| 23 August 634 | Arab Caliphate [births and deaths] | Abu Bakr, companion of the prophet Muhammad and first caliph 632–34, who brought central Arabia under Muslim control, and began Arab expansion into Persia and Syria, dies. |
| 23 August 1244 | Syria, Egypt, Ayyubid Sultanate, Palestine [Crusades (1095–1272)] | Jerusalem is captured and sacked by Khwarizmian exiles employed by the sultan Ayyub of Egypt in his war against Damascus, Syria; the Christians are expelled, this time for good. |
| 23 August 1268 | Italy, Sicily, Holy Roman Empire [wars] | Conrad V (Conradin) of the German royal house of Hohenstaufen invades Italy to recover his father, Conrad IV's, kingdom of Sicily. He is defeated by Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily, at Tagliacozzo, northern Italy. |
| 23 August 1305 | Scotland, England [crime and punishment] | The Scottish nationalist William Wallace, leader of the first resistance movement to free Scotland from English rule, is executed in London, England, as a traitor against King Edward I of England, after having been betrayed and captured in Glasgow, Scotland (c. 35). He is tried in Westminster Hall, London, and promptly hung, drawn, and quartered. His head is displayed on London Bridge in London. |
| 23 August 1436 | Bohemia, Holy Roman Empire [political events] | The Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund enters Prague, Bohemia, having been fully recognized as king of Bohemia following his recognition of the 1433 Compacts of Prague. |
| 23 August 1754 | France [births and deaths] | Louis XVI, King of France 1774–93, born in Versailles, France (–1793). |
| 23 August 1806 | France [births and deaths] | Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, French physicist who formulated Coulomb's law which relates the forces of electrical charges to the distance between them, dies in Paris, France (69). |
| 23 August 1864 | Crete [births and deaths] | Eleutherios Venizelos, Greek politician, prime minister of Greece 1910–15, 1917, 1924, and 1928–30, born in Mourniés, Crete (–1936). |
| 23 August 1866 | Prussia, Austrian Empire, Hanover, Germany [treaties] | The Peace of Prague between Prussia and Austria confirms the preliminary Peace of Nikolsburg (26 July) whereby Austria is to be excluded from Germany, while the German states of Hanover, Hesse, Nassau, and Frankfurt are to be incorporated with Prussia, the south German states are to be independent, but the states north of the River Main are to form a confederation under Prussia, which also obtains Austrian Silesia and territory from Saxony and from the south German states. |
| 23 August 1906 | Cuba, USA [revolution] | A liberal revolt begins in Cuba, protesting against the fraudulent activities of President Tomás Palma's government. President Palma requests US intervention and mediators US war secretary, William Howard Taft, and Robert Bacon arrive on 25 September; Taft commands the Cuban government for 13 days. |
| 23 August 1914 | Japan, Germany [World War I (1914–18)] | Japan declares war on Germany. |
| 23 August 1927 | Egypt [political events] | Following the death of the prime minister Saad Zaghlul, Nahas Pasha becomes the leader of the Wafd nationalist party in Egypt. |
| 23 August 1939 | USSR, Germany, Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania [treaties] | The USSR and Germany sign a nonaggression agreement. Secret protocols provide for the partition of Poland and for the USSR to operate freely in the Baltic states, Finland, and the Romanian province of Bessarabia. |
| 23 August 1940 | UK [World War II (1939–45)] | An all-night German bombing raid on London, England, begins the period of intense bombing known as the ‘Blitz’. |
| 23 August 1943 | USSR, Germany [World War II (1939–45)] | The Soviet army recaptures the city of Kharkov in the USSR from the Germans. |
| 23 August 1998 | Russia [administration] | Russian president Boris Yeltsin sacks his entire government for the second time in five months and returns Viktor Chernomyrdin, whom he previously fired and who is considered responsible for the country's economic downfall, as interim prime minister. |
| 23 August 1999 | Germany [political events] | German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder formally inaugurates Berlin as the new capital of Germany. The German parliament held its final session in Bonn in July. |
