NOW & THEN
23 NOVEMBER
1499: Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the English throne, was hanged at Tyburn for reportedly attempting to escape from the Tower of London.
1783: Annapolis, Maryland became the temporary capital of the USA, following the signing of the Treaty of Paris.
1852: Britain’s first pillar-boxes, erected in St Helier, Jersey, were brought into public use.
1858: The General Medical Council held its first meeting in London.
1867: The Manchester Martyrs were hanged at Salford Gaol for the murder of a policeman.
1889: The world’s first jukebox was installed in San Francisco.
1890: Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was separated from the Netherlands.
1892: Pierre de Coubertin launched his plan for the modern Olympic Games.
1906: Joseph Smith, leader of the Mormon church, was convicted of polygamy.
1936: The weekly news magazine, Life, was published for the first time.
1943: The British Forces Broadcasting Service went into operation.
1943: United States forces defeated Japanese in the Pacific battle of Tarawa.
1948: The zoom lens was patented by Dr Frank Gerard Back.
1955: Elvis Presley signed with the RCA Corporation.
1963: Docto r Who was first broadcast on television, with William Hartnell playing the Doctor.
1964: The Vatican abolished Latin as the official language of Roman Catholic liturgy.
1971: China took its seat as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
1977: Israel paraded tanks on its side of Lebanese border as warning to Syrian troops and Palestine guerrillas to stay away from the frontier.
1989: The government announced an extra £19 million for haemophiliacs infected with the HIV virus.
1989: At least 300,000 people jammed Prague’s Wenceslas Square to demand democratic reforms.
1990: Iraq ended curfew in occupied Kuwait, but began calling up army reservists in their thirties.
1991: Freddie Mercury confirmed that he had Aids; he died the following day.
1991: Ian Richter, British businessman, was released from life sentence for bribery in Baghdad after the government agreed to release £70 million of Iraq’s frozen assets for food and medicine.
1993: 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.
2001: The Convention on Cybercrime was signed in Budapest, Hungary.
2005: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected president of Liberia and became the first woman to lead an African country.
2007: MS Explorer, a cruise ship carrying 154 people, sank in the Antarctic Ocean south of Argentina after hitting an iceberg near the South Shetland Islands. There were no fatalities.
BIRTHDAYS
Zoë Ball, television presenter, 51; Kelly Brook, model and actress, 42; Miley Cyrus, actress and singer, 29; Kevin Gallacher, Scottish footballer, 55; Bruce Hornsby, singer, 67; Sue Nicholls, actress (Coronation Street), 78; Asafa Powell, sprinter, 39; Diana Quick, actress, 75; Shane Gould MBE, triple Olympic gold medalwinning swimmer, 65; Maxwell Caulfield, actor, 62; Ahmed Shehzad, Pakistan Test cricketer, 30; Alan Mullery MBE, footballer, 80; Merv Hughes, Australian cricketer, 60; Franco Nero, actor, 80; Francis Cabrel, French singer-songwriter, composer and guitarist, 68.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1887 Boris Karloff (William Henry Pratt), actor; 1888 “Harpo” Marx, comedian; 1909 Nigel Tranter, Scottish novelist; 1916 Michael Gough, actor. Deaths: 1910 Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen, murderer; 1934 Arthur Wing Pinero, dramatist; 1979 Merle Oberon, actress; 1990 Roald Dahl, children’s author; 1991 Klaus Kinski, actor; 1995 Junior Walker, musician; 1995 Louis Malle, film director; 2001 Mary Whitehouse, morality campaigner; 2010 Ingrid Pitt, actress; 2012 Larry Hagman, US actor; 2016 Andrew Sachs, actor.