1794
Jun 23, Empress Catherine II granted Jews permission to settle in Kiev.


1981
Jun 23, The body of Catherine Schilling (21), a Georgetown law student, was found raped and murdered in Rock Creek Park. She was shot in the head five times after taking a shortcut home through the park after working late at her job as a paralegal at a DC law firm. In September 1982, a D.C. jury convicted Donald Eugene Gates of killing and raping Schilling. In 2009 Gates was released from prison based on DNA evidence.


1997
Jun 23, Kristen Modafferi (18) was last seen after she finished her shift at Spinelli’s coffeehouse at the Crocker Galleria in San Francisco. She had just moved to the Bay Area from Charlotte, N.C., lived in Oakland and worked in SF. In 2015 a cadaver dog picked up a scent of human remains at her former home near Lake Merritt in Oakland.


1997
Jun 23, Betty Shabazz (61), the widow of Malcolm X, died in New York of burn wounds inflicted by a fire set on Jun 1 by her 12-year-old grandson. Malcolm Shabazz pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months at a Massachusetts facility specializing in young arsonists.


2000
Jun 23, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, during a visit to South Korea, said American troops would remain in the country indefinitely to maintain strategic stability in the Pacific area.



2003
Jun 23, Judith Miller, reporter for the NY Times, met with Lewis “Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for VP Dick Cheney, who gave her information about CIA operative Valery Plame. Reporter Bob Woodward also spoke with Libby on this day and on June 27 and in 2005 testified that Libby made no mention of Plame. Woodward did say another senior government official told him about Plame and her role in the CIA in mid-June.


2003
Jun 23, In Iran Zahra Kazemi (54), a Montreal-based journalist, was detained after taking pictures of Tehran's notorious Evin prison. She died Jul 11 of brain hemorrhage from inflicted blows. Iran later admitted that she was murdered while under police custody. Her family sought $14 million in damages, but a 1985 Canadian law held that foreign states are immune from the jurisdiction of Canadian courts.


2008
Jun 23, Chile’s Pres. Michelle Bachelet pushed to permanently ban whaling along Chile's coast at the opening of the weeklong International Whaling Commission meeting.


2010
Jun 23, Australian PM Kevin Rudd announced a shock ballot to fight a challenge from his deputy Julia Gillard, raising the prospect of the country's first female head of government. Rudd emerged from marathon late-night talks with Gillard and other ministers to tell a hastily convened press conference the vote would be held early on June 24.


2011
Jun 23, In Iraq Hasna Ali Yahya, the Yemeni wife of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison on terrorism-related charges.


2012
Jun 23, In Texas 2 women were found lying in "knee-deep" grass in a park in Portland. Mollie Judith Olgin (19) was pronounced dead at the scene. Her girlfriend, Mary Christine Chapa (18), was hospitalized with a single gunshot wound to the head.