Today in History, October 23rd
On October 23, 1983, a truck bomb destroyed the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241. Plus the Hungarian Revolution and the iPod.
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October 23 is best known for the 1983 truck bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed 241 American service members. The date also marks the start of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and the day Apple introduced the iPod in 2001.
The big story: The Beirut Barracks Bombing (1983)
Lebanon had been torn by civil war since 1975. In August 1982 a multinational peacekeeping force, including about 800 U.S. Marines, arrived to oversee the withdrawal of Palestinian fighters from the country. On the morning of October 23, 1983, a suicide bomber drove a truck packed with explosives past three guard posts and through a barbed-wire fence into the building’s lobby. The blast was equal to roughly 18,000 pounds of dynamite. It killed 241 U.S. military personnel from the Marines, Navy and Army. The same morning, a second suicide attack about two miles away killed 58 French soldiers. The bombers were never identified, though suspicion fell on Shiite militants tied to Iran. President Ronald Reagan first vowed the Marines would stay. About four months later he reversed course, and the main Marine force left Lebanon on February 26, 1984.
More events on October 23
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 42 BCE | Marcus Junius Brutus, one of Julius Caesar’s assassins, took his own life after losing the second battle of Philippi. |
| 1850 | The first National Women’s Rights Convention opened in Worcester, Massachusetts, with more than 1,000 delegates. |
| 1941 | Disney’s animated film Dumbo had its world premiere. |
| 1942 | British forces under Bernard Montgomery launched a successful infantry attack on German forces at El Alamein, Egypt. |
| 1944 | U.S. naval forces under Admiral William Halsey Jr. began the air and sea fighting off Leyte in the Philippines, a decisive battle against Japan. |
| 1956 | A large demonstration in Budapest launched the Hungarian Revolution. The Soviet Union invaded on November 4 to crush it. |
| 1958 | Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago, was named winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Soviet authorities later forced him to decline it. |
| 1989 | An ethylene leak touched off explosions at a Phillips Petroleum plastics plant in Pasadena, Texas, killing 23 people. |
| 1993 | Joe Carter of the Toronto Blue Jays hit a ninth-inning home run to win the World Series. |
| 2001 | Apple introduced the iPod, a pocket-size digital music player. |
| 2002 | A hostage crisis began at a crowded theater in Moscow. |
Born on October 23
- 1925: Johnny Carson, longtime host of The Tonight Show, born in Corning, Iowa.
- 1940: Pelé, Brazilian soccer legend, born in Três Corações.
- 1942: Michael Crichton, best-selling novelist, born in Chicago.
- 1954: Ang Lee, Taiwan-born film director.
Sources
- Beirut Barracks Blown Up, History.com
- What Happened on October 23, History.com
- On This Day: October 23, Britannica
- Hungarian Revolution, Britannica
- Johnny Carson, Britannica
- Pelé, Biography.com
- Michael Crichton, Britannica
- Ang Lee, Britannica
