August 21st "2023" daily prep

Welcome to day 233 of the year! Known as Poet’s Day as well as Senior Citizen’s Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of November 28th 2022 and have the star sign “Leo”.
1996 – The new Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in Southwark, London, opened with a production of Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Todays birthdays
1956 – Kim Cattrall (67), British Canadian actress (Big Trouble in Little China, Sex and the City), born in Liverpool.
1967 – Carrie-Anne Moss (56), Canadian actress (The Matrix Trilogy), born in Vancouver, British Columbia.
1971 – Liam Howlett (52), English record producer, musician, songwriter, co-founder and leader of the British electronic band the Prodigy, born in Braintree, Essex.
1986 – Usain Bolt (37), Jamaican sprinter (Olympic gold 100m/200m 2008, 12, 16), born in Sherwood Content, Jamaica.
1993 – Millie Bright (30), English professional footballer who plays as a defender for Chelsea and the England national team, born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire.
The day today
1914 – Private John Parr became the first British man to be shot and killed during World War I. Official registers showed that he was 20 years old but, like many young soldiers, he had lied about his age and he was just 16.
1976 – Mary Langdon became Britain’s first female firefighter when she joined the East Sussex Brigade.
1988 – More flexible licensing laws allowed public houses to stay open 12 hours in the day, except on Sunday.
2015 – A 108-year-old message in a bottle washed up on a beach in Amrum, Germany. The bottle was one of around 1,000 released in the UK as part of an experiment run by the Marine Biological Association of the UK.
2017 – Restoration work halted the chimes of Big Ben from noon, for four years of conservation work on the Elizabeth Tower. The Tower is 96 metres high and home to the bells that make up the Great Clock, the most photographed building in Britain. The Great Bell, popularly called Big Ben, weighs 13.7 tonnes and has struck every hour with almost unbroken service for 157 years. It is accompanied by four quarter bells, which weigh between 1 and 4 tonnes each and chime every 15 minutes.
Today in music
1961 – Patsy Cline recorded the classic Willie Nelson song, ‘Crazy’. Cline was still on crutches after going through a car windshield in a head-on collision two months earlier and had difficulty reaching the high notes of the song at first due to her broken ribs. ‘Crazy’ spent 21 weeks on the chart and eventually became one of her signature tunes.
1968 – Tommy James and The Shondells returned to the UK No.1 position for the second time with the single ‘Mony Mony’. In a peculiar twist, in 1987 Billy Idol’s version of the song replaced another Tommy James hit at No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’, covered by Tiffany.
1976 – The Rolling Stones, 10CC, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Todd Rundgren’s Utopia and Hot Tuna all appeared at The Knebworth Festival, Hertfordshire, England, tickets £4.50.
1997 – Oasis’ third album ‘Be Here Now’, became one of the fastest selling albums ever, shifting over 350,000 units on the first day of release. The cover image for Be Here Now was shot at Stocks House in Hertfordshire, the former home of Victor Lownes, the head of the Playboy Clubs in the UK.
2002 – Atomic Kitten were facing legal action after sacking Andy McCluskey, the songwriter who wrote the bands first No.1 ‘Whole Again.’ The band were about to be dropped by Innocent records when they recorded the song that became a huge hit. The girls then wanted a bigger share of royalties, which McCluskey had turned down. Under the original deal each girl got 4p from the sale of one single.
Historical events
1689 – The Battle of Dunkeld took place, between Jacobite clans supporting the deposed King James VII of Scotland and a government regiment of covenanters, led by the 27 year old Colonel William Cleland supporting William of Orange, King of Scotland.
1770 – James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.
1808 – The Battle of Vimeiro in which the British and Portuguese forces under General Arthur Wellesley (later known as the Duke of Wellington) defeated the French under Major-General Jean-Andoche Junot near the village of Vimeiro in Portugal. The battle put an end to the first French invasion of Portugal.
1841 – John Hampton patented the Venetian blind. Within the patent, Hampton noted three benefits of the blinds; greater durability, easier operation, and more economical.

1911 – Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Mona Lisa painting was stolen from the Louvre, Paris, by Vincenzo Perugia. The painting was retrieved in November 1913, and Perugia pleaded guilty, spending eight months behind bars.

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