Today in History....January 23

On this day in …

1556, an earthquake in Shaanxi, China, with a magnitude of approximately 8.0 to 8.3, kills an estimated 830,000 people. The disaster is considered the deadliest of all time
1845, Congress decided all national elections would be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November

1922, at Toronto General Hospital, 14-year-old Canadian Leonard Thompson becomes the first person to receive an insulin injection as treatment for diabetes. The diabetic teenager improved dramatically, and the University of Toronto immediately gave pharmaceutical companies license to produce insulin, free of royalties. By 1923, insulin had become widely available, saving countless lives around the world, and Banting and Macleod were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine

1941, Charles A. Lindbergh, a national hero since his nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic, testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Lend-Lease policy-and suggests that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Hitler, ym"sh

1950, the Israeli Knesset approved a resolution proclaiming Jerusalem the capital of Israel

1957, machines at the Wham-O toy company roll out the first batch of their aerodynamic plastic discs--now known to millions of fans all over the world as Frisbees

1964, the 24th amendment to the Constitution, eliminating the poll tax in federal elections, was ratified

1968, North Korea seized the U.S. Navy ship Pueblo, charging its crew with being on a spying mission. (The crew was released 11 months later.)

1973, President Nixon announced an accord had been reached to end the Vietnam War

2002,


Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was abducted in Karachi, Pakistan, by a group of practitioners of that "religion of peace" demanding the return of prisoners from the Afghan campaign; he was later beheaded


John Walker Lindh, a U.S.-born Taliban fighter, was returned to the United States to face criminal charges that he'd conspired to kill fellow Americans