 Belgian-British pilot 

Zara Rutherford becomes the youngest woman to fly solo around

the world.
 Microsoft announces its forthcoming acquisition, pending regulatory approvals, of video
game company Activision Blizzard.
 A 5.3 magnitude earthquake in Badghis Province, Afghanistan, kills at least 28 people.
 The Hunga Tonga volcano erupts (satellite animation shown), causing damage in
Tonga and tsunamis across the Pacific Ocean.
Ongoing: 
 COVID-19 pandemic
Recent deaths: 
 Thích Nhất Hạnh
 M. K. Prasad
 Clark Gillies
 Bob Goalby
 David Cox
 Richard J. Ferris
 Nominate an article

On this day
January 23

Elizabeth Blackwell
 1556 – One of the deadliest earthquakes in history struck Shaanxi, China, resulting in
at least 100,000 direct deaths.
 1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell (pictured) graduated from Geneva Medical College in New
York, making her the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States.
 1909 – Two men committed an armed robbery in Tottenham, London, and led police on
a two-hour chase, partially by tram, that ended in the perpetrators' suicides.
 1942 – World War II: Japan began an invasion of the island of New Britain in the
Australian Territory of New Guinea.
 2002 – American journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and later murdered by al-
Qaeda agents in Karachi, Pakistan.
 Hai Rui (b. 1514)
 Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama (b. 1880)
 Salvador Dalí (d. 1989)