December 23 is the 357th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are eight days remaining until the end of the year.
484 – Huneric dies and is succeeded by his nephew Gunthamund, who becomes king of the Vandals. During his reign Christians are protected from persecution.
558 – Chlothar I is crowned King of the Franks.
562 – Hagia Sophia in Constantinople reopened with a rebuilt dome after a series of earthquakes caused the original to collapse.
583 – Maya queen Yohl Ik'nal is crowned ruler of Palenque.
679 – King Dagobert II is murdered while hunting.
962 – Arab–Byzantine wars: Under the future Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Byzantine troops storm the city of Aleppo.
1572 – Theologian Johann Sylvan is executed in Heidelberg for his heretical Antitrinitarian beliefs.
1688 – As part of the Glorious Revolution, King James II of England flees from England to Paris, France after being deposed in favor of his nephew, William of Orange and his daughter Mary.
1783 – George Washington resigns as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland.
1793 – The Battle of Savenay: A decisive defeat of the royalist counter-revolutionaries in War in the Vendée during the French Revolution.
1815 – The novel Emma by Jane Austen is first published.
1876 – First day of the Constantinople Conference which resulted in agreement for political reforms in the Balkans.
1893 – The opera Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck is first performed.
1913 – The Federal Reserve Act is signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve System.
1914 – World War I: Australian and New Zealand troops arrive in Cairo, Egypt.
1916 – World War I: Battle of Magdhaba: Allied forces defeat Turkish forces in the Sinai Peninsula.
1919 – Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 becomes law in the United Kingdom.
1936 – Colombia becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
1941 – World War II: After 15 days of fighting, the Imperial Japanese Army occupies Wake Island.
1947 – The transistor is first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.
1948 – Seven Japanese military and political leaders convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East are executed by Allied occupation authorities at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo, Japan.
1954 – First successful kidney transplant is performed by J. Hartwell Harrison and Joseph Murray.
1968 – The 82 sailors from the USS Pueblo are released after eleven months of internment in North Korea.
1970 – The North Tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York, New York is topped out at 1,368 feet (417 m), making it the tallest building in the world.
1970 – The Democratic Republic of the Congo officially becomes a one-party state.
1972 – A 6.5 magnitude earthquake strikes the Nicaraguan capital of Managua killing more than 10,000.
1972 – The 16 survivors of the Andes flight disaster are rescued after 73 days, having reportedly survived by cannibalism.
1979 – Soviet–Afghan War: Soviet Union forces occupy Kabul, the Afghan capital.
1986 – Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world without aerial or ground refueling.
1990 – History of Slovenia: In a referendum, 88.5% of Slovenia's overall electorate vote for independence from Yugoslavia.
2002 – A U.S. MQ-1 Predator is shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25 in the first combat engagement between a drone and conventional aircraft.
2003 – PetroChina Chuandongbei natural gas field explosion, Guoqiao, Kai County, Chongqing, China, killing at least 234.
2007 – An agreement is made for the Kingdom of Nepal to be abolished and the country to become a federal republic with the Prime Minister becoming head of state.
2015 – A bomb explodes at Istanbul's Sabiha Gökçen Airport, killing one airport cleaner. The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks claim responsibility for the attack four days later.
2016 – The United Nations Security Council adopts Resolution 2334 condemning "Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories occupied since 1967".
