Day in History Archive August 23

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Note: These historical tidbits have been collected from various sources, mostly on the Internet. As detailed in this article, there is a lot of wrong information that is repeated hundreds of times because most websites do not validate with authoritative sources. On RF Cafe, events with hyperlinks have been verified. All will eventually be either verified or removed.
Please submit significant historical events and dates for inclusion in these lists. I will be glad to include your name and birthday. Please do not submit your death date ;-)
 
 

August 23

1609: The telescope was first demonstrated by Galileo. 1875: William Eccles, who coined the term "diode," was born. 1806: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, after whom the unit of charge is named, died. 1899: The first ship-to-shore wireless message announced the arrival of the U.S. Army ship Sherman.  1914: The Emperor of Japan declared war on Germany. 1933: Robert Curl, after whom the vector calculus operation is not named, but who did co-discover the first Fullerene carbon cluster, was born. 1939: Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact. 1977: Bryan Allen won the Kremer Prize for the first human-powered flight by pedaling the Gossamer Condor at least a mile. 1987: In an event called the "Union of Great Minds," Robert Jarvik (inventor of the artificial heart) and Marilyn vos Savant (IQ of 228, syndicated columnist) were married. 1990: Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein appeared on state television with western hostages. 1999: The Dow Jones closed at 11,210, within 1% of where it is today in 2006. 2001: Sir Fred Hoyle, the astronomer who coined the term "Big Bang," died.