Today in
History ~ April 23
National
Secretary Day
Events
0303 -
Saint George is believed to have been killed on this day.
1014 -
Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, was killed by a group of
Vikings shortly after his Irish forces decisively defeated
the Norsemen at the Battle of Clontarf. [H]
1348 - King Edward III of England established the 1st English order of knighthood (Order of Garter)
1500 - Pedro Cabral lands & claims Brazil for Portugal (Terra da Vera Cruz)
1504 - King Maximilian I routes troops to Bavaria
1661 - English king Charles II crowned in London
1662 - Connecticut chartered as an English colony
1705 - Richard Steele's "Tender Husband," premieres in London
1775 - Mozart's Opera "Il Re Pastore" is produced (Salzburg)
1789 - President-elect Washington and his wife moved into the first executive
mansion, the Franklin House, in New York.
1795 - William Hastings acquitted in England of high treason
1826 - Missolonghi captured by Turks
1838 -
The first transatlantic steamship service began.
1860 - Dem convention in Charleston SC divides over slavery
1861 - Arkansas troops seize Ft Smith
1861 - Battle of San Antonio, TX
1864 - Battle of Cane River, LA (Red River Expedition, Monett's Ferry)
1881 - Gilbert & Sullivan's opera "Patience" produced in London
1891 - Jews are expelled from Moscow
1896 - Vitascope system of movie projection 1st demonstrated (NYC)
1898 - The first movie theater opened at Koster and Bials Music Hall in New York
City.
1898 - The U.S. government asked for 125,000 volunteers to fight against Spain
in Cuba.
1900 - 1st published use of word "hillbilly" (NY Journal)
1916 - Lord Dunsany's "Night at an Inn," premieres in NYC
1925 - 1st London performance of operetta "Fasquita" staged
1932 - Shakespeare Memorial Theatre opens at Stratford-on-Avon
1934 - George "Baby Face" Nelson kills
an FBI agent in a gangster raid [H]
1938 - Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia demand self government
1940 - Dance hall fires kills 198 (Natchez Miss)
1941 - Greece Army surrenders to Nazis; RAF flies Greek king George II to Egypt
1941 - At an "America First" rally in New York City, aviator Charles
Lindbergh said, "It is obvious that England is losing the war."
Lindbergh opposed U.S. entry into World War II.
1942 - 4-day allied bombing of Rostock begins
1942 - Luftwaffe bombs Exeter as part of the "Baedeker
Raids" on England [H]
1945 - Concentration camp Flossenburg liberated
1945 - US troops in Italy cross river Po
1949 - Chinese Red army conquerors Nanjing
1950 - Nationalist China evacuates Hainan Island
1952 - Oil pipeline from Kirkuk to Banias completed
1954 - Hank Aaron hits 1st of his 755 homers
1955 - "Kismet" closes at Ziegfeld Theater NYC after 583 performances
1956 - US Supreme court ends race segregation on buses
1964 - Houston Colt 45s Ken Johnson becomes 1st major league pitcher to lose a 9 inning no-hitter, Reds win 1-0
1964 -
Thirty of William Shakespeare's 37 plays were performed in
the US and Canada.
1965 - More than 200 U.S. planes struck North Vietnam in one of the heaviest
raids of the Vietnam War.
1969 - Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death for assassinating New York Sen.
Robert F. Kennedy. (The sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment.)
1971 - Columbia University operations virtually end, by student strike
1972 - 26th Tony Awards: Sticks & Bones & 2 Gentlemen of Verona win
1972 - Apollo 16 astronauts explores Moon surface
1975 - Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land," premieres in London
1977 - Dr Allen Bussey completes 20,302 yo-yo loops
1984 - AIDS-virus identified (acquired immune deficiency syndrome)
1985 - Coca-Cola Co. announced it was changing the
secret flavor formula for Coke. Negative public reaction forced the company to
resume selling the original version.
1987 - An apartment building under construction in Bridgeport, Conn., collapsed,
killing 28 construction workers.
1988 - A Greek pedals self-powered aircraft 74 miles
1988 - Federal smoking ban during domestic airline flights of 2 hrs or less
1989 - Students in Beijing China announce class boycotts
1990 - The West German government bowed to East German demands and agreed to a
1-1 exchange rate between East and West marks, clearing the path to a planned
currency union.
1991 - Virgilio Pablo Paz Romero was arrested for the 1976 car-bomb murder of
Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C
1991 - USSR grants republics right to secede under certain conditions
1992 - Jurors in the Rodney King beating trial in Simi Valley, Calif., began
deliberating the fate of four Los
Angeles police officers accused of brutality.
1992 - Former Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry was released from prison
after serving a six-month term for cocaine possession.
1992 - McDonald's opens its 1st fast-food restaurant in China
1991 - President Bush welcomed Gen. H. Norman
Schwarzkopf, the just-returned Gulf War commander, at the White House.
1991 - NASA scrubbed the launch of the space shuttle Discovery after a sensor on
one of the main engines failed during fueling.
1993 - Eritrea votes to secede from Ethiopia
1993 - Peter Townshend's rock musical "Tommy," premieres in NYC
1994 - Army shoots to death 23-40 fishermen in Gonaives Haiti
1995 - Pres Clinton declares a national day of mourning for Okla City
1996 - Sotherby begins 4 day auction of Jackie O possessions -- takes in $34.5 million
1996 - A Bronx civil-court jury ordered Bernhard
Goetz to pay $43 million to Darrell Cabey, one of four young men he'd shot on a
subway car in 1984.
1997 - Doctors at the University of Southern California announced that a child
was born in late 1996 to a 63-year-old woman on hormone therapy.
1997 - Golfer Fuzzy Zoeller, again apologizing for racial comments about Masters
winner Tiger Woods, withdrew from the Greater Greensboro Chrysler Classic.
1997 - The military confirmed that two pieces of wreckage found on a snowy Rocky
Mountain peak were from the Air Force warplane that had vanished on a training
mission over Arizona.
1997 - "Titanic," opens at Lunt-Fontanne Theater NYC
1999 - A three-day celebration marking NATO's 50th anniversary began in
Washington, D.C.
2000 - Elian Gonzalez spent a secluded Easter with
his father at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, a day after the
6-year-old boy was removed from his Miami relatives' home in a pre-dawn raid by
immigration agents.
2000 - A group of 21 tourists and workers were kidnapped from a Malaysian diving
resort by Abu Sayyaf rebels.
2001 - USS Greeneville Cmdr. Scott Waddle was given a letter of reprimand as
punishment for the submarine collision that killed nine people aboard a Japanese
fishing vessel off Hawaii.
Birthdays
Today
1547 - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spanish writer (Don
Quioxite)
1564 - William Shakespeare (poet, playwright: Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, MacBeth and at least three dozen more plays and over 150 sonnets) dies on his 52nd birthday
1708 - Friedrich von Hagedorn, German poet (Versuch einiger Poem)
1775 - Joseph Mallord Turner, England, landscape painter (Shipwreck)
1791 - James Buchanan (15th President of the U.S.A. [1857-1861]) was born
in Franklin County, Pa.
1809 - Eugene-Prosper Prevost, composer
1813 - Stephen Arnold Douglas, (Little Giant), US senator (Lincoln debates) (beat
Abraham
Lincoln for a seat in the state legislature)
1852 - Edwin Markham, US, poet (1st winner of Amer Acad of Poets Award 1937) ("Man with a Hoe")
1858 - Max K E Ludwig Planck, German physicist (Planck Constant, Nobel 1918)
1873 - Sergei Rachmaninoff (musician: pianist, composer: Prelude in C Sharp Minor, Second Piano Concerto)
1882 - Albert Coates, St Petersburg, conductor/composer (Eagle)
1891 - Sergey Sergeyevich Prokofiev, Ukraine, composer (Peter & the Wolf)
1897 - Lucius du Bignon Clay, US, general (WW II)/gov (West Germany)
1899 - Edith Ngaio Marsh, NZ, Kiwi mystery writer (Black Beech & Honeydew)
1899 - Vladimir Nabokov, St Petersburg Russia, novelist (Lolita, Ada)
1906 - Maria Arnoldo, [Adrianus Broeders], photographer/writer
1911 - Simone Simon, France, actress (All Money Can Buy, Ladies in Love)
1916 - Bud Wilkinson (football coach: Oklahoma Sooners)
1921 - Janet Blair (Lafferty) (actress: Black Arrow, Boy's Night Out)
1928 - Shirley Temple Black (child actress: Little Miss Marker, Curly Top, Heidi, The Little Colonel, Poor Little Rich Girl, Wee Willie Winkie, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm; U.S. delegate to the United Nations and chief of protocol)
1932 - Halston, [R Halston Frowick], fashion designer (1972 Hall of Fame)
1932 - Jim Fixx, jogger/writer (Jim Fixx on Running)
1936 - Roy Orbison Vernon Tx,
(singer: Only the Lonely, Running Scared, Oh, Pretty Woman, Crying, Dream Baby, It's Over)
1937 - Don Massengale (golfer)
1939 - Ray Peterson (singer: Tell Laura I Love Her, Corinna, Corinna, The Wonder of You; owner of Dunes record label)
1940 - Lee Majors (Harvey Lee Yeary II) (actor: The Six Million Dollar Man, Big Valley, The Bionic Woman, The Covergirl Murders)
1941 - David Birney (actor: Oh, God! Book 2, Nightfall, Serpico [TV], St. Elsewhere, Great American TV Poll, Bridget Loves Bernie, Live Shot)
1942 - Sandra Dee (Alexandra Zuck) (actress: A Summer Place, Gidget, Tammy and the Doctor)
1943 - Herve Villechaize (actor: Fantasy Island, The Man with the Golden Gun, Rumpelstiltskin, Two Moon Junction)
1944 - Marty Fleckman (hockey)
1944 - Tony Esposito (Hockey Hall of Famer: Chicago Black Hawks: NHL Best Rookie [1970], Vezina Trophy for best goaltender [1970], shared title [1972, 1974]; brother of hockey star, Phil)
1947 - Bernadette Devlin (McAliskey) (Irish civil rights leader)
1949 - Joyce DeWitt (actress: Three's Company)
1960 - Valerie Bertinelli (actress: One Day at a Time, Silent Witness, Ordinary Heroes, Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp)
Famous
deaths
0034 - Christ crucified, according to Isaac Newton (?)
0303 - George, dragon-slaying knight/saint/patron of England (later fired by the Pope as mythical), tortured and beheaded at Nicomedia. St George was a soldier who was reported to have risen to a high rank under Diocletian.
0871 - Ethelred I, king of Wessex/brother of Alfred the Great, die
1014 - Brian Boru, king of Ireland, dies in battle at 87 [H]
1014 - Sweyn Forkbeard, Viking king of England (1013-14), dies
1016 - Ethelred II "the Unready", king of England (979-1016), dies
1616 - William Shakesphere, Engl author (Hamlet), dies on his 52nd birthday
1850 - William Wordsworth, poet, dies at 80
1952 - Elisabeth Schumann, singer, dies
1983 - Buster Crabbe, 400m US swimmer (Olympics-gold-1932), dies at 73
1985 - Sam J Ervin Jr, (Sen-D-NC/leader of Watergate Hearings that led to Nixon's resignation), dies at 88
1986 - Harold Arlen, [Hyman Arluck], US composer, murdered at 81
1986 - Otto Preminger, dir (Advise & Consent, Anatomy of Murder), dies at 79
1992 - Satyajit Ray, Indian director (Distant Thunder/Agantuk), dies at 70
1993 - United Farm Workers founder Cesar Chavez died at age 66 of apparent
natural causes.
1995 - Howard Cosell, sportscaster (Monday Night Football), dies at 77
1996 - Pamela Lyndon Travers, writer (Mary Poppins), dies at 96
1998 - James Earl Ray, who confessed to assassinating the Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr. in 1968 and then insisted he'd been framed, died at a Nashville
hospital at age 70.
If
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