Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/March 23

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This is a list of selected March 23 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.

Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.

To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.

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Tsar Paul I of Russia
Tsar Alexander I of Russia
Adolf Hitler c. 1933
Gemini 3 insignia
Lee Teng-hui

Lee Teng-hui
Patrick Henry
William McGregor
Bhagat Singh
Eleftherios Venizelos
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
Mir space station

Ineligible

Blurb	Reason
; Day of Hungarian–Polish Friendship in Hungary and Poland	refimprove section
Pakistan Day (1956)	multiple issues
1801 – Tsar Alexander I acceded to the Russian throne after his father Paul I was murdered in his bedroom at Saint Michael's Castle.	Alexander: lots of CN tags (29); Paul: lots of CN tags (9) esp in one section, plus many other paragraphs without citations
1848 – Scottish settlers on the John Wickliffe, captained by William Cargill, arrived at present-day Port Chalmers in Otago, New Zealand.	tagged
1868 – Governor of California Henry Huntly Haight signed a law establishing the University of California, today a public university system that is considered a model for public institutions across the United States.	refimprove section
1879 – Fighting in the War of the Pacific between Chile and a Peruvian–Bolivian alliance opened with the Battle of Topáter.	undue weight, original research refimprove section
1933 – The Enabling Act was passed, essentially giving German Chancellor Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers by granting him and the Cabinet the authority to enact laws without the participation of the Reichstag.	refimprove section
1940 – Pakistan Movement: During its three-day general session, the Muslim League drafted the Lahore Resolution, calling for greater autonomy in British India.	refimprove section
1965 – NASA launched Gemini 3, the first American two-person space flight.	refimprove
1978 – The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon was dispatched to confirm Israeli withdrawal after its invasion nine days earlier.	unreferenced section
1983 – The initial proposal to develop the Strategic Defense Initiative, a ground-based and space-based system to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles, was released.	refimprove section
1994 – Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta was assassinated during a meeting on his presidential campaign in Tijuana.	multiple issues
2001 – The Russian space agency deorbited the space station Mir, causing it to reenter the Earth's atmosphere and break up over the Pacific Ocean.	refimprove
2005 – A fire and explosion at the third-largest oil refinery in the United States killed 15 workers and kicked off process safety programs throughout the world.	refimprove section
2006 – The remaining three Christian Peacemaker Teams hostages were rescued from their Iraqi captors by a multinational force.	refimprove
Zhou Chi \|d\|851	Wikisource page that was source for death date has been deleted
Emmy Noether \|b\|1882	refimprove section

Eligible

1775 – American Revolution: Patrick Henry made his "Give me liberty, or give me death!" speech to the House of Burgesses of Virginia, urging military action against the British Empire.
1888 – Chaired by William McGregor, a meeting of ten English football clubs was held in London, which would eventually result in the establishment of the Football League.
1889 – Mirza Ghulam Ahmad founded the Ahmadiyya Islamic religious movement in British India.
1905 – About 1,500 Cretans, led by Eleftherios Venizelos, met at the village of Theriso to call for the island's unification with Greece, beginning the Theriso revolt.
1908 – American diplomat Durham Stevens, an employee of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was fatally shot in San Francisco by two Korean immigrants unhappy with his support of increased Japanese presence in Korea.
1931 – Bhagat Singh, one of the most influential revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement, and two others were executed by the British authorities.
1933 – The Nazi Party took the first step in the Gleichschaltung process by having the Enabling Act passed, giving the government the right to make laws without the involvement of the Reichstag.
1977 – British journalist David Frost began a series of interviews with former U.S. president Richard Nixon, starting with the Watergate scandal.
1989 – Two researchers announced the discovery of cold fusion, a claim which was later discredited.
1991 – The Sierra Leone Civil War began with the invasion of the Revolutionary United Front, with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia, in an attempt to overthrow President Joseph Saidu Momoh.
1994 – Aeroflot Flight 593 crashed into a hillside in Russia's Kemerovo Oblast, killing all 75 people on board, after the pilot's 16-year-old son had unknowingly disabled the autopilot while seated at the controls.
1996 – Lee Teng-hui (pictured) was elected President of the Republic of China in the first direct presidential election in Taiwan.
2007 – The Iranian military arrested 15 Royal Navy personnel, claiming that they had entered Iran's territorial waters.
Born/died this day: |Henry of Grosmont |d|1361|Mary of Jesus de León y Delgado |b|1643| Pierre-Simon Laplace |b|1749| Nathaniel Reed |b|1862|Juan Gris |b|1887| Akira Kurosawa |b|1910| Hovhannes Tumanyan |d|1923| Moses Malone |b|1955| Said Nursî |d|1960| Beatrice Tinsley |d|1981| Kangana Ranaut |b|1986|Ben Hollioake |d|2002

Notes

1978 South Lebanon conflict appears on March 14, so UNIFL should not appear in the same year
Lakeview Gusher appears on March 14, so Texas City should not appear in the same year

March 23: First day of Ramadan (Islam, 2023)

Kowloon Walled City

1400 – After 175 years of rule, the Trần dynasty of Vietnam was deposed by Hồ Quý Ly, a court official.
1839 – An earthquake struck central Burma, causing significant damage and killing an estimated 300 to 400 people.
1862 – American Civil War: General Stonewall Jackson of the Confederate States Army lost the First Battle of Kernstown, but was still able to prevent the Union Army from reinforcing the Peninsula campaign.
1919 – Benito Mussolini and his supporters founded the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, the predecessor of the National Fascist Party.
1993 – The demolition of Kowloon Walled City (pictured), a densely crowded slum in Hong Kong, began.

Jahanara Begum (b. 1614)
Calouste Gulbenkian (b. 1869)
Mo Farah (b. 1983)

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