December 23 Birthday

Famous Birthdays on December 23

• Emperor Akihito (1933)

  Former Emperor of Japan who reigned from 1989 to 2019, when he became the first Japanese monarch in centuries to abdicate rather than reign until death.

• Susan Lucci (1946)

  American actress known for playing Erica Kane on All My Children across more than four decades.

This Day in History

• 1888 — Vincent van Gogh cut off part of his own left ear during a mental health crisis in Arles, France, an incident that has become one of the most discussed episodes in art history.

• 1972 — A major earthquake struck Managua, Nicaragua, killing thousands and destroying much of the city center.

• 1986 — The experimental aircraft Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, landed after completing the first non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world.

What December 23 Says About You

December 23 pairs one of art history's most infamous personal crises with two very different feats of endurance. In 1888, Vincent van Gogh, in the midst of a severe mental health episode in Arles, cut off part of his own left ear, an act most biographers connect to a confrontation with fellow painter Paul Gauguin, though even that detail remains disputed a century and a half later; van Gogh was hospitalized soon after and voluntarily admitted himself to the asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence the following year, where he produced some of his most recognized paintings, including The Starry Night, in the roughly eighteen months of life he had left. Ninety-eight years later, in 1986, the experimental aircraft Voyager landed in California after nine days airborne, having become the first plane to circle the globe non-stop without refueling, a feat of sustained endurance built on careful engineering — the lightweight composite aircraft carried barely enough fuel margin to finish its roughly 26,000-mile circumnavigation, touching down with only a few gallons left in its tanks. In between, in 1972, an earthquake struck Managua, Nicaragua on this date, killing thousands and leveling much of the city's center, a disaster whose reconstruction effort became entangled in the political corruption that would later help fuel the Nicaraguan Revolution. Capricorn, now well underway, is traditionally associated with endurance under difficult, sometimes grinding circumstances. Emperor Akihito, born on this date in 1933, spent three decades as Japan's emperor before becoming, in 2019, the first Japanese monarch in roughly two centuries to abdicate voluntarily rather than reign until death, a quiet break from tradition made on his own terms after decades of service. Susan Lucci, born in 1946, played the same soap opera character, Erica Kane, for over four decades, becoming a symbol of extraordinary professional endurance within daytime television — she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy nineteen times before finally winning on her twentieth nomination in 1999, a losing streak so prolonged it had become a running pop-culture punchline long before her eventual win turned it into one of daytime television's most celebrated moments. Numerology gives the 23rd day number 5, linked to adaptability, matching a date whose history spans a personal crisis, a national disaster, and a nine-day endurance flight. Protection through crisis is an old association tied to blue topaz, turquoise, tanzanite, and zircon, resonating with an artist's breakdown, a devastated city, and a plane running on fumes by the time it finally landed. Akihito's reign was retroactively named the Heisei era, meaning roughly 'achieving peace,' a naming convention Japan applies to each emperor's rule only after it concludes. The Voyager aircraft was designed by Burt Rutan, brother of pilot Dick Rutan, and its airframe was built almost entirely from lightweight composite materials rather than traditional aluminum, a choice essential to keeping the plane light enough to carry the fuel its record attempt required.