November 23 in History

1644 – John Milton published Areopagitica, a pamphlet decrying censorship.

1874 – A paper by Ferdinand Braun was published in the Annalen der Physik und Chemie describing his discovery of the electrical rectifier effect, the first semi-conductor.

1889 – Debut of the first jukebox, the ‘nickel-in-the-slot phonograph’, at the Palais Royale Saloon, San Francisco. It could only be loaded with one cylinder (song) at a time.

1897 – The patent (#594,114) for a hand-cranked pencil sharpener was granted to John Lee Love of Fall River, Massachusetts.

1924 – Edwin Hubble’s discovery that the Andromeda Nebula was actually another island universe (galaxy) far outside our own was published in The New York Times.

1936 – Originally started in 1883, Life magazine was shifted into a picture magazine by Time magazine’s Henry R Luce. Before that, is was humor and general interest magazine.

#1 Hit November 23, 1963 – December 6, 1963: Dale & Grace – I’m Leaving It Up to You

1963 – The first episode of the BBC’s Doctor Who premiered. ‘Doctor Who’ is not his name – we don’t know it. He is simply ‘The Doctor.’

1969 – The Rolling Stones made their final appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, singing featured the songs Gimme Shelter, Love In Vain, and Honky Tonk Woman.

#1 Hit November 23, 1974 – December 6, 1974: Billy Swan – I Can Help

1975 – NBC joined Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (in progress) after an overtime NFL game. Kids missed about 45 minutes of the film.

1980 (Earthquake) Conza, Italy – estimated 3,000 people were killed.

1982 – Terms of Endearment was released in US theaters.

#1 Hit November 23, 1991 – November 29, 1991: Michael Bolton – When A Man Loves A Woman

1991 – Freddie Mercury (September 5,  1946 – November 24,  1991) confirmed that he had AIDS the day before he died.

1992 – The first ‘smartphone’, the IBM Simon, was introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada.

1993 – The Food Network made its debut.

2002 – The Miss World contest was forced to relocate to London from Abuja after riots by Islamic extremists opposed to the contest left more than 100 people dead and hundreds injured in Nigeria.

2015 – Blue Origin’s New Shepard space vehicle became the first rocket to successfully fly to space and then return to Earth for a controlled, vertical landing.