23 July

1632 – Three hundred colonists bound for New France depart from Dieppe, France.
1677 – Scanian War: Denmark–Norway captures the harbor town of Marstrand from Sweden.
1793 – Prussia re-conquers Mainz from France.
1821 – While Mora Rebellion continuing, Greeks captured Monemvasia Castle and massacred nearly 3000 Turkish inhabitants.
1829 – In the United States, William Austin Burt patents the typographer, a precursor to the typewriter.
1833 – Cornerstones are laid for the construction of the Kirtland Temple in Kirtland, Ohio.
1840 – The Province of Canada is created by the Act of Union.
1862 – American Civil War: Henry W. Halleck takes command of the Union Army.
1874 – Aires de Ornelas e Vasconcelos is appointed the Archbishop of the Portuguese colonial enclave of Goa.
1881 – The Boundary treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina is signed in Buenos Aires.
1903 – The Ford Motor Company sells its first car.
1908 – The Second Constitution accepted by the Ottomans.
1914 – Austria-Hungary issues an ultimatum to Serbia demanding Serbia to allow the Austrians to determine who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Serbia will reject those demands and Austria will declare war on July 28.
1926 – Fox Film buys the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound onto film.
1927 – The first station of the Indian Broadcasting Company goes on the air in Bombay.
1929 – The Fascist government in Italy bans the use of foreign words.
1936 – In Catalonia, Spain, the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia is founded through the merger of Socialist and Communist parties.
1940 – The United States' Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles issues a declaration on the U.S. non-recognition policy of the Soviet annexation and incorporation of three Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
1942 – The Holocaust: the Treblinka extermination camp is opened.
1942 – World War II: The German offensives Operation Edelweiss and Operation Braunschweig begin.
1942 – Bulgarian poet and Communist leader Nikola Vaptsarov is executed by firing squad.
1945 – The post-war legal processes against Philippe Pétain begin.
1952 – The European Coal and Steel community is established.
1952 – General Muhammad Naguib leads the Free Officers Movement (formed by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the real power behind the coup) in overthrowing King Farouk of Egypt.
1961 – The Sandinista National Liberation Front is founded in Nicaragua.
1962 – Telstar relays the first publicly transmitted, live trans-Atlantic television program, featuring Walter Cronkite.
1962 – The International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos is signed.
1967 – 12th Street Riot: in Detroit, Michigan, one of the worst riots in United States history begins on 12th Street in the predominantly African American inner city. It will leave 43 killed, 342 injured and 1,400 buildings burned.
1968 – Glenville Shootout: in Cleveland, Ohio, a violent shootout between a Black Militant organization led by Ahmed Evans and the Cleveland Police Department occurs. During the shootout, a riot begins and lasts for five days.
1968 – The only successful hijacking of an El Al aircraft takes place when a Boeing 707 carrying 10 crew and 38 passengers is taken over by three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The aircraft was en route from Rome, Italy, to Lod, Israel.
1970 – Qaboos ibn Sa’id becomes Sultan of Oman after overthrowing his father, Sa’id ibn Taimur initiating massive reforms ;modernisation programs and end to a decade long civil war.
1972 – The United States launch Landsat 1, the first Earth-resources satellite.
1974 – The Greek military junta collapses, and former Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis is invited to lead the new government.
1982 – The International Whaling Commission decides to end commercial whaling by 1985-86.
1983 – The Sri Lankan Civil War begins with the killing of 13 Sri Lanka Army soldiers by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Terrorist group. In the subsequent riots of Black July, about 1,000 Tamils are slaughtered, some 400,000 Tamils flee to neighbouring Tamil Nadu, India and many find refuge in Europe and Canada.
1983 – Gimli Glider: Air Canada Flight 143 runs out of fuel and makes a deadstick landing at Gimli, Manitoba.
1984 – Vanessa Williams becomes the first Miss America to resign when she surrenders her crown after nude photos of her appeared in Penthouse magazine.
1986 – In London, Prince Andrew, Duke of York marries Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey.
1988 – General Ne Win, effective ruler of Burma since 1962, resigns after pro-democracy protests.
1992 – A Vatican commission, led by Joseph Ratzinger, establishes that it is necessary to limit rights of homosexual people and non-married couples.
1992 – Abkhazia declares independence from Georgia.
1995 – Comet Hale-Bopp is discovered; it will become visible to the naked eye nearly a year later.
1997 – Digital Equipment Company files antitrust charges against chipmaker Intel.
1999 – Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Al-Hassan is crowned King Mohammed VI of Morocco on the death of his father.
1999 – ANA Flight 61 is hijacked in Tokyo, Japan by Yuji Nishizawa.
2005 – Three bombs explode in the Naama Bay area of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, killing 88 people.

Holidays and observances

Birthday of Haile Selassie (Rastafari movement)
Christian Feast Day:
Bridget of Sweden
Heiromartyr Phocas (Eastern Orthodox)
Liborius of Le Mans
July 23 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Neptunalia, in honor of Neptune. (Roman Empire)
Renaissance Day (Oman)
Revolution Day (Egypt)