On This Day

[Altobelli]

23 NOVEMBER

1248 Conquest of Seville by Christian troops under King Ferdinand III of Castile after the city capitulates

1499 The Pretender to the throne, Flemish impostor Perkin Warbeck, was hanged for reportedly attempting to escape from the Tower of London. He had invaded England in 1497, claiming to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, the younger son of King Edward IV.

1644 Areopagitica, a pamphlet by John Milton, decrying censorship, is published

1852 Britain's first four pillar boxes came into service on the Channel Island of Jersey. The idea came from English novelist Anthony Trollope who worked for the General Post Office in London before becoming a writer.

1863 Patent granted for a process of making color photographs

1867 The Manchester Martyrs (William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin, and Michael O'Brien, all members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood) were hanged in Manchester for killing a police officer whilst freeing two Irish nationalists from custody.

1869 In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper Cutty Sark is launched - one of the last clippers ever built, and the only one still surviving

1887 Boris Karloff, English actor famous for his roles in horror films, was born.

1889 The first jukebox goes into operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco

1896 The first Royal Command Performance for the British Sovereign. The event was in the Red Drawing Room at Windsor Castle, before H.M. Queen Victoria.

1905 British Liberal Party leader Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman advocated Home Rule for Ireland, by instalments, in a controversial speech in Scotland.

1910 American born Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen was hanged at Pentonville Prison in London after being found guilty of poisoning his wife and dismembering her body.

1915 ‘Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag’, the famous First World War song, was published, by Felix Powell and George Asaf, who were really two brothers from Wales.

1924 Edwin Hubble's scientific discovery that Andromeda is actually another galaxy, and that the Milky Way is only one of many such galaxies in the universe, is first published

1936 Life magazine is reborn as a photo magazine and enjoys instant success

1942 Chinese steward Poon Lim begins 133 days arift after British ship SS Benlomond torpedoed by german U-boat and he is the sole survivor

1954 The birth of Ross Brawn, English motorsport engineer and Formula One team principal. He worked as the technical director of the championship-winning Benetton and Ferrari Formula One teams.

1959 French President Charles de Gaulle declares in a speech in Strasbourg his vision for "Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals".

1962 British surgeon John Charnley developed a technique at Wrightington Hospital Lancashire that revolutionised hip replacement operations. He was later knighted for his efforts and his work became the standard procedure across the world.

1963 The BBC broadcast the first ever episode of Doctor Who, starring William Hartnell as the Doctor, and Ann Ford as his first female companion. It is the world's longest running science fiction drama.The producer, Sydney Newman, thought the Daleks, designed by Ray Cusick, were ‘bug-eyed monsters’ and totally wrong for the series. Roath Lock studios in the Porth Teigr area of Cardiff Bay is the home of Doctor Who and its spin-off, 'Class'.

1976 British comedians Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise received the Order of the British Empire (OBE) from Queen Elizabeth II. There is a statue of Eric Morecambe on the promenade at Morecambe, Lancashire.

1976 Apneist Jacques Mayol is the first man to reach a depth of 100 m undersea without breathing equipment

1978 A Birmingham nightclub was ordered to open its doors to black and Chinese people.

1979 In Dublin, Thomas McMahon was found guilty of the murder of Lord Mountbatten, and given a life sentence.

1981 Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17, giving the CIA the authority to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua

1984 Almost 1,000 passengers were trapped in smoke filled tunnels for three hours after a fire at Oxford Circus underground station.

1990 The death of the author Roald Dahl. He was born in Cardiff, (to Norwegian parents). Roald Dahl Plass is a public plaza in the heart of Cardiff Bay. His notable works include James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox, George's Marvellous Medicine and The BFG (Big Friendly Giant

1992 The first smartphone, the IBM Simon, is introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada

1993 English artist Rachel Whiteread won both the £20,000 Turner Prize award for best British modern artist and the £40,000 K Foundation art award for the worst artist of the year. She was the first woman to win Turner prize. and 2001 she became the third artist to provide a sculpture for the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, an inverted 11 ton resin cast of the plinth itself.

2001 The Convention on Cybercrime is signed in Budapest, Hungary

2005 Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, is elected president of Liberia, the first woman to lead an African country

2014 Veteran sailor Sir Robin Knox-Johnston (aged 75) spoke of the 'warm and friendly' reception he received after claiming third place in his class of the singlehanded transatlantic Route du Rhum race, from St Malo in France to Guadeloupe in the Caribbean. Sir Robin, a grandfather of five, was the first person ever to sail single-handed and non-stop, around the world, in 1969.

2016 Thomas Mair was found guilty of the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox (16th June 2016). He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole life order.

Famous Birthday's

Franklin Pierce
(1804 - 1869)



Billy the Kid
(1859 - 1881)

Harpo Marx
(1888 - 1964)

Lew Hoad
(1934 - 1994)

Alan Mullery
76th Birthday

Merv Hughes
56th Birthday

Miley Cyrus
25th Birthday

Famous Deaths

Hawley Harvey Crippen [Dr Crippen] Hanged at 48 in Pentonville
(1862 - 1910)

André Malraux
(1901 - 1976)



Roald Dahl
(1916 - 1990)

Mary Whitehouse
(1910 - 2001)

Larry Hagman
(1931 - 2012)



Andrew Sachs
(1930 - 2016)

Famous Weddings

1929 Academy Award-winning Shirley Booth marries comic actor Ed Gardner

1940 RAF pilot Guy Gibson (22) weds show dancer and actress Eve Moore in Penarth’s Anglican Church

1940 Film director David Lean (32) weds actress Kay Walsh (29)

1955 Physicist William Shockley (45) weds psychiatric nurse Emmy Lanning

1963 "12 Angry Men" director Sidney Lumet (39) weds Lena Horne's daughter Gail Jones