This is a list of selected December 23 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Before doing so, please review the selected anniversaries guidelines. If your suggestion is potentially controversial or relates to a day currently or soon to appear on the Main Page, post it on the talk page instead.
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- Events listed on the Main Page are selected based on article quality and to provide a diverse range of topics, rather than solely on the importance or significance of the events.
- Only four or five events are featured each day; therefore, not all important or significant events can be included.
- An event is generally excluded if it is already the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
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Clement Clarke Moore
1912 book cover of A Visit from St. Nicholas
Several transistors, with a centimeter tape, for scale
Voyager
Vincent van Gogh
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| Festivus | {{trivia}} |
| 1947 – The transistor, invented by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley, was first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories. | Tagged with {{unreferenced section}} |
| 1958 – The Tokyo Tower, the tallest self-supporting steel structure in the world at 332.5 metres (1,091 ft), opened. | needs updating |
| 1972 – The Nicaraguan capital of Managua was struck by a 6.5 magnitude earthquake, killing more than 10,000 people. | refimprove |
Eligible
- 1823 – A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, was first published anonymously. Authorship was later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore.
- 1888 – During a bout of mental illness, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh stalked his friend French painter Paul Gauguin with a razor, and then afterwards cut off the lower part of his own left ear and gave it to a prostitute.
- 1913 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act, establishing a central banking system of the United States, the Federal Reserve.
- 1957 – Ian Craig of Australia became the youngest Test cricket captain in history.
- 1972 – In one of the most famous plays in the history of American football, Pittsburgh Steelers running back Franco Harris made the Immaculate Reception of the football passed "to" him by quarterback Terry Bradshaw near the end of a playoff game.
- 1954 – Drs. Joseph Murray and J. Hartwell Harrison performed the first successful kidney transplant.
- 1990 – About eighty-eight percent of the population in Slovenia voted to secede from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
December 23: The Emperor's Birthday in Japan
- 962 – Byzantine–Arab Wars: Under the future Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Byzantine troops stormed the city of Aleppo.
- 1793 – French Revolution: The Royalist counterrevolutionary army was decisively defeated in the Battle of Savenay, although fighting continued in the War in the Vendée for years afterward.
- 1916 – First World War: Allied forces gained a strategic victory in the Battle of Magdhaba, located in the Sinai Peninsula.
- 1938 – A South African fisher discovered the first living specimen of a coelacanth (pictured), long believed to be extinct.
- 1986 – Piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, the Rutan Voyager became the first aircraft to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, landing in California's Edwards Air Force Base after a nine-day trip.
- 2008 – The Guinean military engineered a coup d'état, and announced that it planned to rule the country for two years prior to a new presidential election.
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