On January 23, 1556, an earthquake in Shaanxi, China, kills an estimated 830,000 people. Counting casualties is often imprecise after large-scale disasters, especially prior to the 20th century, but this disaster is still considered the deadliest of all time. The quake struck in late evening, with aftershocks continuing through the following morning. Later scientific investigation […]

John Moses Browning, sometimes referred to as the “father of modern firearms,” is born in Ogden, Utah on January 23, 1855. Many of the guns manufactured by companies whose names evoke the history of the American West—Winchester, Colt, Remington, and Savage—were actually based on John Browning’s designs. The son of a talented gunsmith, John Browning began […]

Charles Curtis of Kansas becomes the first Native American to be elected to the United States Senate on January 23, 1907. His tenure later as Herbert Hoover’s vice president made him the highest-ranking Native American ever to serve in the federal government. Curtis was born in the Kansas Territory shortly before it became his state. […]

Charles A. Lindbergh, a national hero since his nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic, testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Lend-Lease policy-and suggests that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Hitler. Lindbergh was born in 1902 in Detroit. His father was a member of the House of Representatives. Lindbergh’s interest […]

On January 23, 1968, the USS Pueblo, a Navy intelligence vessel, is engaged in a routine surveillance of the North Korean coast when it is intercepted by North Korean patrol boats. According to U.S. reports, the Pueblo was in international waters almost 16 miles from shore, but the North Koreans turned their guns on the […]

January 23, 1977 sees the premiere of Roots, a groundbreaking television program. The eight-episode miniseries, which was broadcast over eight consecutive nights, follows a family from its origins in West Africa through generations of slavery and the end of the Civil War. Roots was one of the most-watched television events in American history and a […]

On January 23, 1984, Hulk Hogan becomes the first wrestler to escape the “camel clutch”—the signature move of reigning World Wrestling Federation (WWF) champion Iron Sheik—as he defeats Sheik to win his first WWF title, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Only one month earlier, the Iron Sheik—born Hossein Khosrow Vaziri in Tehran, […]

The day after her unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Madeleine Albright is sworn in as America’s first female secretary of state by Vice President Al Gore at the White House. As head of the U.S. State Department, Albright was the highest ranking female official in U.S. history, a distinction that led some to declare […]