This day in history – November 23

• 800 Charlemagne arrives in Rome to investigate the alleged crimes of Pope Leo III.

• 1584 English parliament expels Jesuits.

• 1644 Areopagitica, a pamphlet by John Milton, decrying censorship, is published.

• 1654 French mathematician, scientist, and religious philosopher Blaise Pascal experiences an intense, mystical vision that marks him for life.

• 1835 Henry Burden patents Horseshoe manufacturing machine (Troy NY).

• 1863 Patent granted for a process of making colour photographs.

• 1868 Louis Ducos du Hauron patents trichrome colour photo process.

• 1869 In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper Cutty Sark is launched – one of the last clippers ever built, and the only one still surviving.

• 1897 Andrew J Beard invents “jerry coupler” to connect railroad cars.

• 1897 Pencil sharpener patented by J L Love.

• 1906 Joseph Smith, leader of the Mormon Church, convicted of polygamy.

• 1909 Wright Brothers forms million dollar corp to manufacture airplanes.

• 1913 Jim Larkin and James Connolly establish the Irish Citizens Army in order to protect strikers.

• 1937 John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice & Men” premieres in NYC.

• 1948 Dr Frank G Back (NYC) patents lens to provide zoom effects

• 1963 JFK’s body lay in repose in East Room of White House.

• 1964 Beatles release “I Feel Fine” & “She’s a Woman”.

• 1973 Arab summit conference adopts open and secret resolutions on the use of the oil weapons; embargo extended to Portugal, Rhodesia, and South Africa.

• 1974 60 Ethiopia government officials executed.

• 1979 Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” released, sells six million copies in two weeks.

• 1980 4,800 die in series of earthquakes that devastated southern Italy.

• 1985 58 die as Egyptian commandos storm hijack Egyptair jet in Malta

• 1991 Freddie Mercury, 45, confirms he has AIDS the day before he dies.

• 1992 10 000 000 cellular telephone sold.

• 1996 The Republic of Angola officially joins the World Trade Organization.

• 2004 World of Warcraft, multiplayer online role-playing video game released, world’s most subscribed game.

• 2005 Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, is elected president of Liberia, the first woman to lead an African country.

• 2007 MS Explorer, a cruise liner carrying 154 people, sank in the Antarctic Ocean south of Argentina after hitting an iceberg near the South Shetland Islands.

• 2012 JR Tokai unveil a maglev LO train prototype capable of travelling up to 500km per hour.

• 2014 A suicide bomber kills 40 people at a volleyball tournament in eastern Afghanistan.

• 2014 An adviser to the Kenyan president says the slaughter of 28 people on a bus by the Somali militant Islamist group al-Shabab is intended to create a religious war in the country.

• 2014 A magnitude 6.7 earthquake strikes central Japan.

• 2015 President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia bans female genital mutilation.

Source: www.onthisday.com