February 23rd

National Day

• World Peace and Understanding Day
• Pinocchio Day
• Diesel Engine Day

Birthdays

• 1971 – Melinda Messenger, English television presenter (Fort Boyard) and former glamour model and Page Three girl, born in Swindon, Wiltshire.
• 1976 – Kelly Macdonald, Scottish actress (Trainspotting, Nanny McPhee, Gosford Park, Line of Duty), born in Glasgow, Scotland.
• 1983 – Emily Blunt, English actress (Sicario, Oppenheimer, Edge of Tomorrow, The Devil Wears Prada), born in the London Borough of Wandsworth, London.
• 1986 – Skylar Grey, American singer and songwriter who co-wrote Eminem and Rihanna’s hit single “Love the Way You Lie”, born in Mazomanie, Wisconsin, United States.
• 1994 – Dakota Fanning, American actress (Man on Fire, The Equalizer 3, War of the Worlds, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood), born in Conyers, Georgia, United States.

On This Day

• 1920 – The first regular broadcasting service in Britain started from Marconi’s studio in Writtle, near Chelmsford. The 30-minute programme was transmitted twice daily. Peter Eckersley opened with ‘Hello! Hello! This is Two-Emma-Toc, Writtle testing.’ Two-Emma-Toc stood for 2MT, the licence granted to Marconi by the General Post Office.
• 2012 – Taxpayer-backed Royal Bank of Scotland announced a full year loss of nearly £2bn, further fuelling the debate about bankers’ pay and bonuses. Nevertheless, £390m in bonuses was still paid to RBS’s 17,000 investment bankers.
• 2014 – The oldest known survivor of the Nazi Holocaust, Alice Herz-Sommer, died in London at the age of She was an accomplished pianist and music teacher and a film about her life was nominated for the best short documentary at the Academy Awards. Born into a Jewish family in Prague in 1903, Ms HerzSommer spent two years in a Nazi concentration camp in Terezin.

Music

• 1974 – ‘Rebel Rebel’ by David Bowie entered the UK chart, the single reached No.5 the following month. Originally written for an aborted Ziggy Stardust musical in late 1973, ‘Rebel Rebel’ was Bowie’s last single in the glam rock style that had been his trademark. It was also his first hit since 1969 not to feature lead guitarist Mick Ronson.
• 1985 – The Smiths scored their first UK No.1 album with Meat Is Murder. The album’s sleeve uses a 1967 photograph of Marine Cpl. Michael Wynn in the Vietnam War, though with the wording on his helmet changed from “Make War Not Love” to “Meat Is Murder”. The original image was used for Emile de Antonio’s 1968 documentary In the Year of the Pig.
• 2019 – Ariana Grande became the first solo artist to hold the top three spots on the US Hot 100 in the same week, a feat previously accomplished only by The Beatles. The songs: No.1: ‘7 Rings’, No.2: ‘Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored’ and at No.3: ‘Thank U, Next’.

History

• 1633 – The birth of Samuel Pepys, London diarist, Secretary to the Admiralty and creator of the modern Royal Navy.
• 1863 – Lake Victoria, in Africa, was declared to be the source of the River Nile by British explorers John Speke and J.A. Grant.
• 1874 – Major Walter Clopton Wingfield patented an outdoor game he called ‘Sphairistike’, later known as lawn tennis. Eventually it was adopted by the All England Croquet Club which sponsored the first Wimbledon championships in 1877.