Today in History: 830.000 People Died in the Shensi Earthquake with the Highest Death Toll in History

January 23 is the 23nd day of the year according to the Gregorian calendar. The number of days left until the end of the year is 342.

Railways

• 23 In January 1857 the Ottoman state signed a contract with the British parliamentary Labro for the construction of Rumelia railways.

Commercial purpose was prioritized by small companies in the Balkans and the rich regions of the Aegean, usually by British companies. On the other hand, the Ottoman state considered military and political purposes as well as commercial purposes. An attempt to build the “Rumeli railways” that will connect Istanbul with the Balkans and Europe was an indication of this.

The idea that the railways will provide the opportunity to send troops as soon as possible in the rebellion and wars that will take place in the lands of the Ottoman Empire in Europe directed Istanbul over the Balkans over Edirne to the construction of a railway that will connect with Europe.

For the construction of the Romanian railways, Labro was granted on 23 January 1857, Charles Liddell, Lewis Dunbar, Brodie Gordo, Thomas Page on March 13, 1860, and Belgian Van Der Elts brothers on 31 March 1868. These three privileges were canceled due to failure to fulfill the signed contract terms.

Events

• 1556 – The Shensi Earthquake with the highest death toll in history occurred in Shaanxi province, China: about 830.000 people died.
• 1719 - The Principality of Liechtenstein is created within the Holy Roman Empire.
• 1793 - Russia and Prussia partition Poland.
• 1849 - Elizabeth Blackwell becomes the first woman to earn a medical degree.
• 1870 - In Montana, the United States military kills 173 Indians, mostly women and children.
• 1913 – Bâb-ı Âli Raid: Kamil Pasha Government was overthrown by the members of the Committee of Union and Progress. With the coup known as the Bâb-ı Âli Raid, the Grand Vizier was resigned and Mahmut Şevket Pasha was replaced.
• 1922 – Two streets in Istanbul were named Pierre Loti and Klodfarer.
• 1925 – The Government of Chile is overthrown in a military coup.
• 1932 - Staff magazine was started to be published by Şevket Süreyya Aydemir and his friends.
• 1941 – The XNUMXst Turkish Cartoon Exhibition was opened in Istanbul.
• 1957 – The Turkish Grand National Assembly accepted the establishment of the Middle East Technical University in Ankara.
• 1959 – The lawsuit against the founders of the Vatan Party started. Hikmet Kıvılcımlı and 47 people were accused of making communist propaganda. The prosecutor demanded prison sentences of 5 to 15 years for the defendants.
• 1960 – Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard and American naval lieutenant Don Walsh set a new submarine record by descending into the Challenger trench (depth: 10.915 m) in the Trieste batiskapi.
• 1961 – Pheasant Osman, who became famous for fraud, was caught gambling in Zeytinburnu.
• 1968 – The United States Pueblo intelligence ship is captured in North Korea. The crew was arrested on charges of espionage.
• 1971 – Pensioners occupied the Pension Fund building in Ankara.
• 1972 – Istanbul Martial Law Command imposed a curfew and carried out Operation Storm-1. 84.855 buildings and 268.810 flats were searched by 510.000 soldiers.
• 1973 – The decades-long war in Vietnam ends with a peace agreement signed in Paris between representatives of the United States, North Vietnam, and the Vietcong. The agreement stipulated the withdrawal of all US troops from Vietnam and the self-determination of the people of South Vietnam.
• 1974 - Israeli troops begin to withdraw from the west of the Suez Canal.
• 1975 – Vatan Engineering and Architecture High School was raided by fascists. A student named Kerim Yaman was killed.
• 1977 – The mini-TV series “Roots” based on the novel by Alex Haley was released in the United States.
• 1978 – Turkey 1st Coal Congress was held in Zonguldak.
• 1983 – The 12th execution of the September 29 Coup: Ali Aktaş (Ağtaş), a left-wing militant who shot a gun in front of the house in order to bring out a right-winger who was sleeping with his wife and children on the night of 9 June 1980, and shot and killed the person he was waiting for when he went out. was done.
• 1983 – 12th execution of the September 30 Coup: Duran Bircan, who killed his mother and his nephew, whom he coveted, was executed.
• 1986 – “Video and Cinema Works Law” was accepted in the Turkish Grand National Assembly. Live; re-regulates the rights to reproduce, distribute and disseminate video, cinema and musical works.
• 1989 – An earthquake occurred in Tajikistan; Over 1000 people died.
• 1990 - The Red Army leaves Hungary after 41 years.
• 1990 - from the parliament magazine was launched.
• 1994 – President Süleyman Demirel said, “We must be prepared for the phenomenon of the Kurdish State”.
• 1995 - Mail ve Yeni Şafak newspapers began their publication life.
• 1997 - Madeleine Albright becomes the United States' first female Secretary of State.
• 2005 – Viktor Yushchenko took office as President of Ukraine.
• 2006 – Kartal Chief Public Prosecutor's Office prepared a new deadline for Mehmet Ali Ağca and decided to release him on January 18, 2010.
• 2006 – At least 15 people were killed and 48 injured when a passenger train derailed near the village of Bioce, 198 kilometers northeast of the Capital Podgorica, in Serbia-Montenegro.
• 2006 – As a result of the accident that occurred on the Istanbul Road in Ankara, 8 personnel of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs lost their lives.
• 2007 – Hrant Dink was buried in Istanbul. Opened at the funeral We are all Hrant ve We are all Armenians printed banners caused controversy.
• 2007 – The direction of Bolu Mountain Tunnel, whose construction started 16 years ago and cost approximately 1 billion dollars, was opened by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.
• 2008 – Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis made a historic visit to Turkey. Karamanlis, the first Greek Prime Minister to visit Turkey after 49 years, said that the main goal is to fully harmonize Turkish-Greek relations.
• 2008 – Prof. Dr. Ayşe Işıl Karakaş was elected as Turkey's new judge at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
• 2012 – The French Senate accepted the bill that criminalizes the denial of Armenian allegations regarding the events in the 1915 Armenian Genocide.

Births

• 1688 – Ulrika Eleonora, queen of Sweden (d. 1741)
• 1729 – Clara Reeve, English novelist (d. 1807)
• 1729 – Pierre Darcourt, Belgian first long-lived person before 1955 (d. 1837)
• 1737 – John Hancock, American merchant, statesman (d. 1793)
• 1752 – Muzio Clementi, Italian composer (d. 1832)
• 1783 – Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle), French man of letters (famous for his novels The Red and the Black and the Parma Abbey) (d. 1842)
• 1794 – Eduard Friedrich Eversmann, German biologist and explorer (d. 1860)
• 1814 – Alexander Cunningham, English archaeologist and army engineer (d. 1893)
• 1828 – Saigō Takamori, Japanese samurai, soldier, and politician (d. 1877)
• 1830 – Ivan Lariоnоv, Russian composer and folklorist (d. 1889)
• 1832 – Édouard Manet, French painter (one of the pioneers of the transition from realism to impressionism) (d. 1883)
• 1840 – Ernst Abbe, German physicist and industrialist (d. 1905)
• 1852 – Edmond Demolins, French social historian (d. 1907)
• 1855 – John Moses Browning, American gun designer (d. 1926)
• 1862 – David Hilbert, German mathematician (d. 1943)
• 1872 – Paul Langevin, French physicist (d. 1946)
• 1876 ​​– Otto Diels, German chemist and Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry (d. 1954)
• 1878 – Rutland Boughton, British opera and western classical composer, conductor, and music festival organizer (d. 1960)
• 1884 – Hermann Nunberg, Polish psychiatrist (d. 1970)
• 1897 – Subhas Chandra Bose, Indian politician (d. 1945)
• 1898 – Randolph Scott, American actor and director (d. 1987)
• 1898 – Sergei Eisenstein, Russian film director (d. 1948)
• 1907 – Hideki Yukawa, Japanese physicist and Nobel Prize laureate in Physics (d. 1981)
• 1910 – Django Reinhardt, Belgian jazz guitarist and composer (d. 1953)
• 1920 – Gottfried Böhm, German architect
• 1921 – Berna Moran, Turkish writer (d. 1993)
• 1929 – İhsan Yüce, Turkish theater and cinema artist (d. 1991)
• 1933 – Gülten Akın, Turkish poet and writer (d. 2015)
• 1934 – Jeanette Bonnier, Swedish journalist, author, and media executive (d. 2016)
• 1935 – Mike Agostini, track and field athlete from Trinidad and Tobago (d. 2016)
• 1940 – Dinç Bilgin, Turkish journalist, businessman and media magnate
• 1940 – Musa Arafat, Palestinian statesman (d. 2005)
• 1942 – Süha Arın, Turkish academic and documentary director (d. 2004)
• 1943 – Özhan Canaydın, Turkish basketball player, businessman and President of Galatasaray (d. 2010)
• 1944 – Rutger Hauer, Dutch actor (d. 2019)
• 1948 - Anita Pointer, American singer
• 1957 – Caroline, princess of Monaco
• 1967 – Naim Süleymanoğlu, Turkish weightlifter (d. 2017)
• 1967 – Hafiz Süleymanoğlu, Turkish weightlifter
• 1975 – Marcio Santos, Brazilian football player
• 1977 – Tuna Beklevic, Turkish politician
• 1984 – Arjen Robben, Dutch football player
• 1985 - Doutzen Kroes, Dutch supermodel
• 1988 – Esin Iris, Turkish singer, songwriter, composer and performer
• 1990 – Sener Ozbayraklı, Turkish football player
• 1996 – Kemal Ademi, German football player
• 1998 – XXXTentacion, American rapper, singer, songwriter

Deaths

• 1002 – III. Otto, Holy Roman emperor (b. 980)
• 1622 – William Baffin, English navigator (b. 1584)
• 1744 – Giambattista Vico, Italian philosopher and historian (b. 1668)
• 1803 – Arthur Guinness, Irish businessman (b. 1725)
• 1805 – Claude Chappe, French scientist (b. 1763)
• 1806 – William Pitt, youngest prime minister in British history (b. 1759)
• 1875 – Charles Kingsley, English writer (b. 1819)
• 1883 – Gustave Doré, French master of print and engraving (b. 1832)
• 1889 – Alexandre Cabanel, French painter (b. 1823)
• 1903 – Niko Dadiani I, last prince of Megrelia (b. 1847)
• 1905 – Seven Eight Hasan Pasha, Ottoman Pasha (b. 1831)
• 1913 – Nâzım Pasha, Ottoman Minister of War (b. 1848)
• 1924 – Ali Emiri, Turkish researcher and biographer (b. 1857)
• 1931 – Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina (b. 1881)
• 1939 – Matthias Sindelar, Austrian football player (b. 1903)
• 1944 – Edvard Munch, Norwegian expressionist painter (Scream (b. 1863), known for his painting
• 1945 – Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, German lawyer (b. 1907)
• 1945 – Mehmet Rifat Arkun, Turkish politician (b. 1872)
• 1946 – Helene Schjerfbeck, Finnish painter (b. 1862)
• 1956 – Alexander Korda, Hungarian-English director and producer (b. 1893)
• 1962 – Natalya Sedova, second wife of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky (b. 1882)
• 1963 – Baki Vandemir, Turkish soldier (b. 1890)
• 1973 – Kid Ory, American Jazz trombonist and bandleader (b. 1886)
• 1976 – Paul Robeson, American actor, singer, and black rights activist (b. 1898)
• 1986 – Mehmet Kaplan, Turkish literary historian (b. 1915)
• 1986 – Nihat Akyunak, Turkish painter (b. 1922)
• 1989 – Salvador Dali, Spanish surrealist painter (b. 1904)
• 1991 – Ole Peder Arvesen, Norwegian engineer and mathematician (b. 1895)
• 2002 – Pierre-Felix Bourdieu, French sociologist (b. 1930)
• 2002 – Robert Nozick, American philosopher (b. 1938)
• 2005 – Johnny Carson, American comedian and broadcaster (b. 1925)
• 2013 – Savaş Akova, Turkish cinema and theater actor (b. 1948)
• 2015 – Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, King of Saudi Arabia (b. 1924)
• 2018 – Ezra Swerdlow, American film producer (b. 1954)
• 2019 – Ayşen Gruda, Turkish theater, TV series and film actress (b. 1944)
• 2019 – Jonas Mekas, Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist (b. 1922)
• 2019 – Norman Orentreich, American dermatologist and cosmetologist (b. 1922)