| 144121 | December 23 | Event | 1916 – World War I: Battle of Magdhaba – Allied forces defeat Turkish forces in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. |
| 144122 | December 23 | Event | 1919 – Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 becomes law in the United Kingdom. |
| 144123 | December 23 | Event | 1921 – Visva-Bharati University is inaugurated. |
| 144124 | December 23 | Event | 1936 – Colombia becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty. |
| 144125 | December 23 | Event | 1938 – Discovery of the first modern coelacanth in South Africa. |
| 144126 | December 23 | Event | 1940 – World War II: Greek submarine Papanikolis (Y-2) sinks the Italian motor ship Antonietta. |
| 144127 | December 23 | Event | 1941 – World War II: After 15 days of fighting, the Imperial Japanese Army occupies Wake Island. |
| 144128 | December 23 | Event | 1947 – The transistor is first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories. |
| 144129 | December 23 | Event | 1948 – Seven Japanese convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East are executed at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo, Japan. |
| 144130 | December 23 | Event | 1954 – First successful kidney transplant is performed by J. Hartwell Harrison and Joseph Murray. |
| 144131 | December 23 | Event | 1958 – Dedication of Tokyo Tower, the world's highest self-supporting iron tower. |
| 144132 | December 23 | Event | 1968 – The 82 sailors from the USS Pueblo are released after eleven months of internment in North Korea. |
| 144133 | December 23 | Event | 1970 – The North Tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York, New York is topped out at 1,368 feet (417 m), making it the tallest building in the world. |
| 144134 | December 23 | Event | 1970 – The Democratic Republic of the Congo officially becomes a single-party state. |
| 144135 | December 23 | Event | 1972 – A 6.5 magnitude earthquake strikes the Nicaraguan capital of Managua killing more than 10,000. |
| 144136 | December 23 | Event | 1972 – The 16 survivors of the Andes flight disaster are rescued after 73 days, having survived by cannibalism. |
| 144137 | December 23 | Event | 1979 – Soviet war in Afghanistan: Soviet Union forces occupy Kabul, the Afghan capital. |
| 144138 | December 23 | Event | 1982 – The United States Environmental Protection Agency announces it has identified dangerous levels of dioxin in the soil of Times Beach, Missouri. |
| 144139 | December 23 | Event | 1986 – Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world without aerial or ground refueling. |
| 144140 | December 23 | Event | 1990 – History of Slovenia: In a referendum, 88.5% of Slovenia's overall electorate vote for independence from Yugoslavia. |
| 144141 | December 23 | Event | 2002 – An MQ-1 Predator is shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25. |
| 144142 | December 23 | Event | 2003 – PetroChina Chuandongbei natural gas field explosion, Guoqiao, Kai County, Chongqing, China, killing at least 234. |
| 144143 | December 23 | Event | 2007 – An agreement is made for the Kingdom of Nepal to be abolished and the country to become a federal republic with the Prime Minister becoming head of state. |
| 144144 | December 23 | Event | 2010 – A monsoonal trough crosses the northeastern coast of Australia from the Coral Sea, bringing mass flooding across Queensland. |
| 144145 | December 23 | Birth | 1173 – Louis I, Duke of Bavaria (d. 1231) |
| 144146 | December 23 | Birth | 1513 – Thomas Smith, English diplomat and scholar (d. 1577) |
| 144147 | December 23 | Birth | 1582 – Severo Bonini, Italian organist and composer (d. 1663) |
| 144148 | December 23 | Birth | 1597 – Martin Opitz, German poet and composer (d. 1639) |
| 144149 | December 23 | Birth | 1613 – Carl Gustaf Wrangel, Swedish field marshal and politician, Lord High Constable of Sweden (d. 1676) |
| 144150 | December 23 | Birth | 1621 – Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham, English politician, Lord Chancellor of England (d. 1682) |