THE DAY IN HISTORY · AUGUST 23
August 23 in history
What happened on August 23: 3 moments from the Maps of History atlases, in 1939, 1958 and 1989, each linked to the map that shows it.
Ribbentrop flies to Moscow: the century’s two loudest enemies sign a pact — with a secret map dividing Eastern Europe between them.
READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE WW2 MAP →
— Second Taiwan Strait Crisis
23 Aug 1958 — PLA batteries open a bombardment of Kinmen with tens of thousands of shells, testing Washington and rallying the Leap at home. US warships escort Nationalist supply convoys to the edge of Chinese waters. In October Beijing settles on shelling only on odd-numbered days, a ritual that lasted until 1979.
READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC UNDER MAO MAP → · THE FULL STORY →
— Baltic Way
23 Aug 1989 — On the fiftieth anniversary of the Nazi–Soviet Pact, about two million Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians join hands in a chain some 675 km long from Tallinn through Riga to Vilnius, demanding that Moscow admit the secret protocol that delivered them to it.
READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE REMAKING THE STATE MAP → · THE FULL STORY →
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