At the age of 73

• 23-December-2005 : U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announces the first in an expected series of troop drawdowns following the Iraqi elections.
• 03-February-1989 : After a stroke, Pieter Willem Botha resigns his party's leadership and the presidency of South Africa.
• 23-May-1960 : Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion announces that Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann has been captured.
• 06-March-1953 : Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov succeeds Joseph Stalin as Premier and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
• 05-March-1953 : Joseph Stalin dies after 31 years of ruling the Soviet Union.
• 01-March-1953 : Joseph Stalin suffers a stroke and collapses after an allallnight dinner with Soviet Union interior minister Lavrenty Beria and future premiers Georgi Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev. The stroke paralyzes the right side of his body.
• 07-September-1949 : The Federal Republic of Germany is officially founded. Konrad Adenauer is the first federal chancellor.
• 04-July-1918 : Mehmed VI (1918(19181922) succeeds Mehmed V (Resad) (190919091918) as Ottoman Emperor.
• 14-May-1913 : New York Governor William Sulzer approves the charter for the Rockefeller Foundation, which begins operations with a $100,000,000 donation from John D. Rockefeller.
• 23-January-1878 : Benjamin Disraeli orders the British fleet to the Dardanelles.