August 23, 1859: The world’s first hotel elevator is installed in the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York

634: In Medina, Omar is named caliph after Abu Bakr’s death. He expands the Islamic empire beyond the borders of the Arab region and conquers Jerusalem, Mesopotamia, Egypt and parts of the Persian Empire.
1244: The Mamluk army conquers Jerusalem. This means that the city, which was won through negotiations with Emperor Friedrich II of Hohenstaufen in 1229, has finally been lost to the Christians.
1514: The troops of the Turkish Sultan Selim I defeated the army of the Persian Safavid ruler Shah Ismail I.
1774: Goethe’s tragedy “Clavigo” first appears in Hamburg.
1859: The world’s first hotel elevator has been installed in the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York.
1909: An uprising by Albanian nationalists in Kosovo is crushed by the Turkish army.
1914: Japan declares war on Germany so that they can annex the German possessions in China (Tsingtau and Kiautschou).
1914: German troops take Luneville in Lorraine.
1919: The one on August 7. Archduke Joseph, who was appointed Imperial Administrator in Hungary, has resigned from the Entente.
1924: Radio Zurich starts broadcasting.
1939: A German-Soviet non-aggression pact and a secret agreement on the division of Poland and East Central Europe into zones of interest (Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact or “Hitler-Stalin Pact”) are signed in Moscow. This gave Hitler a free hand for the planned invasion of Poland.
1944: King Michael I of Romania orders an end to hostilities against the Soviet Union and the fascist dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu is arrested.
1944: The former Mayor of Cologne and later the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer, is arrested by the Nazi authorities and taken to the Köln-Deutz camp.
1979: The City of Vienna UN, “Vienna International Center” (VIC), is owned by UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim. It was built in 1973 according to the plans of the architect Johann Staber to accommodate 3,500 civil servants. This makes Vienna the third headquarters of the United Nations after New York and Geneva.
1979: ORF launches its English channel “Blue Danube Radio”.
1979: Solo dancer Alexander Godunov of the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet breaks away from his troupe in the US and seeks political asylum.
1984: The long-time ruler of the Communist Party of Mongolia, Jumjaagiin Tsedenbal, has been suspended. His successor as head of state and party will be Prime Minister Jambyn Batmönch.
1984: A bomb attack outside Tehran’s main train station leaves 18 dead and more than 300 injured.
1989: With a huge human chain, hundreds of thousands in the three Baltic Soviet republics are celebrating the independence that was lost 50 years ago as a result of the Hitler-Stalin pact.
1999: Almost a week after the devastating earthquake in Turkey, a four-year-old child was rescued alive.

Birthday: Louis XVI Bourbon, King of France (1754-1793); George Baron de Cuvier, French naturalist, founder of paleontology (1769-1832); Moritz Moszkowsky, German writer (1854-1925); Eleftherios Venizelos, Greek statesman (1864-1936); Ephraim Kishon (aka Ferenc Hoffmann), Israel. writer (1924-2005); Robert Merton Solow, US economist (1924-2023); Vera Miles (born V. June Ralston), US actress (1929); Gregor Woschnagg, Eastern Diplomat (1939); Shelley Long, US actress (1949); Rick Springfield (born Springthorpe), Australian-US rock singer (1949); Edwyn Collins, British pop singer and songwriter (1959); Konstantin Novoselov, Russian physicist; Nobel Prize in 2010 (1974).
Dates of Death: Abu Bakr, the first caliph after Mohammed (about 573-634); Simon Louis Du Ry, French builder (1726-1799); Heinrich Berté, Hungarian writer (1857-1924); Viktor Kaplan, Eastern engineer and inventor (1876-1934); Hans Hoff, Eastern Psychologist and neurologist (1897-1969); Paolo Volponi, Italian writer and politician (1924-1994); Egon Zimmermann, East. alpine skier (1939-2019); Florian Flicker, Eastern Writer and director (1965-2014).
Name days: Rosa, Philipp, Widmar, Zachäus, Richard, Justinian.