Today in History: Japanese war leaders are executed

Today is Saturday, Dec. 23, the 357th day of 2023. There are eight days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Dec. 23, 1948, former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese war leaders were executed in Tokyo.

On this date:

In 1783, George Washington resigned as commander in chief of the Continental Army and retired to his home at Mount Vernon, Virginia.

In 1788, Maryland passed an act to cede an area “not exceeding ten miles square” for the seat of the national government; about twothirds of the area became the District of Columbia.

In 1823, the poem “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” was published in the Troy (New York) Sentinel; the verse, more popularly known as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” was later attributed to Clement C. Moore.

In 1913, the Federal Reserve System was created as President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act.

In 1941, during World War II, American forces on Wake Island surrendered to the Japanese.

In 1954, the first successful human kidney transplant took place at the Peter Bent

Brigham Hospital in Boston as a surgical team removed a kidney from 23-yearold Ronald Herrick and implanted it in Herrick’s twin brother, Richard.

In 1968, 82 crew members of the U.S. intelligence ship Pueblo were released by North Korea, 11 months after they had been captured.

In 1972, a 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck Nicaragua; the disaster claimed some 5,000 lives.

In 1986, the experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first non-stop, non-refueled round-the-world flight as it returned safely to Edwards Air Force Base in California.