1 Mordad 1394 | Thursday 23 July 2015

This day in four calendars

1900 (126 years ago) Pressed by expanding immigration, Canada closes its doors to paupers and criminals.
1940 (86 years ago) The United States' Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles issues a declaration on the U.S. non-recognition policy of the Soviet annexation and incorporation of three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
1942 (84 years ago) Bulgarian poet and communist activist Nikola Vaptsarov is executed by firing squad.
1968 (58 years ago) The only successful hijacking of an El Al aircraft takes place when a Boeing 707 carrying ten crew and 38 passengers is taken over by three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The aircraft was en route from Rome, Italy to Lod, Israel.
1980 (46 years ago) Phạm Tuân becomes the first Vietnamese citizen and the first Asian in space when he flies aboard the Soyuz 37 mission as an Intercosmos Research Cosmonaut.
1988 (38 years ago) General Ne Win, effective ruler of Burma since 1962, resigns after pro-democracy protests.
1992 (34 years ago) Abkhazia declares independence from Georgia.
2012 (14 years ago) The Solar storm of 2012 was an unusually large coronal mass ejection that was emitted by the Sun which barely missed the Earth by nine days. If it hit, it would have caused up to US$2.6 trillion in damages to electrical equipment worldwide.

1649 (377 years ago) Pope Clement XI,
1888 (138 years ago) Raymond Chandler, American crime novelist and screenwriter (died 1959)
1892 (134 years ago) Haile Selassie, Ethiopian emperor (died 1975)
1941 (85 years ago) Sergio Mattarella, Italian lawyer, judge, and politician, 12th President of Italy
1953 (73 years ago) Najib Razak, Malaysian politician, 6th Prime Minister of Malaysia
1961 (65 years ago) Woody Harrelson, American actor and activist
1967 (59 years ago) Philip Seymour Hoffman, American actor, director, and producer (died 2014)
1989 (37 years ago) Daniel Radcliffe, English actor

1645 (381 years ago) Michael I, Russian tsar (born 1596)
1885 (141 years ago) Ulysses S. Grant, American general and politician, 18th President of the United States (born 1822)
1916 (110 years ago) William Ramsay, Scottish chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1852)
1948 (78 years ago) D. W. Griffith, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1875)
1951 (75 years ago) Philippe Pétain, French general and politician, 119th Prime Minister of France (born 1856)
1999 (27 years ago) Hassan II of Morocco,
2011 (15 years ago) Amy Winehouse, English singer-songwriter (born 1983)
2012 (14 years ago) Sally Ride, American physicist and astronaut (born 1951)