Kosygin resigns due to ill health
1980 - Alexei Kosygin, Soviet Prime Minister for the past 16 years and once a major figure on the world diplomatic stage, bowed out of the Kremlin leadership and was replaced by his First Deputy Nikolai Tikhonov. The resignation of the 76-year-old Kosygin, ailing since a severe heart attack exactly a year ago, was announced in his absence to a session of the country’s parliament, the Supreme Soviet by President and Communist Party chief Leonid Brezhnev. As the two-day session moved to a close after hearing a low-key report on the state of the economy whose fortunes Kosygin had so long guided, Brezhnev rose to say he had received a resignation letter from the prime minister. The Kremlin chief then proposed that Kosygin be replaced by Tikhonov.
October 23
1764 - British forces defeat Nawab of Oudh at Buxar, Bengal.
1915 - British cricketer W. G. Grace dies.
1944 - Soviet army invades Hungary.
1954 - Britain, France, US and Soviet Union agree to end occupation of Germany.
1985 - Emirates airline is formally launched in Dubai.
1989 - Hungary is officially proclaimed a free republic following the end of Communist rule.
1993 - An IRA bomb explodes on a crowded shopping street in Belfast, killing 10 people.
1994 - Sri Lankan leader Gamini Dissanayake is assassinated in a bomb blast in Colombo.
1997 - South Africa’s Nelson Mandela receives a hero’s welcome in Libya, and calls for the United Nations to lift sanctions that are harming “our African brothers and sisters.”
1998 - A Palestinian-Israeli interim peace accord is signed at the White House.
2001 - Indonesia’s parliament passes a bill granting the rebellious province of Irian Jaya sweeping autonomy.
2002 - About 40 Chechen guerrillas armed with guns and grenades held hundreds of Moscow theatre-goers hostage.
2003 - Madame Chiang Kai-shek, widow of the Chinese nationalist leader, dies in New York at age 105.
2010 - American swimmer Francis Crippen dies due to intense exhaustion at the 2010 Fina 10km Marathon Swimming World Cup held in Fujairah open waters.
2011 - A 7.2-magnitude earthquake strikes eastern Turkey, killing more than 200 people as buildings crumpled into rubble.
2013 - China and India sign an agreement to boost meetings between their militaries.
