Dashed left edge = started before December 2023 ·
Dashed right edge = ongoing beyond December 2023
Events in December 2023 21
1922 – 2023Norman Lear (1922-2023)Died 5 December 2023, aged 101American television producer whose All in the Family and Maude brought race, politics and class into American sitcoms.
1930 – 2023Sandra Day O'Connor (1930-2023)Died 1 December 2023, aged 93American jurist who in 1981 became the first woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, where she was for years its decisive vote.
1937 – 2023Tom Smothers (1937-2023)Died 26 December 2023, aged 86American comedian of the Smothers Brothers, whose variety show fought network censorship over Vietnam.
1942 – 2023Wolfgang Schauble (1942-2023)Died 26 December 2023, aged 81German politician who helped negotiate reunification and served as finance minister through the eurozone crisis.
1958 – 2023Benjamin ZephaniahBritish Poet & WriterBritish 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.
1975 – 2023Lee Sun-kyunSouth Korean ActorSouth 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.
2007 – 2023Return as Optimus Prime in Live-Action FilmsReturned to voice Optimus Prime in Michael Bay's live-action Transformers film, describing the experience as 'slipping into a very old, very comfortable pair of shoes.' He went on to voice the character in all subsequent films through Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023), introducing Optimus to an entirely new generation.
2020 – 2023Martial Arts and Later LifeHeld a sixth-degree black belt in karate and taught martial arts alongside his literary work. Continued writing, performing and campaigning until his diagnosis with a brain tumour in late 2023.
2021 – 2023The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin ZephaniahPublished his autobiography The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah, reflecting on his journey from a troubled childhood to becoming one of Britain's most beloved poets.
20232023: Max VerstappenRed BullVerstappen set a new record with 19 wins from 22 races in the most dominant season in F1 history, winning his third consecutive title.
2023AI race begins in earnestGoogle, Microsoft and others race for AIFollowing 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.
2023Rockstar Album and Continued WorkReleased new exhibitions at David Zwirner Gallery in New York. Publicly apologised for racist comments against Black people found in her earlier writings. Despite her advanced age, she continued painting daily at her studio across the street from the hospital.
2023Sleep and Killing RomanceIn his final year, starred in two contrasting films: the horror film Sleep and the comedy Killing Romance.
2023The City and Its Uncertain WallsPublished The City and Its Uncertain Walls, his first full-length novel in six years, returning to the walled town from Hard-Boiled Wonderland. The same year, he received the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature, one of Spain's most prestigious cultural prizes.
2023First truce in the Israel-Hamas WarHostages and prisoners exchanged over seven daysA 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.
2023AMD Instinct MI300X — challenging Nvidia H100AMD introduces the Instinct MI300X in December 2023 — its most competitive AI accelerator to date, featuring 192GB of HBM3 memory (compared to 80GB in Nvidia's H100) and a unified CPU-GPU memory architecture. The MI300X's memory capacity advantage makes it particularly well-suited for large language model inference. Microsoft Azure, Meta and Oracle become MI300X customers. For the first time, AMD has an AI accelerator that customers seriously consider as an alternative to Nvidia's H100. AMD's AI accelerator revenue target for 2024 is $3.5 billion.
2023Peter Gabriel releases i/oFirst new album in 21 yearsReleased song by song at every full moon.
2023DeathDied at the age of 65. He had been diagnosed with a brain tumour just eight weeks earlier.
2023COP28 agrees to transition away from fossil fuelsThe first such wording in a UN climate agreementThe 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.
2023Lifetime Achievement AwardReceived the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, recognising his extraordinary contribution to voice acting across six decades.
2023Lee Sun-kyun dies in SeoulFound dead in Seoul at the age of 48. His death came amid a police investigation into alleged drug use, during which he had maintained his innocence. Director Bong Joon-ho later called for a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death.