October 23 in History
1707 — The First Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain convenes after the merger of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland. 1812 — General Claude François de Malet begins a failed republican coup attempt, claiming that Napoleon had died on October 7 in the disastrous Russian campaign. Malet, 58, and 20 other civilians and officers are executed by firing squad on the plain of Grenelle in Paris on October 31. 1906 — Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont flies an aircraft at the Bagatelle Gamefield in Paris in the first heavier-than-air flight officially witnessed by an aeronautics recordkeeping body.
1911 — Italo-Turkish War: An Italian pilot, Capitano Carlo Piazza, flies over Turkish lines on the world’s first aerial reconnaissance mission.
1940 — Pelé, Brazilian football legend, is born Edson Arantes do Nascimento in Três Corações, Minas Gerais. First playing for Brazil at age 16, his international career ends in 1971 with 77 goals in 92 games. He is the only player to win three
World Cups (1958, 1962 and 1970). On June 29 1958, he becomes the youngest player to play in a World Cup final at 17 years and 249 days, scoring twice as Brazil beat Sweden 5-2 in Sweden.
1942 — World War 2: Allied forces commence the Second Battle of El Alamein, which ends in victory over the Axis forces on November 11.
1955 — The people of the Saar region vote to unite with West Germany instead of France.
1956 — Hungarian secret police shoot several anti-communist protesters in Budapest, igniting the Hungarian Revolution. The USSR represses the revolution on November 4. Fighting ends on November 10, with 2,500-3,000 Hungarians killed and 200,000 compelled to seek political refuge abroad. 1989 — The Hungarian Republic officially replaces the Hungarian People’s Republic, a one-party socialist state since August 20 1949 1970 — American Gary Gabelich sets a landspeed record of (average) 1,014.656km/h on the Bonneville Salt Flats in his rocket-powered “Blue Flame”, fuelled with a highly explosive mixture of fluid natural gas and hydrogen peroxide.
2001 — Apple Computer releases the iPod.
2002 — Forty Chechen militants take 912 hostages at the Dubrovka Theatre where the musical “Nord-Ost” is showing. They demand the withdrawal of Russian forces (invaders since
1994) and the end of the Second Chechen War. On October 26, security services pump sleeping gas into the hall and kill all the attackers. In total, 131 hostages die, most from the effects of the gas.