| 1244 | Turks expel the crusaders under Frederick II from Jerusalem. | |
| 1305 | Scottish patriot William Wallace is hanged, drawn, beheaded, and quartered in London. | |
| 1541 | Jacques Cartier lands near Quebec on his third voyage to North America. | |
| 1711 | A British attempt to invade Canada by sea fails. | |
| 1775 | King George III of England refuses the American colonies' offer of peace and declares them in open rebellion. | |
| 1821 | After 11 years of war, Spain grants Mexican independence as a constitutional monarchy. | |
| 1863 | Union batteries cease their first bombardment of Fort Sumter, leaving it a mass of rubble but still unconquered by the Northern besiegers. | |
| 1900 | Booker T. Washington forms the National Negro Business League in Boston, Massachusetts. | |
| 1902 | Fanny Farmer, among the first to emphasize the relationship of diet to health, opens her School of Cookery in Boston. | |
| 1914 | The Emperor of Japan declares war on Germany. | |
| 1926 | American film star Rudolph Valentino dies, causing world-wide hysteria and a number of suicides. | |
| 1927 | Immigrant laborers Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed for a robbery they did not commit. Fifty years later, in 1977, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis establishes a memorial in the victims' honor. | |
| 1939 | Joseph Stalin and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop sign a non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany, freeing Adolf Hitler to invade Poland and Stalin to invade Finland. | |
| 1942 | German forces begin an assault on the major Soviet industrial city of Stalingrad. | |
| 1944 | German SS engineers begin placing explosive charges around the Eiffel Tower in Paris. | |
| 1950 | Up to 77,000 members of the U.S. Army Organized Reserve Corps are called involuntarily to active duty to fight the Korean War. | |
| 1952 | Arab League security pact linking seven Arab States in a military, political and economic alliance goes into effect. | |
| 1954 | First flight of the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. | |
| 1958 | The Second Taiwan Strait crisis begins: People's Liberation Army bombards island of Quemoy during Chinese Civil War. | |
| 1961 | Belgium sends troops to Rwanda-Urundi during bloody Tutsi-Hutu conflict. | |
| 1966 | Lunar Orbiter 1 takes first photograph of Earth from the moon. | |
| 1975 | Pathet Lao communists occupy Vientiane, Laos. | |
| 1977 | Bryan Allen, piloting the Gossamer Condor, wins the Kremer prize for the first human-powered aircraft to fly a one-mile, figure-eight course. | |
| 1979 | Iranian army opens offensive against Kurds. | |
| 1979 | Bolshoi Ballet dancer Alexander Godunov defects in New York City. | |
| 1990 | Armenia declares independence from USSR. | |
| 1990 | East and West Germany announce they will unite on Oct 3. | |
| 1996 | Osama bin Laden issues message entitled "A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places." | |
| 2006 | Natascha Kampusch, abducted at the age of 10 in Austria, escapes from her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, after 8 years of captivity. | |
| 2011 | Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi is overthrown after National Transitional Council forces take control of Bab al-Azizia compound during the 2011 Libyan Civil War. | |
| 2011 | A 5.8 earthquake centered at Mineral, Virginia, damages the Washington Monument, forcing the landmark to close for repairs. |
Today in History August 23
A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this day in history.
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