Talk:August 23

August 23: Black Ribbon Day

Stalin and Ribbentrop shaking hands after signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact

• 1898 – The Southern Cross Expedition, the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, departed London.
• 1914 – In their first major action of the First World War, the British Expeditionary Force engaged German troops in Mons, Belgium.
• 1939 – Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (pictured), a ten-year mutual non-aggression treaty, which also secretly divided northern and eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence.
• 1954 – The Cruise of the Kings, a royal cruise organised by the Queen Consort of Greece, Frederica of Hanover, departed from Marseille, France.
• 1989 – Singing Revolution: Approximately two million people joined hands to form a human chain spanning 675.5 kilometres (419.7 mi) across the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Soviet republics to demonstrate their desire for independence.