June 23 in History

Sun Quan (; 182 – 21 May 252 AD), courtesy name Zhongmou (仲謀), posthumously known as Emperor Da of Wu, was the founder of Eastern Wu, one of the Three Kingdoms of China. He inherited control of the warlord regime established by his elder brother, Sun Ce, in 200 AD. He declared formal independence and ruled from November 222 to May 229 as the King of Wu and from May 229 to May 252 as the Emperor of Wu. Unlike his rivals Cao Cao and Liu Bei, Sun Quan was much younger and governed his state mostly separate of politics and ideology. He is sometimes portrayed as neutral considering he adopted a flexible foreign policy between his two rivals with the goal of pursuing the greatest interests for the country. Sun Quan was born while his father Sun Jian served as the adjutant of Xiapi County. After Sun Jian's death in the early 190s, he and his family lived at various cities on the lower Yangtze, until Sun Ce carved out a warlord regime in the Jiangdong region, based on his own followers and a number of local clan allegiances. When Sun Ce was assassinated by the retainers of Xu Gong in 200 AD, the 18-year-old Sun Quan inherited the lands southeast of the Yangtze River from his brother. His administration proved to be relatively stable in those early years as Sun Jian and Sun Ce's most senior officers, such as Zhou Yu, Zhang Zhao, Zhang Hong, and Cheng Pu supported the succession. Thus throughout the 200s, Sun Quan, under the tutelage of his able advisers, continued to build up his strength along the Yangtze River. In early 208 AD, his forces finally won complete victory over Huang Zu, a military leader under Liu Biao, who dominated the middle Yangtze. Huang Zu was killed in battle. In winter of that year, the northern warlord Cao Cao led an army of approximately 220,000 to conquer the south to complete the reunification of China. Two distinct factions emerged at Sun Quan's court on how to handle the situation. One, led by Zhang Zhao, urged surrender whilst the other, led by Zhou Yu and Lu Su, opposed capitulation. Eventually, Sun Quan decided to oppose Cao Cao in the middle Yangtze with his superior riverine forces. Allied with Liu Bei and employing the combined strategies of Zhou Yu and Huang Gai, they defeated Cao Cao decisively at the Battle of Red Cliffs. In late 220 AD, Cao Pi, King of Wei, Cao Cao's son and successor, seized the throne and proclaimed himself to be the Emperor of China, ending and succeeding the nominal rule of the Han dynasty. At first, Sun Quan nominally served as a Wei vassal with the Wei-created title of King of Wu, but after, Cao Pi demanded that he send his son Sun Deng as a hostage to the Wei capital Luoyang and he refused. In November 222 AD, he declared himself independent by changing his era name. It was not until May 229 AD that he formally declared himself emperor. After the death of his original crown prince, Sun Deng, two opposing factions supporting different potential successors slowly emerged. When Sun He succeeded Sun Deng as the new crown prince, he was supported by Lu Xun and Zhuge Ke, while his rival Sun Ba was supported by Quan Cong and Bu Zhi and their clans. Over a prolonged internal power struggle, numerous officials were executed, and Sun Quan harshly settled the conflict between the two factions by exiling Sun He and forcing Sun Ba to commit suicide. Sun Quan died in May 252 AD at the age of 70 (by East Asian reckoning). He enjoyed the longest reign among all the founders of the Three Kingdoms and was succeeded by his son, Sun Liang. The Records of the Three Kingdoms describes Sun Quan as a tall man with bright eyes and oblong face. He was known as a wise and outgoing man who was fond of making jokes and playing tricks. Because of his skill in valuing the strength of his subordinates and avoiding their shortcomings, as well as treating them like his family, Sun Quan was able to delegate authority to capable figures. This primary strength served him well in gaining the support of the common people and surrounding himself with capable generals. Sun Quan possessed great personal charisma, enabling him to command the loyalty of his subordinates.

The War of Saint Sabas was a conflict between the rival Italian maritime republics of Genoa and Venice over control of Acre, in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The Reconquista or the fall of al-Andalus was a series of military campaigns by northern Iberian Christian polities against Muslim-ruled al-Andalus, which had been part of the Visigothic Kingdom before the Muslim Conquest of 711. The Reconquista concluded in 1492 with the capture of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, thereby ending the presence of any Muslim rule on the Iberian Peninsula.

The Crown of Aragon was a composite monarchy ruled by one king, originated by the dynastic union of the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona and ended as a consequence of the War of the Spanish Succession. At the height of its power in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Crown of Aragon was a thalassocracy controlling a large portion of present-day eastern Iberian Peninsula, parts of what is now southern France, and a Mediterranean empire which included the Balearic Islands, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta, Southern Italy, and parts of Greece.

Flanders is the Dutch-speaking northern part of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, language, politics, and history, and sometimes involving neighbouring countries. The demonym associated with Flanders is Fleming, while the corresponding adjective is Flemish, which can also refer to the collective of Dutch dialects spoken in that area, or more generally the Belgian variant of Standard Dutch.

The First War of Scottish Independence was the first of a series of different wars between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland. It lasted from the English invasion of Scotland in 1296 until the de jure restoration of Scottish independence with the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton in 1328. De facto independence was established in 1314 AD following an English defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn. The wars were caused by the attempts of the English kings to seize territory by claiming sovereignty over Scotland, while the Scots fought to keep both English rule and authority out of Scotland. The First War of Scottish Independence should not be viewed in isolation from the Gascon War and Franco-Flemish War since Philip IV of France and Edward I of England sought allies in Scotland and Flanders as part of their initial conflict. John Balliol of Scotland allied himself with Philip IV of France in 1295 whilst Guy, Count of Flanders allied himself with Edward I of England.

Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England and Ireland from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry was born in Greenwich as the second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. His elder brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales, was heir apparent and married Catherine of Aragon, a Spanish princess. Arthur died in 1502, and Henry was created Prince of Wales in 1504. He acceded to the throne upon his father's death in 1509, marrying Catherine with a papal dispensation. He was described as an attractive, educated, and accomplished king during the early years of his reign. Henry grew dissatisfied with the marriage to Catherine, appealing to Pope Clement VII for an annulment. Clement refused, and Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer declared the marriage void in the eyes of the Church of England in 1533. Clement objected to Cranmer's verdict and excommunicated Henry from the Catholic Church. Henry then passed the Acts of Supremacy, establishing himself as Supreme Head of the Church of England and thereby relieving his realms from obedience to the pope. He dissolved Catholic monasteries and seized their wealth, contributing to the English Reformation. Considered one of the greatest monarchs in English history, Henry grew more tyrannical, egotistical, lustful, and paranoid by the end of his life. He is known for his six marriages, and especially his long effort to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so that he could remarry in pursuit of a male heir. He ordered the beheadings of two of his wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. In his later years, Henry was morbidly obese and immobile, with a gangrenous leg wound contracted from a jousting accident in 1536. He was also said to have suffered from diabetes, oedema, and organ failure. He was buried at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle and was succeeded by his only surviving son, Edward VI.

Dragut (Turkish: Turgut Reis; 1485 – 23 June 1565) was an Ottoman corsair, naval commander, governor, and noble. Under his command, the Ottoman Empire's maritime power was extended across North Africa. Recognized for his military genius, and as being among "the most dangerous" of corsairs, Dragut has been referred to as "the greatest pirate warrior of all time", "undoubtedly the most able of all the Turkish leaders", and "the uncrowned king of the Mediterranean". He was nicknamed "the Drawn Sword of Islam". He was described by a French admiral as "a living chart of the Mediterranean, skillful enough on land to be compared to the finest generals of the time" and that "no one was more worthy than he to bear the name of king". Hayreddin Barbarossa, who was his mentor, stated that Dragut was ahead of him "both in fishing and bravery". In addition to serving as Admiral and Corsair in the Ottoman Empire's Navy under Suleiman the Magnificent, Dragut was also appointed Bey of Algiers and Djerba, Beylerbey of the Mediterranean, as well as Bey, and subsequently Pasha, of Tripoli. While serving as Pasha of Tripoli, Dragut built up and adorned the city, making it one of the most impressive to behold along the entire North African coast.

The Action of Faial or the Battle of Faial Island was a naval engagement that took place on 22–23 June 1594 during the Anglo-Spanish War in which the large and richly laden 2,000-ton Portuguese carrack Cinco Chagas was destroyed by an English privateer fleet after a long and bitter battle off Faial Island in the Azores. The carrack, which was reputedly one of the richest ever to set sail from the Indies, was lost in an explosion which denied the English, as well as the Portuguese and Spanish, the treasure.

William Penn (24 October [O.S. 14 October] 1644 – 10 August [O.S. 30 July] 1718) was an English writer, theologian, religious thinker, and influential Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania. An advocate of democracy and religious freedom, Penn was known for his amicable relations and successful treaties with the Lenape native peoples who had resided in present-day Pennsylvania before European colonisation there. Penn was expelled from the University of Oxford in 1662 for his religious nonconformity. That early break with institutional authority became central to his life. He embraced Quakerism, defended freedom of conscience, and repeatedly challenged the established Church of England’s restrictions on religious dissent. Penn built a remarkable life outside conventional institutions, combining religious leadership, writing, political advocacy, and practical enterprise. Today, his legacy is commemorated at Christ Church, Oxford, where his portrait is displayed in the dining hall. His most important undertaking was Pennsylvania. In 1681, King Charles II granted Penn an area of land corresponding to the present-day U.S. states of Pennsylvania and Delaware to offset debts he owed to Penn’s father, the admiral and politician Sir William Penn. Penn developed the land as a territory grounded in Quaker ideals of peace and equality alongside economic opportunity and representative government. The following year, Penn left England and sailed up Delaware Bay and the Delaware River, where he founded Philadelphia on the river's western bank. Penn's Quaker government was not viewed favorably by the Dutch, Swedish and English settlers in what is now Delaware, and the land was also claimed by the Calverts, proprietors of the neighbouring Province of Maryland. In 1704, the three southernmost counties of the province of Pennsylvania were granted permission to form a new, semi-autonomous Delaware Colony. As one of the earliest supporters of colonial unification, Penn wrote and urged the union of all the British colonies into what would later become the United States. The democratic principles that he included in the West Jersey Concessions and outlined in the Pennsylvania Frame of Government inspired delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia when they came to write the Constitution of the United States. A man of deep religious conviction, Penn authored numerous works, exhorting believers to adhere to the spirit of Primitive Christianity. Penn was imprisoned several times in the Tower of London due to his faith. His book No Cross, No Crown, published in 1669 while he was in jail, has become a classic of Christian theological literature.

Acadia was a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River. Settlers primarily came from the southwestern regions of France, including Poitou-Charentes and the Aquitaine region, as well as Poitou and Anjou. The territory was inhabited by various First Nations of the Wabanaki Confederacy who referred to the region as Dawnland.

The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company, under the leadership of Robert Clive, over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757. The victory was made possible by the betrayal of Mir Jafar, Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah's commander in chief, as well as much of the Bengal Subah's armies being earlier committed against an Afghan invasion led by Ahmad Shah Durrani against the Mughal Empire. The battle helped the British East India Company take complete control of Bengal in 1773. Over the next hundred years, they continued to expand their control over vast territories in the rest of the Indian subcontinent and Burma. The battle took place at Palashi (Anglicised version: Plassey) on the banks of the Hooghly River, about 150 kilometres (93 mi) north of Calcutta (now Kolkata) and south of Murshidabad in West Bengal, then capital of Bengal State. The belligerents were the British East India Company and the Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal. He succeeded Alivardi Khan (his maternal grandfather). Siraj-ud-Daulah had become the Nawab of Bengal the year before, and he had ordered the British to stop the extension of their fortification. Robert Clive bribed Mir Jafar, the commander-in-chief of the Nawab's army, and also promised to make him Nawab of Bengal. Clive defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah at Plassey in 1757 and captured Calcutta. The battle was preceded by an attack on British-controlled Calcutta by Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah and the Black Hole massacre. The British sent reinforcements under Colonel Robert Clive and Admiral Charles Watson from Madras to Bengal and recaptured Calcutta. Clive then seized the initiative to capture the French fort of Chandannagar. Tensions and suspicions between Siraj-ud-daulah and the British culminated in the Battle of Plassey. The battle was waged during the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), and, in a mirror of their European rivalry, the French East India Company (La Compagnie des Indes Orientales) sent a small contingent to fight against the British. Siraj-ud-Daulah had a vast numerically superior force and made his stand at Plassey. The British, worried about being outnumbered, formed a conspiracy with Siraj-ud-Daulah's demoted army chief Mir Jafar, along with others such as Yar Lutuf Khan, Jagat Seths (Mahtab Chand and Swarup Chand), Umichand and Rai Durlabh. Mir Jafar, Rai Durlabh and Yar Lutuf Khan thus assembled their troops near the battlefield but made no move to actually join the battle. Siraj-ud-Daulah's army, with about 50,000 soldiers (including defectors), 40 cannons and 10 war elephants, was defeated by 3,000 soldiers of Col. Robert Clive, owing to the flight of Siraj-ud-Daulah from the battlefield and the inactivity of the conspirators. The battle ended in approximately 11 hours. This is judged to be one of the pivotal battles in the control of the Indian subcontinent by the colonial powers. The British now had a great deal of wealth and influence over the Nawab—Mir Jafar, and as a result, they were able to get important concessions for earlier losses and trade income. The British further used this revenue to increase their military might and push the other European colonial powers, such as the Dutch and the French, out of South Asia, thus expanding the British Empire.

The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a global war fought by numerous great powers, primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and the Indian subcontinent. The primary warring states were Great Britain and Prussia fighting against France and Austria, with other countries joining these coalitions: Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Russia, plus Saxony and many other minor states of the Holy Roman Empire. Related conflicts include the Third Silesian War, French and Indian War, Third Carnatic War, Anglo-Spanish War (1762–1763), and Spanish–Portuguese War.

The Battle of Landeshut was an engagement fought on 23 June 1760 during the Third Silesian War (part of the Seven Years' War). A Prussian army of 12,000 men under General Heinrich August de la Motte Fouqué fought an Austrian army of over 28,000 men under Ernst Gideon von Laudon and suffered a defeat, with its commander wounded and taken prisoner. The Prussians lost 10,242 men including 1,927 killed along with 8,315 prisoners as well as 68 guns captured. The Austrians lost 774 killed and 2,195 wounded. The Prussians fought with resolution, surrendering after running out of ammunition.

The American Revolution (1765–1789) was a political movement in the Thirteen Colonies of Great Britain. It began as a rebellion and turned into a revolution eventually creating the sovereign United States, which was the outcome of the associated American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). The Second Continental Congress, as the provisional government, established the Continental Army and appointed George Washington as its commander-in-chief in 1775. The following year, the Congress passed the Lee Resolution on July 2nd and unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4th. Throughout most of the war, the outcome appeared uncertain, but a 1781 victory by Washington and the Continental Army in the Siege of Yorktown led King George III and the Fox–North coalition in government to negotiate the cessation of colonial rule and the acknowledgment of American sovereignty, which was formalized in the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783. The Constitution took effect in 1789 and the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791.

Catherine II (born Sophie Auguste Friederike von Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 1729 – 17 November 1796), known as Catherine the Great, was Empress of Russia from 9 July 1762 until her death in 1796. Before her accession, Catherine had been a royal consort as the wife of Emperor Peter III, whom she overthrew in a coup d'état. Her reign of over 34 years saw an era of prosperity during the Enlightenment in which many new cities, universities and theatres were established; large-scale immigration from the rest of Europe occurred; and the Russian Empire was recognised as a great power of Europe. Born a German princess, Catherine married Peter, a grandson of Peter the Great, at the age of 16. Peter became Emperor of Russia in 1762, reigning for seven months before his deposition and possible assassination at the hands of Catherine. During her reign, she often maintained close alliances with noble favourites such as Count Grigory Orlov and Grigory Potemkin. She appointed and worked with several highly successful generals such as Alexander Suvorov and Pyotr Rumyantsev and admirals such as Samuel Greig and Fyodor Ushakov. She governed at a time when the Russian Empire was expanding rapidly by conquest and diplomacy. In the west, she installed her former lover to the throne of Poland, which was eventually partitioned. In the south, the Crimean Khanate was annexed following victories over the Bar Confederation and the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War. With the support of Great Britain, Russia colonised the territories of New Russia along the coasts of the Black and Azov seas. In the east, Russians became the first Europeans to colonise Alaska, establishing Russian America. Many cities and towns were founded on Catherine's orders in the newly conquered lands, most notably Yekaterinoslav, Kherson, Nikolayev, and Sevastopol. An admirer of Peter the Great, Catherine continued to modernise Russia along Western European culture. However, military conscription and the economy continued to depend on serfdom, and the increasing demands of the state and of private landowners intensified the exploitation of serf labour. This was one of the chief reasons behind rebellions, including Pugachev's Rebellion of Cossacks, nomads, peoples of the Volga, and peasants. The Manifesto on Freedom of the Nobility, issued during the short reign of Peter III and confirmed by Catherine, freed Russian nobles from compulsory military or state service. The construction of many mansions of the nobility in the classical style endorsed by the empress changed the face of the country. She is often included in the ranks of the enlightened despots. Catherine presided over the age of the Russian Enlightenment and established the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens, the first state-financed higher education institution for women in Europe.

John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor; July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848) was a German-born American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor. Astor made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by exporting opium into the Chinese Empire, and by investing in real estate in or around New York City during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was the first prominent member of the Astor family and the first multi-millionaire in the United States. Born in Germany, Astor immigrated to England as a teenager and worked as a musical instrument manufacturer. He moved to the United States after the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). Seeing the expansion of population to the west, Astor entered the fur trade and built a monopoly, managing a business empire that extended to the Great Lakes region and north into British North America (future Dominion of Canada). It later expanded into the Western United States and the American frontier West and extended to the far West Coast and Pacific Ocean. Following a decline in demand due to changing European styles and tastes in beaver fur mens' hats and clothing tastes, he got out of the fur trade in 1830, diversifying by investing in New York City real estate. Astor became one of the wealthiest men in the United States and became a prominent patron of the arts. At the time of his death, Astor's estate was estimated to be $20 to $30 million, roughly equivalent to $744 million to $1.12 billion in 2025. In proportion to the GDP, he was one of the richest people in modern history, with 0.9% to 1.35% of the US GDP at his time of death. This was previously popularised by Nathaniel P. Tallmadge remarking "one in every 100 dollars in this country ends up in J Astor's hands" during Tallmadge's 1839–1840 campaign for the U.S. Senate.

The War of 1812 was a conflict initiated by the United States against the United Kingdom and its allies fought mainly in North America and at sea during the wider Napoleonic Wars. The United States declared war on Britain on 18 June 1812. Although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, the war did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on 17 February 1815. The United States objected to British restrictions on American trade with Napoleonic France and to the Royal Navy's impressment of seamen from American vessels, including men the United States considered American citizens. Opinion in the US was split on how to respond, and although majorities in both the House and Senate voted for war in June 1812, they were divided along strict party lines, with the Democratic-Republican Party in favour and the Federalist Party against. News of British concessions made in an attempt to avoid war did not reach the US until late July, by which time the conflict was already underway. Britain, engaged in a global war against France, defended its maritime system as necessary to the defeat of Napoleon and treated many impressed sailors as British subjects. Tensions were also intensified by British relations with Indigenous confederacies resisting American expansion in the Old Northwest. British war aims were initially limited and defensive: to protect Canada (then British North America), maintain maritime rights, and avoid diverting major resources from the war in Europe. The United States, by contrast, launched repeated invasions of Upper and Lower Canada, all of which failed. At sea, the Royal Navy imposed an increasingly effective blockade of the American coast, while American privateers and naval victories inflicted localised, limited damage on British commerce and prestige. After Napoleon's abdication in April 1814, Britain reinforced North America and expanded operations against the United States, including the capture and burning of Washington in August 1814. American victories at Baltimore and Plattsburgh in September helped end major fighting in the northern theatre. In the southeast, American forces and allied Indigenous groups defeated the Red Stick faction of the Muscogee, while Andrew Jackson's army repulsed a British attack on New Orleans in January 1815, after the Treaty of Ghent had already been signed but before news of peace reached the region. The Treaty of Ghent restored the pre-war territorial status quo and did not settle the maritime issues that had contributed to the war. Impressment largely ceased after 1815 because the end of the Napoleonic Wars removed Britain's wartime manpower emergency, but Britain did not formally renounce its wider maritime claims in the treaty. Later Anglo-American disputes over the stopping, visiting, searching, and seizure of American vessels continued in narrower contexts, especially anti-slave-trade enforcement, and rare American allegations of post-war impressment appeared in diplomatic correspondence in the 1820s.

The United States Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower body, the U.S. House of Representatives, and an upper body, the U.S. Senate. They both meet in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans. Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven slave states in the South responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy seized US forts and other federal assets in the South. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after the war began and, led by its president, Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy comprised eleven states, containing a third of the US population. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued. During 1861–1862 in the western theater, the Union made permanent gains, though in the eastern theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, applying to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederacy's river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River, while Confederate general Robert E. Lee's incursion north failed at the Battle of Gettysburg. General Ulysses S. Grant's western successes led Lincoln to promote him to command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, followed by his March to the Sea, which culminated in his taking Savannah. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House, setting in motion the end of the war. Lincoln lived to see this victory but was shot by an assassin on April 14, dying the next day. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure had been destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed slaves. The war is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in the history of the United States. It remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Of continuing interest is the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The war was among the first to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the electrical telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were widely used. The war left an estimated 700,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian deaths, making it the deadliest in American history. The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming world wars.

Christopher Latham Sholes (February 14, 1819 – February 17, 1890) was an American inventor, newspaper publisher, politician, and Wisconsin pioneer. He was the inventor of the QWERTY keyboard, and—along with Samuel W. Soule, Carlos Glidden, and John Pratt—has been described as one of the inventors of the first typewriter in the United States. In his time, he went by the names C. Latham Sholes, Latham Sholes, or C. L. Sholes, but never "Christopher Sholes" or "Christopher L. Sholes". He was one of the earliest American settlers in what is now Kenosha County, Wisconsin; he represented Kenosha County for four years in the Wisconsin Senate (1848, 1849, 1856, 1857) and for two years in the state Assembly (1852, 1853). Politically, he was originally a Democrat, but joined the Free Soil Party when it split from the Democrats over the issue of slavery, then became a Republican in the 1850s. His elder brother, Charles Sholes, was also a notable newspaper publisher, pioneer, and politician in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

The Rocky Mountains Park Act (French: Loi sur le parc des montagnes Rocheuses) was enacted on June 23, 1887, by the Parliament of Canada, establishing Banff National Park which was then known as "Rocky Mountains Park". The act was modelled on the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act passed by the United States Congress in 1872. The Rocky Mountains Park Act outlined the national park concept, balancing conservation and development interests within the park.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based in Lausanne, Switzerland. The IOC is the authority responsible for organising the Summer, Winter, and Youth Olympics. The IOC is also the governing body of the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and the worldwide Olympic Movement, which includes all entities and individuals involved in the Olympic Games. Since 2025, the IOC president has been Kirsty Coventry. As of 2026, a total of 206 countries and territories are officially recognised by the IOC and participate in the Olympics.

The Persian Cossack Brigade, also known as the Iranian Cossack Brigade, was a Cossack-style cavalry unit formed in 1879 in Iran. It was modelled after the Caucasian Cossack regiments of the Imperial Russian Army. Until 1920, it was commanded by Russian officers, while its rank and file were composed of ethnic Caucasians and later on Iranians as well. During much of the brigade's history it was the most functional and effective military unit of the Qajar dynasty. Acting on occasion as kingmakers, this force played a pivotal role in modern Iranian history during the Persian Constitutional Revolution, the rise of Reza Shah, and the foundation of the Pahlavi dynasty.

The Second Balkan War was a conflict fought between the Tsardom of Bulgaria and its former Balkan League allies, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece, who were later joined by Romania and the Ottoman Empire.

The Mexican Revolution was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from 20 November 1910 to 1 December 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It saw the destruction of the Federal Army, its replacement by a revolutionary army, and the transformation of Mexican culture and government. The northern Constitutionalist faction prevailed on the battlefield and drafted the present-day Constitution of Mexico, which aimed to create a strong central government. Revolutionary generals held power from 1920 to 1940. The revolutionary conflict was primarily a civil war, but foreign powers, having important economic and strategic interests in Mexico, figured in the outcome of Mexico's power struggles; the U.S. involvement was particularly high. The conflict led to the deaths of around one million people, mostly non-combatants.

The Estonian War of Independence, also known as the Estonian Liberation War, and War of Freedom in Estonia, was a defensive campaign of the Estonian Army and its allies, most notably the United Kingdom and Finland, against the Soviet Russian westward offensive of 1918–1919 and the 1919 aggression of the pro–German Baltische Landeswehr. The campaign was the struggle of the newly established democratic state of Estonia for independence in the aftermath of World War I. It resulted in a victory for Estonia and was concluded in the 1920 Treaty of Tartu.

The Shameen Incident or the Shameen Attack occurred on June 23, 1925, and is also commonly referred to by the Chinese side as the Shaji Massacre. It was an armed conflict that took place in Canton City. During the incident, British and French soldiers opened fire on a demonstration march along Shaji Road, resulting in severe civilian casualties on the Chinese side. There were significant discrepancies — and even outright contradictions — between the accounts given by the Guangzhou Revolutionary Government and those of the British and French concession authorities regarding the responsibility for and details of the conflict. The incident also triggered corresponding diplomatic disputes.

The College Board, styled as CollegeBoard, is an American not-for-profit organization. It was formed in December 1899 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) to expand access to higher education. While the College Board is not an association of colleges, it runs a membership association of institutions, including over 6,000 schools, colleges, universities, and other educational organizations.

Wiley Hardeman Post was an American aviator during the interwar period and the first pilot to fly solo around the world. Known for his work in high-altitude flying, he helped develop one of the first pressure suits and discovered the jet stream. On August 15, 1935, he and American humorist Will Rogers were killed when his aircraft crashed on takeoff from a lagoon near Point Barrow in the Territory of Alaska.

Henry Asbjørn Larsen was a Norwegian-Canadian Arctic explorer. Larsen was born on a small island, Herføl, south of Fredrikstad in Norway. Like his hero, Roald Amundsen, he became a seaman. Larsen immigrated to Canada, and became a British subject in 1927. In 1928, he joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

In the evening of June 23, 1944, a powerful F4 tornado devastated northern West Virginia, particularly the town of Shinnston. The tornado killed at least 100 people and injured hundreds more.

The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, and the U.S. House of Representatives is the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the Constitution to make and pass or defeat federal legislation.

SS United States is a retired American ocean liner that was built during 1950 and 1951 for United States Lines. She is the largest ocean liner to be entirely constructed in the United States and the fastest ocean liner to cross the Atlantic Ocean in either direction, earning the Blue Riband for the highest average speed since her maiden voyage in 1952, a title that remains uncontested.

The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. The Manhattan Project employed nearly 130,000 people at its peak and cost nearly US$2 billion.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food safety, tobacco products, caffeine products, dietary supplements, prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceutical drugs (medications), vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, blood transfusions, medical devices, electromagnetic radiation emitting devices (ERED), cosmetics, animal foods & feed, and veterinary products.

The Antarctic Treaty and related agreements, collectively known as the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), regulate international relations with respect to Antarctica, Earth's only continent without a native human population. It was the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War, designating the continent as a scientific preserve, establishing freedom of scientific investigation, and banning military activity; for the purposes of the treaty system, Antarctica is defined as all the land and ice shelves south of 60°S latitude. Since September 2004, the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, which implements the treaty system, is headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, embargoes, and sports diplomacy.

The Tragedy of Gate 12 was a fatal human stampede that occurred on June 23, 1968, at the River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Over 70 people, all of them Boca Juniors fans with an average age of 19, were crushed to death, and more than 200 others were injured as they attempted to leave the stadium following a match between River Plate and their arch-rivals Boca Juniors. The official death toll was 71, although some witnesses suggested the number was closer to 200. This event is considered the worst disaster in Argentine sports history.

Warren Earl Burger was an American attorney who served as the 15th chief justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986.

The Watergate scandal, or simply Watergate, was a political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon. On June 17, 1972, operatives associated with Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign were caught burglarizing and planting listening devices in the Democratic National Committee headquarters at Washington, D.C.'s Watergate complex. Nixon's efforts to conceal his administration's involvement led to an impeachment process and ultimately to his resignation in August 1974.

Title IX is a landmark federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government. This is Public Law No. 92‑318, 86 Stat. 235, codified at 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681–1688.

Kingston upon Hull, or simply Hull, is a port city and unitary authority area in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, 25 miles (40 km) inland from the North Sea. It is a tightly bounded city which excludes the majority of its suburbs; with a population of 275,401 (2024), it is the fourth-largest city in the Yorkshire and the Humber region. The built-up area has a population of 436,300.

The 1985 Narita International Airport bombing was the attempted terrorist bombing of Air India Flight 301, which took place on June 23, 1985. A bomb hidden in a suitcase transiting through Narita International Airport, then known as New Tokyo International Airport, exploded at 06:19 in a baggage handling room, killing two baggage handlers and injuring another four. The bomb exploded prematurely while the plane was still grounded. The attack at Narita was part of an attempted double-bombing orchestrated by Talwinder Singh Parmar, a Canadian national, and the Khalistani terrorist organization, Babbar Khalsa. The bombs were made by Inderjit Singh Reyat.

Sonic the Hedgehog is a 1991 platform game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the Sega Genesis. It was released in North America and PAL regions in June and in Japan the following month. The player controls Sonic, a hedgehog who can run at supersonic speeds. The story follows Sonic as he aims to foil the mad scientist Doctor Robotnik's plans to seek the powerful Chaos Emeralds. The gameplay involves collecting rings as a form of health, and a simple control scheme, with jumping and attacking controlled by a single button.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the United States' civil space program, as well as research in aeronautics and space. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., NASA operates ten field centers across the US and is organized into three mission directorates: Human Spaceflight, Research and Technology, and Science. Established in 1958 amid the Space Race, NASA succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the US space program a distinct civilian orientation focused on peaceful applications. Since then, it has led most American spaceflight programs, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the Apollo program, Skylab, the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station (ISS), and the ongoing multinational Artemis program.

The 2001 southern Peru earthquake occurred at 20:33:15 UTC on June 23 with a moment magnitude of 8.4 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). The quake affected the Peruvian regions of Arequipa, Moquegua and Tacna. It was the most devastating earthquake in Peru since the catastrophic 1970 Ancash earthquake and globally the largest earthquake since the 1965 Rat Islands earthquake.

Reddit is a proprietary American social news website, news aggregator, forum and social media platform. Registered users submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images, and videos, which are then voted up or down by other members. Posts are organized by subject into user-created boards called "subreddits". Submissions with more upvotes appear towards the top of their subreddit and, if they receive enough upvotes, ultimately on the site's front page. Reddit administrators moderate the communities. Moderation is also conducted by subreddit-specific moderators, who are unpaid volunteers. It is operated by Reddit, Inc., based in San Francisco.

Ashton James Eaton is a retired American decathlete and two-time Olympic champion, who previously held the world record in the decathlon and indoor heptathlon event. Eaton was the second decathlete to break the 9,000-point barrier in the decathlon, with 9,039 points, a score he bettered on August 29, 2015, when he beat his own world record with a score of 9,045 points, and remains the only person to exceed 9,000 points twice. His world record was broken on September 16, 2018, by Frenchman Kevin Mayer, who became the third man to pass the 9,000-point barrier, with a total of 9,126 points.

Nikolas Wallenda is an American acrobat, aerialist, daredevil, high wire artist, and author. He is known for his high-wire performances without a safety net. He holds 11 Guinness World Records for various acrobatic feats, and is best known as the first person to walk a tightrope stretched directly over Niagara Falls. Wallenda walked 1,800 feet (550 m) on a steel cable over Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua, his longest walk, on March 4, 2020.

Nanga Parbat, known in Shina as Diamer, is the ninth-highest mountain on Earth with its summit at 8,126 m (26,660 ft) above sea level. Lying immediately southeast of the northernmost bend of the Indus River in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Nanga Parbat is the westernmost major peak of the Himalayas, and thus in the traditional view of the Himalayas as bounded by the Indus and Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra rivers, it is the western anchor of the entire mountain range.

Syria's chemical weapons program began in the 1970s with weapons and training from Egypt and the Soviet Union, with production of chemical weapons in Syria beginning in the mid-1980s. Syria's chemical weapons program was one of the largest in the Middle East. For some time, Syria was believed to have the world's third-largest stockpile of chemical weapons, after the United States and Russia. Prior to September 2013 Syria had not publicly admitted to possessing chemical weapons, although Western intelligence services believed it to hold one of the world's largest stockpiles. In September 2013, French intelligence put the Syrian stockpile at 1,000 tonnes, including Yperite, VX and "several hundred tonnes of sarin". At the time, Syria was one of a handful of states which had not ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. In September 2013, Syria joined the CWC, and agreed to the destruction of its weapons, to be supervised by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), as required by the convention. A joint OPCW-United Nations mission was established to oversee the destruction process. Syria joined OPCW after international condemnation of the August 2013 Ghouta chemical attack, for which Western states held the Syrian government responsible and agreed to the prompt destruction of its chemical weapons.

Brexit was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU).

In June 2018, a junior football team became trapped in Tham Luang Nang Non, a cave system in Chiang Rai province, northern Thailand. Twelve members of the team, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old assistant coach entered the cave on 23 June after a practice session. Shortly after they entered, heavy rainfall began and partially flooded the cave system, blocking their way out and trapping them deep within.