August 23rd
Month:
Day:
- 1973
During a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, hostages begin to sympathize with their captors, leading to the term Stockholm syndrome View Post →
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- 79
Mount Vesuvius begins stirring on the feast day of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire
- 1305
Scottish patriot William Wallace is executed for high treason by Edward I of England at Smithfield, London
- 1869
The first carload of rail freight (boots & shoes) arrives in San Francisco from Boston after a 16-day trip
- 1872
The first Japanese commercial ship visits San Francisco, carrying tea
- 1947
The first Baseball Little League World Series takes place in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Maynard Midgets beat Lock Haven All Stars, 16-7
- 1960
The world's largest frog (3.3 kg) is caught in Equatorial Guinea
- 1966
The first photograph of Earth is taken from the orbit of the Moon
- 1976
A heavy earthquake strikes China, causing thousands of deaths
- 1977
The first man-powered flight of a mile is made by Bryan Allen in the Gossamer Condor
- 1978
Kobe Bryant, American basketball player, is born
- 1987
A 15-year-old boy hijacks a KLM B737, demanding $1 billion
- 2000
Richard Hatch is revealed as the winning castaway on CBS' Survivor, winning $1,000,000
- 2005
Hurricane Katrina forms over the Bahamas, later becoming a category 5 hurricane
- 2007
The hashtag is invented and first used in a tweet by US product designer Chris Messina
- 2011
A magnitude 5.8 earthquake occurs in Virginia, causing an estimated $200-300 million in damages
- 2015
A 12-year-old boy trips and rips the 17th-century painting Flowers by Paolo Porpora, worth $1.5m, at an exhibition in Taiwan
- 2017
The world's driest place, the Atacama desert in Chile, blooms after unexpected rainfall
