2023

Events in 2023 123

• 1922 – 2023 Norman Lear (1922-2023) Died 5 December 2023, aged 101 American television producer whose All in the Family and Maude brought race, politics and class into American sitcoms.
• 1923 – 2023 Bob Barker (1923-2023) Died 26 August 2023, aged 99 American television host who presented The Price Is Right for thirty-five years.
• 1923 – 2023 Henry Kissinger American Diplomat & Statesman German-born American diplomat and political scientist who served as US National Security Advisor (1969–1975) and Secretary of State (1973–1977) under Presidents Nixon and Ford. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for negotiating a ceasefire in the Vietnam War, one of the most controversial decisions in the award's history. He remained one of the most influential and divisive figures in American foreign policy for over five decades.
• 1926 – 2023 Tony Bennett (1926-2023) Died 21 July 2023, aged 96 American singer whose career ran from the 1950s to duets with Lady Gaga, and who never abandoned the standards for passing fashion.
• 1927 – 2023 Harry Belafonte (1927-2023) Died 25 April 2023, aged 96 American singer and actor who brought calypso to a mass audience and was a central financial and organisational figure in the civil rights movement.
• 1927 – 2023 Gina Lollobrigida (1927-2023) Italian actress, one of the great European stars of the 1950s and 1960s, and later a photojournalist and sculptor.
• 1927 – 2023 Rosalynn Carter (1927-2023) Died 19 November 2023, aged 96 American first lady from 1977 to 1981 who redefined the role as a policy partner and campaigned for mental health care for four decades.
• 1928 – 2023 Burt Bacharach American Songwriter & Composer American composer, songwriter, record producer and pianist, widely regarded as one of the most important figures of 20th-century popular music. Working primarily with lyricist Hal David, he wrote dozens of hit songs including Walk on By, I Say a Little Prayer and Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head. He won six Grammy Awards, three Academy Awards, and charted 73 songs in the American Top 40.
• 1929 – 2023 Milan Kundera Czech-French Novelist Czech-born French novelist, essayist and playwright. His novels, including The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, explored themes of identity, exile and the fragility of human existence under totalitarianism. Stripped of his Czechoslovak citizenship after the Soviet invasion, he lived in France from 1975 and became a French citizen in 1981.
• 1929 – 2023 Betty Boothroyd (1929-2023) Died 26 February 2023, aged 93 British politician and the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House of Commons.
• 1930 – 2023 Frances Sternhagen (1930-2023) Died 27 November 2023, aged 93 American actress of stage and screen who won two Tony Awards and appeared in Cheers and Sex and the City.
• 1930 – 2023 Sandra Day O'Connor (1930-2023) Died 1 December 2023, aged 93 American jurist who in 1981 became the first woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, where she was for years its decisive vote.
• 1931 – 2023 Fay Weldon (1931-2023) Died 4 January 2023, aged 91 English novelist and screenwriter whose satirical fiction, including The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, dissected the lives of women.
• 1931 – 2023 Daniel Ellsberg (1931-2023) Died 16 June 2023, aged 92 American analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers, exposing the government's private assessment of the Vietnam War.
• 1932 – 2023 Carlos Saura (1932-2023) Died 10 February 2023, aged 91 Spanish director whose films chronicled life under Franco and after, and who brought flamenco to the screen.
• 1932 – 2023 Fernando Botero (1932-2023) Died 15 September 2023, aged 91 Colombian painter and sculptor whose inflated, voluminous figures made him the most recognisable Latin American artist of his time.
• 1932 – 2023 Piper Laurie (1932-2023) Died 14 October 2023, aged 91 American actress three times nominated for an Academy Award, for The Hustler, Carrie and Children of a Lesser God.
• 1932 – 2023 Piper Laurie (1932-2023) American actress with Oscar nominations for The Hustler, Carrie and Children of a Lesser God.
• 1933 – 2023 Cormac McCarthy (1933-2023) Died 13 June 2023, aged 89 American novelist of Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses and The Road, whose austere prose made him one of the great American writers.
• 1933 – 2023 Dianne Feinstein (1933-2023) Died 28 September 2023, aged 90 American senator for California from 1992 until her death, the longest-serving woman in the history of the Senate.
• 1933 – 2023 Wayne Shorter Jazz Saxophonist & Composer American jazz saxophonist, composer and bandleader, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of modern jazz. A 12-time Grammy Award winner, he was a foundational member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, and co-founder of the fusion band Weather Report. His compositions, including Footprints, Speak No Evil and Nefertiti, became enduring jazz standards.
• 1934 – 2023 Alan Arkin (1934-2023) Died 29 June 2023, aged 89 American actor of Catch-22 and Little Miss Sunshine, for which he won an Academy Award.
• 1934 – 2023 Barry Humphries Australian Comedian (Dame Edna) Australian comedian, actor, author and satirist best known for creating and performing the characters Dame Edna Everage, Sir Les Patterson and Sandy Stone. Over a career spanning more than seventy years, he won a Tony Award, was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia, and was made a CBE. He was also a respected painter, author and art collector.
• 1935 – 2023 Chaim Topol (1935-2023) Died 8 March 2023, aged 87 Israeli actor who played Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof on stage and screen for four decades.
• 1935 – 2023 Kenzaburo Oe (1935-2023) Died 3 March 2023, aged 88 Japanese novelist awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994, whose work confronted the war, Hiroshima and disability.
• 1936 – 2023 Glenda Jackson (1936-2023) Died 15 June 2023, aged 87 British actress who won two Academy Awards, left acting for twenty-three years as a Labour MP, and then returned to the stage in her eighties.
• 1936 – 2023 Hugh Hudson (1936-2023) Died 10 February 2023, aged 86 British director whose Chariots of Fire won the Academy Award for best picture.
• 1936 – 2023 Silvio Berlusconi (1936-2023) Died 12 June 2023, aged 86 Italian media tycoon and four-time prime minister who dominated his country's politics and television for three decades.
• 1937 – 2023 Tom Smothers (1937-2023) Died 26 December 2023, aged 86 American comedian of the Smothers Brothers, whose variety show fought network censorship over Vietnam.
• 1937 – 2023 Martti Ahtisaari Nobel Peace Laureate The 10th President and a global diplomat who mediated conflicts in Aceh, Kosovo, and Namibia.
• 1937 – 2023 Bobby Charlton English Footballer English footballer widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the game. A survivor of the 1958 Munich air disaster, he spent his entire club career at Manchester United, scoring 249 goals in 758 appearances. He won the Ballon d'Or in 1966, the same year he helped England win the World Cup. He was knighted in 1994 and became a director of Manchester United.
• 1939 – 2023 Rudolph Isley (1939-2023) Died 11 October 2023, aged 84 American singer and founder member of the Isley Brothers.
• 1939 – 2023 Tina Turner Queen of Rock 'n' Roll American-born singer, songwriter and actress widely known as the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll. She rose to fame in the 1960s as part of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, then rebuilt her career as a solo artist in her forties with the landmark album Private Dancer (1984). She won twelve Grammy Awards, sold over 100 million records worldwide, and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice.
• 1940 – 2023 Astrud Gilberto (1940-2023) Died 5 June 2023, aged 83 Brazilian singer whose vocal on The Girl from Ipanema carried bossa nova around the world.
• 1940 – 2023 Raquel Welch American Actress & Icon American actress and cultural icon who rose to international fame in the 1960s. Born Jo Raquel Tejada to a Bolivian father and American mother, she became one of the defining sex symbols of her era following her appearance in One Million Years B.C. (1966). She won a Golden Globe for The Three Musketeers and had a career spanning over fifty years.
• 1940 – 2023 Michael Gambon Irish-English Actor Irish-English actor who enjoyed a six-decade career spanning theatre, film and television. Knighted in 1998 for services to drama, he won three Olivier Awards, four BAFTAs and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He is best known internationally for playing Albus Dumbledore in six of the eight Harry Potter films.
• 1941 – 2023 David Crosby (1941-2023) Died 18 January 2023, aged 81 American singer and songwriter, founder member of the Byrds and of Crosby, Stills & Nash.
• 1942 – 2023 Richard Roundtree (1942-2023) Died 24 October 2023, aged 81 American actor whose John Shaft made him the first African American action hero to headline a major film.
• 1942 – 2023 Seymour Stein (1942-2023) Died 2 April 2023, aged 80 American record executive who founded Sire Records and signed the Ramones, Talking Heads and Madonna.
• 1942 – 2023 Wolfgang Schauble (1942-2023) Died 26 December 2023, aged 81 German politician who helped negotiate reunification and served as finance minister through the eurozone crisis.
• 1943 – 2023 Robbie Robertson (1943-2023) Died 9 August 2023, aged 80 Canadian guitarist and songwriter of the Band, who wrote The Weight and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.
• 1943 – 2023 Pervez Musharraf (1943-2023) Died 5 February 2023, aged 79 Pakistani general who seized power in a 1999 coup and ruled as president until 2008.
• 1944 – 2023 Jeff Beck (1944-2023) Died 10 January 2023, aged 78 British guitarist of the Yardbirds and a solo career of restless invention, widely held to be among the finest ever to play the instrument.
• 1944 – 2023 Jerry Springer American TV Host & Politician British-born American television host, lawyer and politician. Born in a London Underground station during the Blitz, he emigrated to the United States as a child. He served as Mayor of Cincinnati before becoming host of The Jerry Springer Show, a ratings phenomenon that ran for 27 years and became a defining artefact of 1990s American pop culture.
• 1944 – 2023 Ian Wilmut (1944-2023) Died 10 September 2023, aged 79 British embryologist who led the team that cloned Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell.
• 1945 – 2023 Terence Davies (1945-2023) Died 7 October 2023, aged 77 British director whose Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes turned Liverpool memory into cinema.
• 1946 – 2023 Jimmy Buffett (1946-2023) Died 1 September 2023, aged 76 American singer-songwriter whose Margaritaville became both a song and a business empire.
• 1947 – 2023 Dick Fosbury (1947-2023) Died 12 March 2023, aged 76 American high jumper who won gold in 1968 with a backwards technique that every serious jumper has used since.
• 1949 – 2023 Tom Verlaine (1949-2023) Died 28 January 2023, aged 73 American guitarist and songwriter who led Television, whose Marquee Moon shaped New York punk and everything after it.
• 1951 – 2023 Gary Rossington (1951-2023) Died 5 March 2023, aged 71 American guitarist and the last surviving original member of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
• 1951 – 2023 Treat Williams (1951-2023) Died 12 June 2023, aged 71 American actor known for Hair, Prince of the City and the series Everwood.
• 1952 – 2023 Klaus Teuber (1952-2023) Died 1 April 2023, aged 70 German game designer who created Settlers of Catan, the board game that opened the hobby to a mass audience.
• 1952 – 2023 Paul Reubens (1952-2023) Died 30 July 2023, aged 70 American actor and comedian who created Pee-wee Herman.
• 1952 – 2023 Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952-2023) Died 28 March 2023, aged 71 Japanese composer and member of Yellow Magic Orchestra who won an Oscar for The Last Emperor and shaped electronic music worldwide.
• 1955 – 2023 Li Keqiang (1955-2023) Died 27 October 2023, aged 68 Chinese politician who served as premier from 2013 to 2023, the country's second-ranking leader for a decade.
• 1957 – 2023 Shane MacGowan (1957-2023) Died 30 November 2023, aged 65 Irish singer and songwriter of the Pogues, who fused punk with Irish traditional music and wrote Fairytale of New York.
• 1958 – 2023 Benjamin Zephaniah British Poet & Writer British writer, poet and activist of Jamaican heritage who became one of the most widely recognised poets in Britain. Known for his dub poetry and energetic performance style, he brought poetry to audiences far beyond the literary establishment. He declined an OBE in 2003, citing the British Empire's legacy of slavery and colonialism. He was also a prominent vegan, martial arts practitioner and campaigner for social justice.
• 1961 – 2023 Yevgeny Prigozhin (1961-2023) Died 23 August 2023, aged 62 Russian businessman who founded the Wagner Group and led an armed mutiny against the Russian military. He died in a plane crash two months later.
• 1964 – 2023 Andy Rourke (1964-2023) Died 19 May 2023, aged 59 English bassist of the Smiths, whose melodic playing underpinned the band's sound.
• 1964 – 2023 Gianluca Vialli (1964-2023) Died 6 January 2023, aged 58 Italian striker for Sampdoria, Juventus and Chelsea who won the European Cup as a player and the FA Cup as a manager.
• 1966 – 2023 Tatjana Patitz German Supermodel German supermodel who was one of the original supermodels of the late 1980s and early 1990s. She appeared on the cover of over 200 magazines and was featured in George Michael's iconic Freedom! '90 music video alongside Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington. Known for her natural beauty and understated elegance, she later became an advocate for animal rights.
• 1966 – 2023 Sinéad O'Connor Irish Singer-Songwriter Irish singer-songwriter and activist whose powerful voice and outspoken nature made her one of the most distinctive artists of her generation. She achieved worldwide fame with her 1990 cover of Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U and won a Grammy for Best Alternative Album. She was also known for her advocacy on issues including child abuse, women's rights and religious reform.
• 1967 – 2023 Steve Harwell (1967-2023) Died 4 September 2023, aged 56 American singer and front man of Smash Mouth.
• 1968 – 2023 Lisa Marie Presley (1968-2023) Died 12 January 2023, aged 54 American singer-songwriter and the only child of Elvis Presley.
• 1969 – 2023 Matthew Perry (1969-2023) Died 28 October 2023, aged 54 American actor whose Chandler Bing on Friends made him one of the most recognisable television performers of the 1990s.
• 1975 – 2023 Lee Sun-kyun South Korean Actor South Korean actor best known for playing the wealthy patriarch Park Dong-ik in Bong Joon-ho's Oscar-winning film Parasite (2019). Acclaimed across film and television in South Korea, he won a Screen Actors Guild Award with the Parasite cast and was nominated for an International Emmy Award for Dr. Brain.
• 2023 Carlsen vacates world championship title Refuses to defend against Nepomniachtchi Magnus Carlsen announced he would not defend his World Championship title in 2023, citing a lack of motivation. Ding Liren and Ian Nepomniachtchi played for the vacant title.
• 2023 Australian Open 2023 Men: Novak Djokovic · Women: Aryna Sabalenka Djokovic's 10th Australian Open — the most by any player.
• 2023 AI race begins in earnest Google, Microsoft and others race for AI Following the success of ChatGPT, 2023 saw an unprecedented AI race with Microsoft investing $10 billion in OpenAI, Google launching Bard, and Meta releasing Llama. AI became the dominant technology theme.
• 2023 Croatia adopts the euro and joins the Schengen area Two accessions on the same day Croatia adopted the euro and joined the Schengen free-travel area on 1 January 2023, becoming the twentieth member of the eurozone.
• 2023 Supporters of Jair Bolsonaro storm Brazil's institutions Congress, the presidential palace and the Supreme Court attacked Thousands of supporters of the defeated president Jair Bolsonaro stormed Brazil's Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Court in Brasilia on 8 January 2023, a week after Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office.
• 2023 Yeti Airlines flight crashes at Pokhara Seventy-two killed in Nepal's deadliest crash in three decades A Yeti Airlines ATR 72 crashed on approach to Pokhara on 15 January 2023, killing all 72 people on board.
• 2023 ChatGPT reaches 100 million users The fastest-growing consumer application on record By the end of January 2023 ChatGPT had reached an estimated 100 million monthly users, two months after launch, making it the fastest-growing consumer application then recorded.
• 2023 East Palestine train derailment A vinyl chloride release in Ohio A Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed at East Palestine, Ohio, on 3 February 2023. A controlled burn of vinyl chloride sent a plume over the town and forced evacuations.
• 2023 Chinese surveillance balloon shot down off South Carolina A week-long transit across North America A US fighter shot down a Chinese high-altitude balloon off the coast of South Carolina on 4 February 2023 after it crossed the continental United States. Beijing said it was a weather craft blown off course.
• 2023 F-22 shoots down a Chinese balloon Off South Carolina An F-22 downs a Chinese high-altitude balloon off the South Carolina coast with an AIM-9X missile — the Raptor's first air-to-air kill.
• 2023 Beyonce becomes the most decorated artist in Grammy history A 32nd award at the 65th ceremony Beyonce won her 32nd Grammy on 5 February 2023, passing Georg Solti to become the most awarded artist in the history of the ceremony.
• 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake 60,000 killed in twin earthquakes Two powerful earthquakes struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6, 2023, killing over 60,000 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the region in over a century.
• 2023 Iditarod 2023 Winner: Ryan Redington — 8 days 22h Ryan Redington, grandson of race founder Joe Redington Sr. and Inupiaq, won the 2023 Iditarod — a deeply symbolic victory for the founding family.
• 2023 Silicon Valley Bank collapses The second-largest bank failure in US history Silicon Valley Bank was closed by regulators on 10 March 2023 after a run triggered by losses on its bond portfolio, the second-largest bank failure in United States history and the start of a wider banking scare.
• 2023 Everything Everywhere All at Once wins seven Oscars Best picture and three acting awards Everything Everywhere All at Once won seven Academy Awards on 12 March 2023 including best picture, best director, best actress for Michelle Yeoh and supporting awards for Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis.
• 2023 GPT-4 released Most advanced AI model yet OpenAI released GPT-4 on March 14, 2023, a large multimodal model able to process both text and images. It passed the bar exam in the top 10% of human test-takers.
• 2023 International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin Charges over the deportation of Ukrainian children The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on 17 March 2023 over the unlawful deportation of children from occupied Ukraine.
• 2023 UBS & Credit Suisse Merger Financial Stability The emergency takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS to prevent a global banking crisis.
• 2023 Donald Trump becomes the first former US president criminally charged Thirty-four felony counts in New York Donald Trump was indicted in New York on 30 March 2023 over hush-money payments, the first criminal charge against a former United States president. Three further indictments followed during the year.
• 2023 Finland Joins NATO Historical Policy Shift In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Finland ended decades of military non-alignment.
• 2023 2023 World Snooker Championship Brecel Breakthrough First winner from mainland Europe. Winner: Luca Brecel; Runner-up: Mark Selby. Score: 18–15.
• 2023 Civil war breaks out in Sudan Fighting between the army and the Rapid Support Forces Fighting erupted in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, beginning a civil war that displaced millions and drove the country into famine.
• 2023 Starship makes its first integrated flight test The largest rocket ever flown, destroyed four minutes in SpaceX launched Starship on its first full-stack flight on 20 April 2023. The vehicle failed to separate and was destroyed about four minutes after lift-off, but it was the most powerful rocket ever flown.
• 2023 India overtakes China as the world's most populous country An estimated 1.43 billion people United Nations estimates published in April 2023 showed India had overtaken China to become the world's most populous country, with about 1.43 billion people.
• 2023 King Charles III coronation First coronation in 70 years King Charles III was crowned at Westminster Abbey on May 6, 2023, in the first British coronation for 70 years. About 2,000 guests attended, with millions watching worldwide.
• 2023 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 #4 film of 2023 — $845m worldwide Directed by James Gunn. The Guardians embark on a mission to protect Rocket, uncovering his mysterious past.
• 2023 Sweden wins the Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool Loreen becomes the second person to win twice Loreen won the Eurovision Song Contest for Sweden on 13 May 2023 with Tattoo, becoming only the second performer to win the contest twice. Liverpool hosted on behalf of the 2022 winner, Ukraine.
• 2023 French Open 2023 Men: Novak Djokovic · Women: Iga Świątek Djokovic's 3rd Roland Garros at age 36 — the oldest French Open champion in the Open Era.
• 2023 Apple announces the Vision Pro headset A first new product category since the Apple Watch Apple announced the Vision Pro mixed-reality headset on 5 June 2023, its first new product category since the Apple Watch in 2015.
• 2023 Titan submersible implodes on a dive to the Titanic Five killed after a four-day search The submersible Titan imploded on 18 June 2023 during a descent to the wreck of the Titanic, killing all five aboard including OceanGate's chief executive. A four-day international search gripped global attention before debris was found.
• 2023 Wagner Group mutinies and marches on Moscow An armed rebellion halted 200km from the capital Wagner Group forces under Yevgeny Prigozhin seized Rostov-on-Don and advanced towards Moscow on 23 June 2023 in the gravest challenge to Vladimir Putin's rule. The march was called off the next day under a deal brokered by Belarus.
• 2023 Wimbledon 2023 Men: Carlos Alcaraz · Women: Markéta Vondroušová Carlos Alcaraz, 20, defeated Djokovic in a thrilling five-set final. Vondroušová became the first unseeded women's champion in Wimbledon history.
• 2023 Threads launches and gains 100 million users in five days Meta's answer to Twitter Meta launched Threads on 5 July 2023. It signed up 100 million users within five days, the fastest adoption of any application to that point.
• 2023 The Black Sea grain deal collapses Russia withdraws from the Ukrainian export corridor Russia withdrew from the Black Sea Grain Initiative on 17 July 2023, ending the corridor that had allowed Ukrainian grain exports through a wartime blockade.
• 2023 Barbenheimer weekend Barbie and Oppenheimer open same day Barbie and Oppenheimer both released on July 21, 2023, creating the "Barbenheimer" cultural phenomenon. Together they grossed over $2.4 billion worldwide, reviving cinema after the post-COVID slump.
• 2023 Barbie #1 film of 2023 — $1.44bn worldwide Directed by Greta Gerwig, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. After a series of events in Barbieland, Barbie and Ken travel to the real world.
• 2023 Barbie is released and passes a billion dollars Greta Gerwig becomes the first solo woman director to do so Barbie opened on 21 July 2023 and went on to gross more than $1.4 billion, making Greta Gerwig the first woman to direct a billion-dollar film solo.
• 2023 Oppenheimer Oscar Best Picture 2023 — $952m worldwide Directed by Christopher Nolan, starring Cillian Murphy. The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
• 2023 Military coup in Niger President Mohamed Bazoum detained by his own guard Members of the presidential guard detained President Mohamed Bazoum on 26 July 2023 and seized power in Niger, the latest in a run of coups across the Sahel.
• 2023 US Open 2023 Men: Novak Djokovic · Women: Coco Gauff Djokovic won his 24th Grand Slam, setting the all-time record. Gauff won the first of her two US Open titles.
• 2023 Wildfires destroy Lahaina on Maui The deadliest United States wildfire in more than a century Wind-driven wildfires swept Maui on 8 August 2023, destroying the historic town of Lahaina and killing more than 100 people in the deadliest wildfire in the United States in over a century.
• 2023 Spain wins the Women's World Cup A final overshadowed by the federation president's conduct Spain beat England 1-0 on 20 August 2023 to win the FIFA Women's World Cup for the first time. The celebration was overshadowed when federation president Luis Rubiales kissed player Jenni Hermoso without consent, triggering his resignation.
• 2023 Chandrayaan-3 lands on the Moon India becomes the first to land near the lunar south pole On 23 August 2023 India's Chandrayaan-3 mission soft-landed near the Moon's south pole — a region never before reached — making India the fourth country to achieve a lunar landing and the first at that location. It capped India's emergence as a major space power.
• 2023 India lands on Moon south pole Chandrayaan-3 first lunar south pole landing India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft made the first successful soft landing at the lunar south pole on August 23, 2023, making India the fourth country to land on the Moon.
• 2023 BRICS invites six new members The bloc's largest expansion At its Johannesburg summit on 24 August 2023 the BRICS group invited Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to join, its largest expansion.
• 2023 Earthquake devastates the High Atlas Nearly 3,000 killed near Marrakesh A magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the High Atlas mountains south of Marrakesh on 8 September 2023, killing nearly 3,000 people in Morocco's deadliest quake in over six decades.
• 2023 Dam collapse floods Derna in Libya Storm Daniel kills more than 11,000 Two dams above Derna failed during Storm Daniel on 11 September 2023, sending a wall of water through the Libyan city. More than 11,000 people were killed and a quarter of the city was swept away.
• 2023 Azerbaijan retakes Nagorno-Karabakh A one-day offensive ends three decades of Armenian control Azerbaijan launched an offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh on 19 September 2023 and secured the surrender of Armenian forces within a day. Almost the entire ethnic Armenian population, over 100,000 people, left within a fortnight.
• 2023 First CRISPR therapy approved Gene editing treats sickle cell disease The FDA approved the first CRISPR-based gene therapy in December 2023, a treatment for sickle cell disease called Casgevy. It is the first approved medicine to use CRISPR gene editing in humans.
• 2023 Hamas attacks Israel 1,200 killed in deadliest day for Jews since Holocaust Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages. It was the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust.
• 2023 South Africa win a record fourth Rugby World Cup A one-point final against New Zealand South Africa beat New Zealand 12-11 on 28 October 2023 to win a record fourth Rugby World Cup, having won each knockout match by a single point.
• 2023 Now and Then released The last Beatles song — November 2, 2023 "Now and Then" was released on November 2, 2023 — the last Beatles song, created from a John Lennon demo from the late 1970s. AI technology was used to isolate Lennon's voice from a cassette tape. Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and archive recordings of George Harrison all contributed.
• 2023 OpenAI fires and rehires Sam Altman in five days A boardroom crisis that nearly collapsed the company OpenAI's board dismissed chief executive Sam Altman on 17 November 2023. After almost all staff threatened to resign and Microsoft offered to hire the team, he was reinstated on 22 November with a reconstituted board.
• 2023 Australia win a sixth Cricket World Cup A final in Ahmedabad against the host nation Australia beat India by six wickets in Ahmedabad on 19 November 2023 to win their sixth Cricket World Cup, ending India's unbeaten run in the tournament.
• 2023 Javier Milei elected president of Argentina A libertarian outsider wins the run-off Javier Milei won Argentina's presidential run-off on 19 November 2023, a libertarian economist who had campaigned with a chainsaw as a symbol of planned spending cuts.
• 2023 First truce in the Israel-Hamas War Hostages and prisoners exchanged over seven days A truce in the Israel-Hamas War began on 24 November 2023 and ran a week, during which Hamas released 105 hostages and Israel freed 240 Palestinian prisoners.
• 2023 COP28 agrees to transition away from fossil fuels The first such wording in a UN climate agreement The COP28 summit in Dubai closed on 13 December 2023 with an agreement calling on countries to transition away from fossil fuels, the first time a UN climate deal named them directly.