On This Day - 1314 to 1972

23rd June

1314 – The Battle of Bannockburn began.

1532 – Henry VIII and François I signed a secret treaty against Emperor Charles V.

1713 – The French residents of Acadia were given one year to declare allegiance to Britain or leave Nova Scotia, Canada.

1757 – 3,000 British troops under Robert Clive defeated a 50,000 strong Indian army under Siraj Ud Daulah at Plassey.

1758 – British forces defeated French troops at Krefeld in Germany.

1794 – Empress Catherine II of Russia granted Jews permission to settle in Kiev.

1845 - The Congress of the Republic of Texas agreed to annexation by the United States.

1860 - The U.S. Secret Service was created.

1868 – Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for Type-Writer.

1894 – The International Olympic Committee was founded at the Sorbonne, Paris, at the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.

1942 – The first selections for the gas chamber at Auschwitz took place on a train load of people from Paris.

1955 - The Queen Elizabeth ocean liner set sail for New York on schedule in spite of attempts by striking seamen to delay her departure.

1968 – 74 people were killed and 150 injured in a football stampede towards a closed exit in a Buenos Aires stadium.

1972 – U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and White House chief of staff H. R. Haldeman were taped talking about using the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) to obstruct the FBI's (Federal Bureau of Investigation's) investigation into the Watergate break-ins.

1972 – 45 countries left the Sterling Area, allowing their currencies to fluctuate independently of the British Pound.

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