Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 23
December 23: Festivus; The Emperor's Birthday in Japan.
- 1620 – Construction of the Plymouth Colony, an English colonial venture in what is today Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA, began two days after the first landing party arrived at the site.
- 1823 – A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, was first published (1912 book cover pictured). The poem was later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore.
- 1888 – During a bout of mental illness, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh stalked his friend French painter Paul Gauguin with a razor, and then afterwards infamously cut off the lower part of his own left ear and gave it to a prostitute.
- 1947 – The transistor, invented by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley, was first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.
- 1986 – Piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, Voyager became the first aircraft to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, landing in California's Edwards Air Force Base after a nine-day trip.
More anniversaries: