January 23rd in History

Michael Dobson | January 23

Walter Frederick Morrison, inventor of the “Pluto Platter,” later renamed the Frisbee

Today in History

  • The Ming Dynasty takes power in China with the ascension of Zhu Yuanzhang (1368)
  • The deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi Earthquake, kills over 800,000 people (1556)
  • The first female physician in the US, Elizabeth Blackwell, is awarded her M.D. (1849)
  • The Battle of Rorke’s Drift ends (1879)
  • Inventor Walter Morrison sells the rights to his “Pluto Platter” flying disk to the Wham-O toy company. They rename it the “Frisbee” (1957)
  • US President Richard Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in the Vietnam War (1973)
  • The first members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are inducted (1986)

Birthdays

  • John Hancock, US founding father (1737)
  • Stendhal, novelist (1783)
  • Édouard Manet, painter (1832)
  • John Browning, weapons designer (1855)
  • Subhas Chandra Bose, Indian activist (1897)
  • Randolph Scott, actor (1898)
  • Django Reinhardt, jazz guitarist (1910)
  • Ernie Kovacs, comedian and actor (1919)
  • Walter Frederick Morrison, inventor of the Frisbee (1920)
  • Walter M. Miller, Jr., author (1923)
  • Chita Rivera, actress and dancer (1933)
  • Rutger Hauer, actor (1944)
  • Anita Pointer, singer, member of the Pointer Sisters (1948)
  • Richard Dean Anderson, actor (1950)
  • Chesley Sullenberger, airline pilot who safely landed his crippled plane on the Hudson River (1951)
  • Mariska Hargitay, actress (1964)
  • Tiffani Thiessen, actress (1974)

Deaths

  • Arthur Guinness, brewer (1803)
  • Gustave Doré, illustrator (1883)
  • Anna Pavlova, ballerina (1931)
  • Alexander Woollcott, actor and playwright (1943)
  • Edvard Munch, painter (1944)
  • Kid Roy, trombonist (1973)
  • Paul Robeson, actor (1976)
  • Toots Shor, restauranteur (1977)
  • Salvador Dali, painter (1989)
  • Nell Carter, actress and singer (2003)
  • Bob Keeshan, played “Captain Kangaroo” (2004
  • Helmut Newton, photographer (2004)
  • Johnny Carson, talk show host (2005)
  • E. Howard Hunt, CIA officer and Watergate “plumber” (2007)
  • Jack LaLanne, fitness instructor and bodybuilder (2011)
  • Ernie Banks, baseball player (2015)
  • Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, monarch (2015)

Holidays and Celebrations

  • Bounty Day (Pitcairn Islands)
  • Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s Jayanti (parts of East India)
  • World Freedom Day (Taiwan and South Korea)

January 23 is the 23rd day of the year. There are 342 days (343 in leap years) remaining until the end of the year.