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more events on April 23
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1971
The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 10, becoming the first mission to the Salyut 1 space station.
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1969
Sirhan Sirhan is sentenced to death for killing Senator Robert Kennedy.
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1966
President Lyndon Johnson publicly appeals for more nations to come to the aid of South Vietnam.
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1954
The Army-McCarthy hearings begin.
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1950
Chiang Kai-shek evacuates Hainan, leaving mainland China to Mao Zedong and the communists.
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1945
The Soviet Army fights its way into Berlin.
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1932
Jim Fixx, runner and writer who popularized running as a form of exercise in the 1970s.
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1928
Shirley Temple Black, child actress, later U.S. ambassador.
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1926
Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Mercury and Gemini astronaut, died in an accident on Apollo 1.
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J.P. Donleavy, American-born Irish writer (The Ginger Man).
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1924
The U.S. Senate passes the Soldiers’ Bonus Bill.
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1920
The Turkish Grand National Assembly has first meeting in Ankara.
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1915
The ACA becomes the National Advisory Council on Aeronautics (NACA), the forerunner of NASA.
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1914
The Federals defeat Kansas City 9-1 in the first major league game to be played in Chicago’s Weeghman Park, later renamed Wrigley Field.
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1902
Halldór Laxness, Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic novelist (The Fish Can Sing, Paradise Reclaimed).