On This Day - What happened 23 July

Japanese troops occupy Seoul, capture Gojong, and establish a new, pro-Japanese government, which terminates all Sino-Korean treaties and grants the Imperial Japanese Army the right to expel the Qing Empire's Beiyang Army from Korea.

On 23 July 1894, Canadian Prime Minister John Thompson and his government made Labor Day, to be held in September, an official holiday. In the United States, the New York parade became an annual event that year, and in 1894 was adopted by American president Grover Cleveland to compete with International Workers' Day (May Day).

In 1900, Du Bois attended the First Pan-African Conference, held in London from July 23 to 25.

On 23 July, Austria-Hungary delivered to Serbia the July Ultimatum, a series of ten demands that were made intentionally unacceptable, in an effort to provoke a war with Serbia.

On 21–22 July, Hódmezővásárhely changed hands several times between Hungarian and Romanian troops of the 90th Infantry Regiment supported by the 1st Vânători Brigade. On 23 July, Romanian forces reoccupied Hódmezővásárhely, Szentes and Mindszent.

On 23 July, Hungarian forces took Túrkeve and Mezőtúr.

it was decided to hold a central meeting, which began in Shanghai on July 23, 1921. The first session of the National Congress of the Communist Party of China was attended by 13 delegates, Mao included.After the authorities sent a police spy to the congress, the delegates moved to a boat on South Lake near Jiaxing, in Zhejiang, to escape detection.

The Communist Party of China was founded by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao in the French concession of Shanghai in 1921 as a study society and informal network. Mao set up a Changsha branch, also establishing a branch of the Socialist Youth Corps.

Goebbels was appointed on 23 July as Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War, charged with maximizing the manpower for the Wehrmacht and the armaments industry at the expense of sectors of the economy not critical to the war effort.

Marshal Pétain died in 1951, but he did not know it. De Gaulle was later known to remark that "Marshal Pétain was a great man.

On 23 July 1962, fourteen nations, including China, South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, North Vietnam and the United States, signed an agreement promising to respect the neutrality of Laos.

Qaboos acceded to the throne on 23 July 1970 following a successful coup against his father, with the aim of ending the country's isolation and using its oil revenue for modernization and development. He declared that the country would no longer be known as Muscat and Oman, but would change its name to "the Sultanate of Oman" in order to better reflect its political unity.

The political system which Qaboos established is that of an absolute monarchy. The Sultan's birthday, 18 November, is celebrated as Oman's national holiday. The first day of his reign, 23 July, is celebrated as Renaissance Day.

He stars as the leading character in The World According to Garp (1982), which Williams considered "may have lacked a certain madness onscreen, but it had a great core".

During Operation Dawn-2, the Iranians directed insurgency operations by proxy in April 1983 by supporting the Kurds in the north. With Kurdish support, the Iranians attacked on 23 July 1983, capturing the Iraqi town of Haj Omran and maintaining it against an Iraqi poison gas counteroffensive. This operation incited Iraq to later conduct indiscriminate chemical attacks against the Kurds.

On 23 July 1997, Milošević assumed the presidency of the Federation (The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), though it had been understood he had held the real power for some time before then.

On July 23, 1997, Jewell sued the New York Post for $15 million in damages, contending that the paper portrayed him in articles, photographs and an editorial cartoon as an "aberrant" person with a "bizarre employment history" who was probably guilty of the bombing.

The Chandra X-ray Observatory, launched on July 23, 1999, has been allowing the exploration of the very violent processes in the universe which produce X-rays. Unlike visible light, which gives a relatively stable view of the universe, the X-ray universe is unstable. It features stars being torn apart by black holes, galactic collisions, and novae, and neutron stars that build up layers of plasma that then explode into space.

The Rock successfully defended the championship against Chris Benoit, on July 23, at Fully Loaded.

May was appointed the first female Chairman of the Conservative Party in July 2002.

After Inter teammate Maxwell completed his transfer to Barcelona, Barça president Joan Laporta confirmed that there was an agreement in principle between Barcelona and Inter for Ibrahimović to join the club in exchange for striker Samuel Eto'o, plus a reported fee of £59 million. Ibrahimović left Inter during their United States summer tour in the World Football Challenge on 23 July 2009 for negotiations with Barcelona.

On July 23, at Raw 1000, The Rock announced he would wrestle for the WWE Championship at the Royal Rumble pay-per-view. During the show, he encountered then-reigning WWE Champion CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, and John Cena, all of whom expressed a desire to face him. The Rock later saved Cena from an assault by Big Show, only to be laid out by CM Punk.

A series of wildfires in Greece, during the 2018 European heat wave, began in the coastal areas of Attica in July 2018. As of May 2019, 102 people were confirmed dead. The fires were the second-deadliest wildfire event in the 21st century, after the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Australia that killed 180.

The stunning success of the March forced the government into making concessions and meeting with student representatives. On 29 April, State Council spokesman Yuan Mu met with appointed representatives of government-sanctioned student associations. While the talks discussed a wide range of issues, including the Xinhua Gate incident and freedom of the press, they achieved few substantive results. Independent student leaders such as Wuer Kaixi refused to attend.

The Battle of the Metaurus was a pivotal battle in the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage, fought in 207 BC near the Metauro River in Italy.