What happened on August 23 ?

1305 - William Wallace is executed.

1328 - Battle of Cassel: French troops stop an uprising of Flemish farmers.

1328 - King Philip VI of France is crowned.

1541 - French explorer Jacques Cartier lands near Quebec City in his third voyage to Canada.

1566 - Calvinists are granted rights in the Netherlands

1614 - The University of Groningen is established

1651 - Charles II of England enters Worcester and starts a battle.

1784 - Eastern Tennessee declares itself an independent state under the name of Franklin; the step is rejected by Congress one year later

1793 - French Revolution: a levée en masse was decreed by the National Convention.

1799 - Napoleon leaves Egypt for France en route to seize power

1813 - At the Battle of Grossbeeren, the Prussians under Von Bülow repulse the French army.

1821 - Mexico gains its independence from Spain

1833 - Slavery abolished in the British colonies

1839 - The UK captures Hong Kong

1864 - The Union Navy captures Fort Morgan, Alabama, thus breaking Confederate dominance of all ports on the Gulf of Mexico

1866 - Austro-Prussian War ends with the Treaty of Prague

1889 - First wireless message from a ship to the shore received.

1896 - First Cry of the Philippine Revolution is made in Pugad Lawin (Quezon City), in the province of Manila

1904 - The automobile tire chain is patented.

1914 - Japan declares war on Germany and bombs Qingdao, China.

1921 - Faisal I crowned king of Iraq.

1924 - The distance between Earth and Mars is the smallest since the 10th century.

1927 - Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti are executed in Boston, Massachusetts.

1929 - Riots in Palestine of 1929: Arabs attack Jews in Israel in the

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, Baltic states, Finland and Poland are divided between the two nations.

1940 - World War II: The Germans start bombing London.

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. Romania switches sides from the Axis to the Allies.

1944 - A US Army Air Force B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into a school in Freckleton, England killing 61 people.

1944 - World War II: Ion Antonescu, prime minister of Romania, is arrested and a new gouverment is established. Romania exits the war against Russia joining the Allies.

1947 - The Maynard Midgets beat Lock Haven 16-7 to win the first-ever Little League World Series championship.

1948 - World Council of Churches is formed.

1952 - The Arab League goes into effect.

1958 - Chinese Civil War: The Second Taiwan Strait crisis begins with the People's Liberation Army's bombardment of Quemoy.

1960 - In Equatorial Guinea, the world's largest frog (3.3 kg) is caught.

1962 - First live television connection between the United States and Europe, via the Telstar satellite.

1966 - Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.

1968 - Ringo Starr temporarily quits The Beatles

1973 - The Intelsat communication satellite is launched.

1975 - Successful Communist coup in Laos

1976 - A major earthquake in China kills thousands of people.

1979 - Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defects to the United States.

1985 - Hans Tiedge, top counter-spy of West Germany, defects to East Germany.

1987 - Heavy rains and floods in Bangladesh kill hundreds of victims.

1989 - Singing Revolution: two million people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania stand on the Vilnius-Tallinn road, holding hands (Baltic way).

1989 - All of Australia's 1,645 domestic airline pilots resign after the airlines threaten to sack them and sue them over a dispute.

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.

1992 - Hurricane Andrew hits South Florida.

1996 - Osama bin Laden issues message entitled 'A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places'

2000 - A Gulf Air Airbus A320 crashes into the Persian Gulf near Manama, Bahrain, killing 143

2000 - Nicaragua becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty. This essentially deprecated the Buenos Aires Convention treaty, because as of this date, all members of the BA Convention were also signatories to Berne.

2005 - TANS Peru Flight 204 crashes near Pucallpa, Peru, killing 41.