January 23, 2017

450 years ago
1567

Died on this date
Jiajing, 59. Emperor of China, 1521-1567. Jiajing, born Zhu Houcong, succeeded his cousin Zhengde, and was the 11th Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. He was succeeded by his son Longqing.

110 years ago
1907

Born on this date
Hideki Yukawa. Japanese physicist. Dr. Yukawa, born Hideki Ogawa, was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces." He died from pneumonia and heart failure on September 8, 1981 at the age of 74.

90 years ago
1927

Football
AFL
Exhibition
New York Yankees (3-2-1) 48 Hollywood Generals (0-2) 2 @ Los Angeles

AFL-NFL
Exhibition
Los Angeles Wildcats (3-2-1) (AFL) 17 Los Angeles Buccaneers (1-1) (NFL) 0 @ San Francisco

11,000 fans at Ewing Field saw the Wildcats shut out the Buccaneers in the West Coast AFL-NFL challenge game; it was the last game the Wildcats ever played.

80 years ago
1937

World events
The trial of the anti-Soviet Trotskyist centre began in Moscow against 17 mid-level Communists accused of sympathizing with Leon Trotsky and plotting to overthrow Josef Stalin's regime.

75 years ago
1942

War
The Battle of Rabaul commenced Japan's invasion of Australia's Territory of New Guinea.

60 years ago
1957

At the movies
Istanbul, starring Errol Flynn and Cornell Borchers, opened in theatres.

Popular culture
American inventor Fred Morrison sold the rights to his flying disc to the Wham-O toy company, which renamed it the "Frisbee" five months later.

50 years ago
1967

Hit parade
#1 single in Spain (PROMUSICAE): Black is Black--Los Bravos (12th week at #1)

#1 single in Ireland (IRMA): I'm a Believer--The Monkees

Diplomacy
The U.S.S.R. and Ivory Coast established relations.

Britannica
Milton Keynes, England was founded as a new town by Order in Council, with a planning brief to become a city of 250,000 people. Its initial designated area enclosed three existing towns and 21 villages. The area to be developed was largely farmland, with evidence of continuous settlement dating back to the Bronze Age.

Boxing
Emile Griffith (52-7) retained his world middleweight title with a 15-round unanimous decision over Joey Archer (45-4) at Madison Square Garden in New York. Mr. Griffith had won a majority decision over Mr. Archer six months earlier. This was Mr. Archer's last fight.

40 years ago
1977

On television tonight
Roots, on ABC
Tonight's episode: Part I

This was the first episode of the eight-part miniseries starring LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte.

Died on this date
Toots Shor, 73. U.S. restaurateur. Bernard Shor was famous from the 1930s through the 1950s as the proprietor and host of Toots Shor's Restaurant in Manhattan, New York City, where show business, media, and sports celebrities were regular patrons. Mr. Shor sold his first building in 1959 and relocated nearby, but business declined, and Mr. Shor's sloppy bookkeeping resulted in the closure of his restaurant in 1971 for nonpayment of taxes. Mr. Shor opened another restaurant in a new location 18 months later, but business never recovered, and he died broke.

Basketball
NBA
Phoenix 98 Seattle 88

NCAA
California @ Los Angeles 70 Notre Dame 65

30 years ago
1987

Hit parade
#1 single in West Germany (Media Control): Showing Out (Get Fresh at the Weekend)--Mel and Kim (2nd week at #1)

25 years ago
1992

Hit parade
#1 single in Ireland (IRMA): Bohemian Rhapsody/These Are the Days of Our Lives--Queen (6th week at #1)

Died on this date
Freddie Bartholomew, 67. U.K.-born U.S. actor. Mr. Bartholomew was a child star who was best known for his starring roles in movies such as David Copperfield (1935); Captains Courageous (1937); and Little Lord Fauntleroy (1938). He died of heart failure after suffering from emphysema for years.

20 years ago
1997

Hit parade
#1 single in Denmark (Nielsen Music Control & IFPI): Roses are Red--Aqua (5th week at #1)

#1 single in Finland (Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland): Breathe--The Prodigy (6th week at #1)

Politics and government
Madeleine Albright took office as the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State, in the administration of President Bill Clinton.

Terrorism
A judge in Fairfax, Virgina sentenced a Pakistani man to death for an assault rifle attack outside Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in 1993 that killed two people and wounded three.

10 years ago
2007

Died on this date
E. Howard Hunt, 88. U.S. spy and author. Mr. Hunt worked with the Central Intelligence Agency from 1949-1970, and became one of President Richard Nixon's "plumbers"--a secret team of operatives charged with fixing "leaks" of confidential information to outsiders. He was involved in the bugging of the office of Dr. Lewis Fielding--the psychiatrist of former Defense Department employee Daniel Ellsberg, who had leaked the "Pentagon Papers" to The New York Times in 1971--and was most notorious for organizing the 1972 bugging of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. He served 33 months in prison on a conspiracy charge. Mr. Hunt was a prolific author, mainly of spy novels.

Ryszard Kapuściński, 74. Polish journalist. Mr. Kapuściński was known for his collections of foreign dispatches, which earned a worldwide audience. His books included The Soccer War (1978) and The Shadow of the Sun (1998). He died of a heart attack.