What are the important events that happened on August 23? Here are historical events, facts, and some myths about this day.
August 23: Facts & Myths About This Day
August 23 is the 236th day of the year 2024 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 130 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Friday.
Under the Julian calendar, this day is August 10, 2024 – a Friday. Both day of the week are the same but did you notice the difference with the Gregorian calendar?
When this day started, 28,739,520 minutes has elapsed since midnight of January 1, 1970 – the Unix epoch.
Strange as it may, if we name this day after a polygon then it will be called ‘dihectatriacontahexagon’ day.
Virgo is the zodiac sign of a person born on this day. Peridot is the modern birthstone for this month. Diamond is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.
According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 159 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.
The ancient Maya civilization believes that the end of the world will happen on December 21, 2012. There are now 4,263 days since this fabled cataclysmic event.
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August 23 Historical Events
- 1305 –Sir William Wallace is executed for High Treason at Smithfield in London.
- 1595 –Michael the Brave confronts the Ottoman army in the Battle of Calugareni.
- 1858 –The Round Oak rail accident occurs in Brierley Hill in the Black Country, England. It is 'Arguably the worst disaster ever to occur on British railways'.
- 1864 –The Union Navy captures Fort Morgan, Alabama, thus breaking Confederate dominance of all ports on the Gulf of Mexico.
- 1921 –British airship R-38 experiences structural failure over Hull in England and crashes in the Humber estuary. Of her 49 British and American training crew, only 4 survive.
- 1943 –World War II: Kharkov liberated as a result of the Battle of Kursk.
- 1944 –World War II: Marseille liberated.
- 1973 –A bank robbery gone wrong in Stockholm, Sweden, turns into a hostage crisis; over the next five days the hostages begin to sympathise with their captors, leading to the term “Stockholm syndrome”.
- 1990 –Saddam Hussein appears on Iraqi state television with a number of Western “guests” (actually hostages) to try to prevent the Gulf War.
- 1996 –Osama bin Laden issues message entitled 'A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places.'
Who were born on August 23?
- 1754 –King Louis XVI of France (d. 1793)
- 1852 –Arnold Toynbee, English economist and social reformer (d. 1883)
- 1922 –George Kell, American baseball player (d. 2009)
- 1945 –Rayfield Wright, American football player
- 1957 –Tasos Mitropoulos, Greek footballer and politician
- 1960 –Gary Hoey, American Guitarist
- 1962 –Shaun Ryder, English musician
- 1970 –Lawrence Frank, American basketball coach
- 1971 –BoneCrusher, American rapper
- 1972 –Mark Butcher, England cricketer
Who died on August 23?
- 406 –Radagaisus, Gothic king
- 1853 –Alexander Calder, first mayor of Beaumont, Texas (b. 1806)
- 1924 –Heinrich Berté, Austrian operetta composer (b. 1856)
- 1974 –Roberto Assagioli, Italian psychiatrist (b. 1888)
- 1989 –R. D. Laing, Scottish psychiatrist (b. 1927)
- 1997 –John Kendrew, British molecular biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (b. 1917)
- 2002 –Hoyt Wilhelm, American baseball player (b. 1922)
- 2003 –Bobby Bonds, American baseball player and manager (b. 1946)
- 2005 –Ninjalicious, Canadian author and urban explorer (b. 1973)
- 2008 –John Russell, British-born American art critic and author (b. 1919)
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