On This Day - What happened 23 January

Otto died young in 1002, and was succeeded by his cousin Henry II, who focused on Germany.

In 1516, Ferdinand II of Aragon, grandfather of the future Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, died.

On January 23, 1849, Blackwell became the first woman to achieve a medical degree in the United States.

The Battle of Spion Kop was fought about 38 km (24 mi) west-south-west of Ladysmith on the hilltop of Spioenkop along the Tugela River, Natal in South Africa from 23–24 January 1900. It was fought between the South African Republic and the Orange Free State on the one hand and British forces during the Second Boer War campaign to relieve Ladysmith. It resulted in a Boer victory. The battle, collectively with its location at a hill, has gone down in British football lore as the namesake of a common British term for single-tier terraces and/or stands at football stadia.

In 1905, Stravinsky was engaged to his cousin Katherine Gavrylivna Nosenko (called "Katya"), whom he had known since early childhood. In spite of the Orthodox Church's opposition to marriage between first cousins, the couple married on 23 January 1906.

The Battle of Rabaul, also known by the Japanese as Operation R, was fought on the island of New Britain in the Australian Territory of New Guinea, on 23 January and February 1942. It was a strategically significant defeat of Allied forces by Japan.

In 1944, Planck's son Erwin was arrested by the Gestapo following the attempted assassination of Hitler in the 20 July plot. He was tried and sentenced to death by the People's Court in October 1944. Erwin was hanged at Berlin's Plötzensee Prison in January 1945. The death of his son destroyed much of Planck's will to live.

On 23 January, Turing's house was burgled. Murray told Turing that he and the burglar were acquainted, and Turing reported the crime to the police. During the investigation, he acknowledged a sexual relationship with Murray. Homosexual acts were criminal offences in the United Kingdom at that time, and both men were charged with "gross indecency" under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885.

In January 1966, after Shastri's death, the Congress legislative party elected Indira Gandhi over Morarji Desai as their leader. Congress party veteran K. Kamaraj was instrumental in achieving Indira's victory. Because she was a woman, other political leaders in India saw Gandhi as weak and hoped to use her as a puppet once elected.

Shah of Iran announces that the 1954 operating agreement between a consortium of oil companies and Iran will not be renewed when it expires in 1979. The consortium was formed in 1954 as a means to settle a dispute between a new ministry in Iran and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC). The consortium included Standard Oil of New Jersey, Standard Oil of California, SOCONY-Vacuum, the Texas Company, Gulf, Royal Dutch-Shell, the Compagnie Francaise de Petroles, and the AIOC.

Following the riots, a general strike on 23–24 January called for the end of the Somoza regime and was, according to the U.S. State Department staff at the U.S. Embassy, successful at shutting down around 80% of businesses in not only Managua but also the provincial capitals of León, Granada, Chinandega, and Matagalpa.

On the morning of 23 January 1989, while his favorite record of Tristan and Isolde played, Dalí died of heart failure at the age of 84.

On 23 January 1996, Sun Microsystems released the first public implementation as Java 1.0, which promised Write Once, Run Anywhere (WORA) functionality, providing no-cost run-times on popular platforms.

At Royal Rumble, on January 23, 2000, The Rock entered the Royal Rumble match and was one of the final two remaining, along with Big Show; In an attempt at a "false finish", Big Show intended to throw The Rock over the top rope in a running powerslam-like position, before The Rock countered the move on the ring apron, sending Big Show to the floor before re-entering the ring as the winner.

Fields previewed Ford Motor Company's restructuring plan, named The Way Forward, at the December 7, 2005, board meeting of the company and it was unveiled to the public on January 23, 2006.

On 23 January 2013, under pressure from many of his MPs and from the rise of UKIP, Cameron announced in his Bloomberg speech that a Conservative government would hold an in-or-out referendum on EU membership before the end of 2017, on a renegotiated package, if elected in the 7 May 2015 general election.

On 23 January 2014, Chelsea announced that a deal had been agreed with Basel to bring Salah to London for a fee reported to be in the region of £11 million. Three days later the transfer was completed, making him the first Egyptian to sign for the Stamford Bridge club.

Uber launches its first product in East Africa, in Nairobi, Kenya.

OnePlus made its products available in Southeast Asia for the first time, partnering with Lazada Indonesia on 23 January 2015 and was expected to expand during that year throughout the region.

On January 23, 2019, Maduro announced that Venezuela was breaking ties with the United States following Trump's announcement of recognizing Juan Guaidó, the Venezuelan opposition leader, as the interim president of Venezuela.

The withdrawal agreement received the backing of the constitutional committee in the European Parliament on 23 January, setting expectation that the entire parliament would approved it in a later vote.

On 23 January 2020, a quarantine on travel in and out of Wuhan was imposed in an effort to stop the spread of the virus out of Wuhan. Flights, trains, public buses, the metro system, and long-distance coaches were suspended indefinitely. Large-scale gatherings and group tours were also suspended.

On 23 January 2020, the number of reported confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV has increased by 267 cases since the last situation report published on 22 January 2020. As of 23 January, China reported cases in 25 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities). Twenty-five percent of confirmed cases reported by China have been classified by Chinese health authorities as seriously ill (from Wubei Province: (16% severely ill, 5% critically ill, and 4% having died).

John Landen was an English mathematician who was born in England in 1719.