April 23
| 1348 | The first English order of knighthood is founded. | |
| 1500 | Pedro Cabal claims Brazil for Portugal. | |
| 1521 | The Comuneros are crushed by royalist troops in Spain. | |
| 1759 | British forces seize Basse-Terre and Guadeloupe from France. | |
| 1789 | President George Washington moves into Franklin House, New York. | |
| 1826 | Missolonghi falls to Egyptian forces. | |
| 1856 | Free Stater J.N. Mace in Westport, Kansas shoots pro-slavery sheriff Samuel Jones in the back. | |
| 1865 | Union cavalry units continue to skirmish with Confederate forces in Henderson, North Carolina and Munsford Station, Alalbama. | |
| 1895 | Russia, France, and Germany force Japan to return the Liaodong peninsula to China. | |
| 1896 | Motion pictures premiere in New York City. | |
| 1915 | The ACA becomes the National Advisory Council on Aeronautics (NACA), the forerunner of NASA. | |
| 1920 | The Turkish Grand National Assembly has first meeting in Ankara. | |
| 1924 | The U.S. Senate passes the Soldiers' Bonus Bill. | |
| 1945 | The Soviet Army fights its way into Berlin. | |
| 1950 | Chiang Kai-shek evacuates Hainan, leaving mainland China to Mao Zedong and the communists. | |
| 1954 | The Army-McCarthy hearings begin. | |
| 1966 | President Lyndon Johnson publicly appeals for more nations to come to the aid of South Vietnam. | |
| 1969 | Sirhan Sirhan is sentenced to death for killing Senator Robert Kennedy. | |
| 1971 | The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 10, becoming the first in Salyut 1 space station. | |
| Born on April 23 | ||
| 1547 | Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish author (Don Quixote). | |
| 1564 | William Shakespeare, English playwright and poet. | |
| 1791 | James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States (1857-1861). | |
| 1813 | Stephen A. Douglas, American politician. | |
| 1897 | Lucius D. Clay, U.S. military governor of occupied Berlin. | |
| 1902 | Halldór Laxness, Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic novelist (The Fish Can Sing, Paradise Reclaimed). | |
| 1926 | J.P. Donlevey, American-born Irish writer (The Ginger Man). | |
| 1926 | Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Mercury and Gemini astronaut, died in an accident on Apollo 1. | |
| 1928 | Shirley Temple Black, child actress, later U.S. ambassador. | |
| 1932 | Jim Fixx, runner and writer who popularized running as a form of exercise in the 1970s. | |
