![Today in history](https://new.mia.mk/images/20240823074128_big_730x400_15.webp )
23 August 2024 (MIA)
1305 – William Wallace, Scottish patriot, is executed for high treason by Edward I of England.
1514 – Battle of Chaldiran ended with a decisive victory for the Sultan Selim I, Ottoman Empire, over the Shah Ismail I, Safavids founder.
1541 – French explorer Jacques Cartier lands near Quebec City in his third voyage to Canada.
1572 – Mob violence against Huguenots in Paris – St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre.
1595 – Michael the Brave confronts the Ottoman army in the Battle of Calugareni.
1775 – King George III declares that the American colonies exist in a state of open and avowed rebellion.
1793 – French Revolution: a levée en masse is decreed by the National Convention.
1799 – Napoleon leaves Egypt for France en route to seize power.
1839 – The United Kingdom captures Hong Kong as a base as it prepares for war with Qing China. The ensuing 3-year conflict will later be known as the First Opium War.
1866 – Austro-Prussian War ends with the Treaty of Prague.
1896 – First Cry of the Philippine Revolution is made in Pugad Lawin (Quezon City), in the province of Manila.
1914 – World War I: Japan declares war on Germany and bombs Qingdao, China.
1929 – Hebron Massacre during the 1929 Palestine riots: Arab attack on the Jewish community in Hebron in the British Mandate of Palestine, continuing until the next day, resulted in the death of 65-68 Jews and the remaining Jews being forced to leave the city.
1939 – World War II: Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In a secret addition to the pact, the Baltic states, Finland, Romania, and Poland are divided between the two nations.
1942 – World War II: Beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad.
1943 – World War II: Kharkov liberated.
1944 – World War II: Marseille liberated.
1944 – World War II King Michael of Romania dismisses the pro-Nazi government of General Antonescu, who is arrested. Romania switches sides from the Axis to the Allies.
1958 – Chinese Civil War: The Second Taiwan Strait crisis begins with the People’s Liberation Army’s bombardment of Quemoy.
1966 – Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.
1975 – Successful Communist coup in Laos.
1979 – Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defects to the United States.
1982 – Bachir Gemayel is elected Lebanese President amidst the raging civil war.
1985 – Hans Tiedge, top counter-spy of West Germany, defects to East Germany.
1989 – Hungary: the last communist government open the Iron curtain and causes the exodus of thousands of Eastern Germans to West Germany via Hungary (September 11).
1989 – Singing Revolution: two million people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania stand on the Vilnius-Tallinn road, holding hands (Baltic Way).
1990 – Saddam Hussein appears on Iraqi state television with a number of Western “guests” (actually hostages) to try to prevent the Gulf War.
1990 – Armenia declares its independence from the Soviet Union.
1990 – West Germany and East Germany announce that they will unite on October 3.
1996 – Osama bin Laden issues message entitled ‘A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places.’
2000 – Gulf Air Flight 072 crashes into the Persian Gulf near Manama, Bahrain, killing 143.
2006 – Natascha Kampusch, who is abducted at the age of 10, managed to escape from her captor Wolfgang Priklopil, after 8 years of captivity.
2007– Hashtag invented and first used in a tweet by US product designer Chris Messina.
2015 – 12-year-old boy trips and rips 17th-century painting "Flowers" by Paolo Porpora worth $1.5m at exhibition in Taiwan.
2017 – World's driest place, the Atacama desert in Chile blooms after unexpected rainfall.
2021 – US Food and Drug Administration grants full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for people 16 and over. First vaccine to move past emergency-use status in the US.
2023 – Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group, reported killed along with 9 others in a plane crash northwest of Moscow, according to Russian Federal Air Transport Agency.