Events on March 23 42
Year 1400
The Trần dynasty of Vietnam is deposed, after one hundred and seventy-five years of rule, by Hồ Quý Ly, a court official.
Year 1540
Waltham Abbey is surrendered to King Henry VIII of England; the last religious community to be closed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
Year 1568
The Peace of Longjumeau is signed, ending the second phase of the French Wars of Religion.
Year 1775
American Revolutionary War: Patrick Henry delivers his speech - "Give me liberty, or give me death!" - at St. John's Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia.
Year 1801
Tsar Paul I of Russia is struck with a sword, then strangled, and finally trampled to death inside his bedroom at St. Michael's Castle.
Year 1806
After traveling through the Louisiana Purchase and reaching the Pacific Ocean, explorers Lewis and Clark and their "Corps of Discovery" begin their arduous journey home.
Year 1848
The ship John Wickliffe arrives at Port Chalmers carrying the first Scottish settlers for Dunedin, New Zealand. Otago province is founded.
Year 1862
The First Battle of Kernstown, Virginia, marks the start of Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign. Although a Confederate defeat, the engagement distracts Federal efforts to capture Richmond.
Year 1868
The University of California is founded in Oakland, California when the Organic Act is signed into law.
Year 1879
War of the Pacific: The Battle of Topáter, the first battle of the war is fought between Chile and the joint forces of Bolivia and Peru.
Year 1885
Sino-French War: Chinese victory in the Battle of Phu Lam Tao near Hưng Hóa, northern Vietnam.
Year 1888
In England, The Football League, the world's oldest professional association football league, meets for the first time.
Year 1889
The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is established by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in Qadian, British India.
Year 1901
Emilio Aguinaldo, only President of the First Philippine Republic, was captured at Palanan, Isabela by the forces of General Frederick Funston.
Year 1905
Eleftherios Venizelos calls for Crete's union with Greece, and begins what is to be known as the Theriso revolt.
Year 1909
Theodore Roosevelt leaves New York for a post-presidency safari in Africa. The trip is sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.
Year 1918
First World War: On the third day of the German Spring Offensive, the 10th Battalion of the Royal West Kent Regiment is annihilated with many of the men becoming prisoners of war
Year 1931
Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar are hanged for the killing of a deputy superintendent of police during the Indian struggle for independence.
Year 1933
The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act of 1933, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany.
Year 1939
The Hungarian air force attacks the headquarters of the Slovak air force in Spišská Nová Ves, killing 13 people and beginning the Slovak-Hungarian War.
Year 1940
The Lahore Resolution (Qarardad-e-Pakistan or Qarardad-e-Lahore) is put forward at the Annual General Convention of the All-India Muslim League.
Year 1956
Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic in the world. (Republic Day in Pakistan)
Year 1965
NASA launches Gemini 3, the United States' first two-man space flight (crew: Gus Grissom and John Young).
Year 1977
The first of The Nixon Interviews (12 will be recorded over four weeks) are videotaped with British journalist David Frost interviewing former United States President Richard Nixon about the Watergate scandal and the Nixon tapes.
Year 1978
The first UNIFIL troops arrived in Lebanon for peacekeeping mission along the Blue Line.
Year 1980
Archbishop Óscar Romero of El Salvador gives his famous speech appealing to men of the El Salvadoran armed forces to stop killing the Salvadorans.
Year 1982
Guatemala's government, headed by Fernando Romeo Lucas García is overthrown in a military coup by right-wing General Efraín Ríos Montt.
Year 1983
Strategic Defense Initiative: President Ronald Reagan makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles.
Year 1991
The Revolutionary United Front, with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia, invades Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow Joseph Saidu Momoh, sparking a gruesome 11-year Sierra Leone Civil War.
Year 1994
At an election rally in Tijuana, Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio is assassinated by Mario Aburto Martínez.
Year 1994
A United States Air Force (USAF) F-16 aircraft collides with a USAF C-130 at Pope Air Force Base and then crashes, killing 24 United States Army soldiers on the ground. This later became known as the Green Ramp disaster.
Year 1994
Aeroflot Flight 593 crashed into the Kuznetsk Alatau mountain, Kemerovo Oblast, Russia, killing 75.
Year 2001
The Russian Mir space station is disposed of, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.
Year 2009
FedEx Express Flight 80: A McDonnell Douglas MD-11 flying from Guangzhou, China crashes at Tokyo's Narita International Airport, killing both the captain and the co-pilot.