August 23rd "2023" daily prep

Welcome to day 235 of the year! Known as Sponge Cake Day and Ride The Wind Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of November 30th 2022 and your star sign is “Virgo”.
2005 – Hilary Lister, from Kent, became the first quadriplegic sailor to cross the English Channel. She achieved this by using controls powered by her breath to navigate her boat and made the crossing in six hours thirteen minutes.
Todays birthdays
1949 – Geoff Capes (74), British former shot putter, strongman and professional Highland Games competitor, born in Holbeach, Lincolnshire.
1962 – Shaun Ryder (61), English singer, songwriter and lead singer of Happy Mondays, born in Salford, Greater Manchester.
1974 – Ray Park (49), Scottish actor and stuntman best known for physically portraying Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, born in Glasgow, Scotland.
1975 – Eliza Carthy MBE (48), English folk musician known for both singing and playing the fiddle, born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.
1979 – Ritchie Neville (44), British singer, songwriter and member of the boy band “FIVE”, born in Solihull, West Midlands.
The day today
1914 – World War I: The Battle of Mons – the first major battle of World War I.
1961 – Police launched a murder hunt after a man was found shot dead and his companion seriously wounded in a lay-by in Bedfordshire. Valerie Storie, who survived the shooting, identified James Hanratty as her attacker. Hanratty was convicted of the murder in 1962 and sentenced to death, becoming one of the last people to be hanged in Britain before capital punishment was abolished.
2001 – J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter creator) was given the Walpole Medal of Excellence for promoting British Excellence.
2005 – Hilary Lister, from Kent, became the first quadriplegic sailor to cross the English Channel. She achieved this by using controls powered by her breath to navigate her boat and made the crossing in six hours thirteen minutes.
2010 – Publisher Harper Collins and the BBC began a court battle over a book that revealed the identity of Top Gear’s The Stig to be the former Formula Three driver Ben Collins. Henceforth Collins was always referred to by the Top Gear presenters as ‘Sacked Stig’.
Today in music
1966 – The Beatles were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with the double a sided ‘Yellow Submarine – Eleanor Rigby’. The group’s eleventh No.1. Paul McCartney said he came up with the name Eleanor from actress Eleanor Bron, who had starred with The Beatles in the film Help! Rigby came from the name of a store in Bristol, Rigby & Evens Ltd, Wine & Spirit Shippers.
1971 – Diana Ross was at No.1 on the UK singles chart ‘I’m Still Waiting’, the singers first solo UK No.1. The song which spent four weeks at the top of the charts was released after BBC Radio 1 DJ Tony Blackburn featured it heavily on his morning programme.
1980 – David Bowie was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Ashes To Ashes’ his second UK No.1. Taken from the Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) album, the song continued the story of Major Tom from Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’.
2008 – Madonna kicked off her 86-date Sticky & Sweet Tour at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. It became the highest grossing tour by a solo artist, breaking the previous record Madonna achieved with her 2006 Confessions Tour.
2019 – Taylor Swift released her seventh studio album Lover. All of the album’s 18 tracks charted on the Hot 100, breaking the all-time female record for the most simultaneous entries.
Historical events
1305 – Scottish patriot William Wallace was hanged, beheaded, and quartered in London, and his body parts were later displayed in different cities. His barbaric murder came as a result of Wallace’s efforts to free Scotland from the occupying English forces.
1617 – The first one-way streets were introduced in London.
1650 – Colonel George Monck of the English Army formed Monck’s Regiment of Foot, which later became the Coldstream Guards.
1839 – Britain captured Hong Kong as a base as it prepared for war with China. The ensuing 3 year conflict was later to be known as the First Opium War.
1923 – Captain Lowell Smith and Lieutenant John P. Richter perform the first mid-air refueling on De Havilland DH-4B, setting an endurance flight record of 37 hours.
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