December 23rd

National Day

• National Christmas Movie Marathon Day
• Your star sign is Capricorn and your birthstone is Blue Topaz.

Birthdays

• 1956 – Dave Murray, English guitarist and member of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden (“Run to the Hills”, “The Number of the Beast”), born in Edmonton, London.
• 1957 – Trisha Goddard, English television presenter known for her television talk show Trisha, born in Hackney, London.
• 1961 – Carol Smillie, Scottish former television presenter and model (Changing Rooms, Wheel of Fortune), born in Glasgow, Scotland.
• 1977 – Matt Baker, English television presenter (Blue Peter from 1996 to 2006, BBC One’s Countryfile, and The One Show), born in Easington, County Durham.
• 1978 – Jodie Marsh, English media personality (Essex Wives), model and bodybuilder, born in Brentwood, Essex.
• 1985 – Harry Judd, English musician, dancer and the drummer for the British pop rock band McFly (“All About You”, “Obviously”), born in Chelmsford, Essex.
• 1991 – Kyren Wilson, English professional snooker player (winner of 10 ranking titles and world champion in 2024), born in Kettering, Northamptonshire.

On This Day

• 1937 – The first flight of the Vickers Wellington, a British twin-engine, long range medium bomber designed at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey. It was widely used as a night bomber in the early years of the Second World War, before being displaced as a bomber by the larger four-engine “heavies” such as the Avro Lancaster.
• 1956 – The United Nations Emergency Force took over in Egypt after British and French forces withdrew from Port Said and Port Fuad, effectively ending the Suez Crisis conflict.
• 1970 – Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap broke the world record as the longest-running play hitting its 7,511th performance, marking a major milestone in its extraordinary continuous run (though it’s had brief pauses for events like the pandemic), and continues to run at London Theatre tickets St Martin’s Theatre, now celebrating over 70 years and 30,000 performances.
• 1972 – Sixteen plane crash survivors were rescued after being stranded in the Andes for seventy days. Although 33 of the 45 onboard survived the crash, injuries and severe weather conditions killed many more. Survivors had to resort to cannibalism in order to stay alive.
• 1981 – Geoffrey Boycott became the leading Test run-scorer surpassing Sir Garfield Sobers’s record of 8,032 runs by scoring his 22nd and final Test century (105), finishing his Test career with 8,114 runs in 108 matches, solidifying his legacy as a master accumulator before his controversial exit from the England team.
• 1986 – The experimental aircraft Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, landed in California, completing the first non-stop, around-the-world flight without refueling.
• 1987 – The first ‘Scrooge’ award by the Low Pay Unit was made to a Wiltshire stable-owner who paid a qualified groom only £28 a week. The runner-up was a doctor employing a telephonist for 30p an hour. The prize was a copy of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
• 1992 – The BBC investigated a leak which led to the Queen’s Christmas speech being published in the Sun newspaper, ahead of its broadcast on the BBC. The leak led to a clampdown on the future advance availability of the speech to the world’s press.
• 1999 – George Harrison’s home in Maui in the Hawaiian Islands was broken into by Cristin Keleher, who cooked a frozen pizza, drank beer from the fridge, started some laundry and phoned her mother in New Jersey. Keleher was later arrested and charged with burglary and theft.
• 2011 – The Duke of Edinburgh was taken to Papworth hospital in Cambridgeshire after complaining of chest pains, and was treated for a blocked coronary artery. The procedure was declared a success but he was kept in for four nights so that doctors could keep a check on his recovery.
• 2013 – Grandfather John McCafferty (71) entered the record books as the world’s longest-surviving heart transplant patient at 30 years, 11 months and 11 days. At the time of his heart transplant in 1982 he was told that he might expect to live for another five years if the procedure was a success.
• 2014 – Ashley Stansfield, a 48-year-old man released on licence in 2014, gained public attention because he was sent back to prison for a curfew breach that occurred while he was taking a new job. Stansfield was serving an 18-month sentence for conspiracy to steal a car and had a night-time curfew that ended at 7:00 am. He was offered a job as a delivery driver for a company in London that required him to start work at 6:15 am, 45 minutes before his curfew expired.
• 2024 – Ugandan-British ultrarunner Deo Kato completes trek from Cape Town, South Africa to London to highlight the story of human migration. It was an 8,230-mile journey that took 518 days to complete.

• 1966 – Britain’s iconic rock/pop TV show Ready, Steady, Go! aired its final episode, titled “Ready, Steady, Goes!” marking the end of an era for the youth-focused show, which was cancelled due to rising costs and competition from BBC’s Top of the Pops. The special guests for the farewell show were Mick Jagger, The Who, Eric Burdon, The Spencer Davis Group, Donovan and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich.
• 1977 – Singer-songwriter Cat Stevens converts to Islam and changes his name to Yusuf Islam. Born Steven Georgiou, he changed his name to Cat Stevens early on in his career and released his debut album “Matthew and Son” in 1967.
• 1989 – Phil Collins started a four week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Another Day In Paradise’, (No.2 on the UK Singles Chart) his 7th US solo No.1. Taken from his No.1 album …But Seriously ‘Another Day in Paradise’ was written to bring attention to the problem of homelessness.
• 1999 – George Harrison’s home in Maui in the Hawaiian Islands was broken into by Cristin Keleher, who cooked a frozen pizza, drank beer from the fridge, started some laundry and phoned her mother in New Jersey. Keleher was later arrested and charged with burglary and theft.
• 2000 – Simply Red singer Mick Hucknall was given a police caution for possessing cocaine and cannabis. Police found the Class A and Class B drugs at his Surrey home after a woman falsely accused him of rape in November.
• 2002 – Sir Paul McCartney was granted his own coat of arms by the College of Arms, the English heraldic body formed in 1484. The crest featured a bird that appeared to be holding a guitar in its claw. The motto is “Ecce Cor Meum”, Latin for ‘Behold My Heart’, which is the title of an oratorio he composed.
• 2007 – The Police were named as the highest earning touring group for the past year, bringing in nearly £66.5m. The band’s 54 date North American tour had generated almost double the total of the second-placed act, Country star Kenny Chesney.
• 2008 – A spokesman for Michael Jackson denied reports the singer was suffering from a rare respiratory disease and was in need of a lung transplant. Dr Tohme Tohme said in a statement issued to Reuters that stories claiming the singer was unwell were not true. He added that author Ian Halperin had made the claims to promote his unauthorised biography of the 50-year-old singer.
• 2013 – The Mail On Sunday reported that documents they obtained from the Cabinet Office via the Freedom of Information Act showed that George Harrison, who passed away in 2001, turned down the chance to be included in the New Year’s Honours List in 2000. The OBE was recommended by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport who said that Harrison should be recognised for his contribution to the music industry.

• 1688 – As part of the Glorious Revolution to overthrow King James II of England (James VII of Scotland), the KIng fled to Paris ‘On This Day’ after being deposed in favour of his nephew, William of Orange and his daughter Mary.
• 1732 – The birth, in Preston, Lancashire, of Sir Richard Arkwright, the youngest of 16 children. A self-made man, he was a leading entrepreneur of the Industrial Revolution and the cotton spinning industry. He was the creator of the modern factory system, especially in his mill at Cromford, Derbyshire which also had the world’s first water-powered mill.
• 1815 – Jane Austen’s novel Emma was first published, though the title page dated it 1816. It was the last novel Austen published before her death and was dedicated to the Prince Regent.
• 1834 – English architect Joseph Hansom, who designed the Town Hall at Lutterworth, Leicestershire patented the horse drawn taxi, known as the Hansom Cab. He went on to sell the patent to a company for £10,000 but the sum was never paid. The first Hansom Cab travelled down Hinckley’s Coventry Road in 1835. They were exported worldwide and became a feature of the 19th-century street scene.
• 1888 – Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear when tempers flared with Paul Gauguin, the artist with whom he had been working for a while in Arles. Van Gogh’s illness revealed itself: he began to hallucinate and suffered attacks in which he lost consciousness.