November 23

Events

• 1499 - Pretender to the throne Perkin Warbeck is hanged for reportedly attempting to escape from the Tower of London. He had invaded England in 1497, claiming to be the lost son of King Edward IV of England.
• 1644 - Areopagitica by John Milton is published.
• 1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Chattanooga begins - Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant reinforce troops at Chattanooga, Tennessee and counter-attack Confederate troops.
• 1869 - In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper Cutty Sark is launched -- one of the last clippers ever to be built, and the only one still surviving to this day.
• 1876 - Corrupt Tammany Hall leader William Marcy Tweed (better known as Boss Tweed) is delivered to authorities in New York City after being captured in Spain.
• 1890 - King William III of the Netherlands dies without a male heir and a special law is passed to allow his daughter Princess Wilhelmina to become Queen.
• 1903 - Colorado Governor James Peabody sends the state militia into the town of Cripple Creek to break up a miners' strike.
• 1936 - The first edition of Life is published.
• 1943 - The Deutsche Opernhaus on Bismarckstraße in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg is destroyed. It will eventually be rebuilt in 1961 and be called the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
• 1955 - The Cocos Islands are transferred from United Kingdom to Australian control.
• 1958 - Have Gun, Will Travel debuts on radio.
• 1960 - The long-running serial, Ma Perkins, airs its last episode on CBS radio.
• 1963 - The first episode of the sci-fi television series Doctor Who debuts on the BBC.
• 1971 - The People's Republic of China is given the Taiwan's seat on the United Nations Security Council. (See China and the United Nations)
• 1979 - In Dublin, Ireland, Irish Republican Army member Thomas McMahon is sentenced to life in prison for the assassination of Lord Mountbatten.
• 1980 - A series of earthquakes in southern Italy kills approximately 4,800 people.
• 1981 - Iran-Contra scandal: Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), giving the Central Intelligence Agency the authority to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
• 1984 - Boston College Quarterback Doug Flutie throws a game-winning 48-yard Hail Mary pass to Gerard Phelan to defeat the University of Miami Hurricanes 45-41. It is one of the most famous plays in American college football history.
• 1985 - Gunmen hijack EgyptAir Flight 648 while en route from Athens to Cairo. When the plane lands in Malta, Egyptian commandos storm the hijacked jetliner, but 60 people die in the raid.
• 1990 - Punk rock band Bad Religion releases their seventh album, Against the Grain in the United States.
• 1993 - Rachel Whiteread wins both the £20,000 Turner Prize award for best British modern artist and the £40,000 K Foundation art award for the worst artist of the year.
• 1996 - Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 is hijacked, then crashes after running out of fuel off the coast of Comoros into the Indian Ocean, killing 127.
• 2003 - Beleaguered Georgiann president Eduard Shevardnadze resigns following weeks of mass protests over flawed elections.
• 2003 - Berkeley Breathed begins the comic strip Opus.
  

  Births

• 912 - Otto I the Great, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 973)
• 1749 - Edward Rutledge, U.S. statesman (d. 1800)
• 1760 - François-Noël Babeuf, French revolutionary (d. 1797)
• 1804 - Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States (d. 1869)
• 1819 - Benjamin Mayberry Prentiss, Union General (d. 1901)
• 1820 - Isaac Todhunter, English mathematician (d. 1884)
• 1860 - Billy the Kid, bandit (d. 1881)
• 1860 - Hjalmar Branting, Swedish statesman, winner of Nobel Peace Prize in 1921 (d. 1925)
• 1869 - Valdemar Poulsen, Danish engineer (d. 1942)
• 1876 - Manuel de Falla, composer (d. 1946)
• 1887 - Boris Karloff, actor (d. 1969)
• 1887 - Eduardo Corrochio, world-champion tap dancer (d. 1943)
• 1888 - Harpo Marx, comedian (d. 1964)
• 1890 - El Lissitzky, Russian artist and architect (d. 1941)
• 1892 - Erté, artist (d. 1990)
• 1897 - Nirad C. Chaudhuri, writer (d. 1999)
• 1901 - Marieluise Fleisser, author (d. 1974)
• 1902 - Victor Jory, Canadian actor (d. 1982)
• 1909 - Nigel Tranter, Scottish historian, writer (d. 2000)
• 1920 - Paul Celan, poet (d. 1970)
• 1921 - Fred Buscaglione, Italian singer and actor
• 1924 - Colin Macmillan Turnbull, Scottish-born anthropologist
• 1925 - José Napoleón Duarte, President of El Salvador (d. 1990)
• 1928 - Pierre Etaix, actor, film director and writer
• 1929 - Günter Gaus, publicist and politician
• 1931 - Dervla Murphy, traveller, author
• 1933 - Krzysztof Penderecki, composer
• 1934 - Robert Towne, writer, director, producer, actor
• 1935 - Vladislav Volkov, cosmonaut
• 1938 - Herbert Achternbusch, author and film director
• 1941 - Franco Nero, actor
• 1944 - Joe Eszterhas, producer, writer
• 1944 - James Toback, writer, director
• 1945 - Steve Landesberg, American actor
• 1954 - Bruce Hornsby, musician
• 1955 - Steven Brust, fantasy author
• 1956 - Steve Harvey, actor, comedian
• 1959 - Maxwell Caulfield, actor
• 1959 - Dominique Dunne, actress (Poltergeist) (d. 1982)
• 1970 - Zoë Ball, television and radio presenter
• 1974 - Jamie Sharper, American football player
• 1977 - Myriam Boileau, diver
  

  Deaths

• 1407 - Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans, brother of Charles VI of France (murdered) (b. 1372)
• 1457 - Ladislaus Posthumus of Bohemia and Hungary
• 1499 - Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the throne of England
• 1503 - Margaret of Burgundy, wife of Charles the Bold
• 1585 - Thomas Tallis, composer
• 1682 - Claude Lorrain, French landscape painter
• 1807 - Jean-François Rewbell, French politician (b. 1747)
• 1814 - Elbridge Gerry, Vice President of the United States of America
• 1890 - King William III of the Netherlands
• 1902 - Walter Reed, bacteriologist
• 1965 - Queen Elizabeth of Belgium
• 1966 - Sean O'Kelly, President of Ireland 1945-59
• 1973 - Sessue Hayakawa, actor
• 1974 - Cornelius Ryan, author
• 1979 - Merle Oberon, actress
• 1990 - Roald Dahl, author
• 1991 - Klaus Kinski, actor
• 1992 - Roy Acuff, country music performer
• 1995 - Louis Malle, director
• 1995 - Junior Walker, musician
• 2002 - Roberto Matta, Chilean painter
• 2004 - Pete Franklin, talk radio pioneer
  

  Holidays and observances

• Bahá'í Faith - Feast of Qawl (Speech) - First day of the 14th month of the Bahá'í Calendar
  

  External links

• BBC: On This Day

November 22 - November 24 - October 23 - December 23 -- listing of all days