On This Day in History: July 23

The Council of Basel is formally convened on July 23,1431 by papal legate Cardinal Cesarini, acting on behalf of Pope Martin V, who had called the council shortly before his death in February 1431. Expand +

The Siege of New Amsterdam ends when the Dutch surrender to the English, who then rename the settlement New York.

The Act of Union to merge Upper Canada and Lower Canada into a single entity, called the Province of Canada, was passed by the British Parliament on July 23, 1840, with the effective date of February 10, 1841.  Expand +

The Egyptian army led by by Mohamed Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser launched a revolution toppling King Farouk in a coup d'état by the Free Officers Movement and, changing Egypt from a monarchy to a republic. The Revolution ushered in a wave of revolutionary politics in the Arab World, and contributed to the escalation of decolonization and the development of Third World solidarity during the Cold War. More

President de Gaulle proposes at a news conference in the Salle des Fetes of the Elysee Palace, that the United States, the Soviet Union, Communist China and France agree to get out and stay out of the Indochinese peninsula as a means of ending the fighting in Laos and South Vietnam.  Expand +

The start of the 1967 Detroit Riots, also known as the Detroit Rebellion or the 12th Street Riot They were a series of violent confrontations between African American residents and law enforcement that lasted from July 23 to July 28. Sparked by a police raid on an unlicensed bar it resulted in 43 deaths, over 1,100 injuries, and widespread property damage. It was the largest civil disturbance in 20th-century America. The riots were the culmination of years of racial injustice, police brutality, poor housing, lack of jobs, and poverty among Detroit's African American population. The riots had a lasting impact on Detroit, exacerbating racial tensions and contributing to urban decline. More

Movie actor Vic Morrow and two child actors, Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen, are killed in a tragic accident on the set of "Twilight Zone: The Movie" The accident occurred when a helicopter crashed on the set during filming of the "Time Out" segment due to rotor failure believed to be caused by film pyrotechnics. Legal battles and set procedure reviews following the accident led to safety reforms in the film industry, and had a lasting impact on the filmmakers involved. More

Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp separately discover the Comet Hale–Bopp. The comet becomes visible to the naked eye a year later and stays visible for a record 18 months, due to its massive nucleus size. This is twice as long as the Great Comet of 1811, the previous record holder. Accordingly, Hale–Bopp was dubbed the great comet of 1997. Sadly, 39 people who were part of the "Heaven's Gate" cult in San Diego committed mass suicide as the comet came close to Earth. More