Park Act becomes law in Canada creating the nation's first national park, Banff National Park.
Year 1894
The International Olympic Committee is founded at the Sorbonne in Paris, at the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.
Year 1917
In a game against the Washington Senators, Boston Red Sox pitcher Ernie Shore retires 26 batters in a row after replacing Babe Ruth, who had been ejected for punching the umpire.
Year 1919
Estonian War of Independence: The decisive defeat of the Baltische Landeswehr in the Battle of Cēsis; this date is celebrated as Victory Day in Estonia.
Year 1931
Wiley Post and Harold Gatty take off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island in an attempt to circumnavigate the world in a single-engine plane.
Year 1938
The Civil Aeronautics Act is signed into law, forming the Civil Aeronautics Authority in the United States.
Year 1940
Adolf Hitler goes on a three-hour tour of the architecture of Paris with architect Albert Speer and sculptor Arno Breker in his only visit to the city.
Year 1941
The Lithuanian Activist Front declares independence from the Soviet Union and forms the Provisional Government of Lithuania; it lasts only briefly as the Nazis will occupy Lithuania a few weeks later.
Year 1942
World War II: Germany's latest fighter aircraft, a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, is captured intact when it mistakenly lands at RAF Pembrey in Wales.
Year 1946
The 1946 Vancouver Island earthquake strikes Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
Year 1947
The United States Senate follows the United States House of Representatives in overriding U.S. President Harry Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act.
Year 1956
The French National Assembly takes the first step in creating the French Community by passing the Loi Cadre, transferring a number of powers from Paris to elected territorial governments in French West Africa.
Year 1959
Convicted Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs is released after only nine years in prison and allowed to emigrate to Dresden, East Germany where he resumes a scientific career.
Year 1960
The United States Food and Drug Administration declares Enovid to be the first officially approved combined oral contraceptive pill in the world.
Year 1961
Cold War: The Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent, comes into force after the opening date for signature set for the December 1, 1959.
Year 1967
Cold War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in Glassboro, New Jersey for the three-day Glassboro Summit Conference.
Year 1969
Warren E. Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court by retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren.
Year 1969
IBM announces that effective January 1970 it will price its software and services separately from hardware thus creating the modern software industry.
Year 1972
Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman are taped talking about using the Central Intelligence Agency to obstruct the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation into the Watergate break-ins.
Year 1972
Title IX of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 is amended to prohibit sexual discrimination to any educational program receiving federal funds.
Year 1973
A fire at a house in Hull, England which kills a six-year-old boy is passed off as an accident; it later emerges as the first of 26 deaths by fire caused over the next seven years by arsonist Peter Dinsdale.
Year 1985
A terrorist bomb aboard Air India Flight 182 brings the Boeing 747 down off the coast of Ireland killing all 329 aboard.
Year 2001
The 8.4 Mw southern Peru earthquake shakes coastal Peru with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). A destructive tsunami followed, leaving at least 74 people dead, and 2,687 injured.
Year 2012
Ashton Eaton breaks the decathlon world record at the United States Olympic Trials.
Year 2013
Nik Wallenda becomes the first man to successfully walk across the Grand Canyon on a tight rope.
Year 2013
Militants stormed a high-altitude mountaineering base camp near Nanga Parbat in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan and killed ten climbers, as well as a local guide.
Year 2016
The United Kingdom votes in a referendum to leave the European Union, by 52% to 48%.