Birthday-April 23

Happy Birthday!
April 23

Born on April 23

William Shakespeare
Poet & Playwright
4-23-1544
Max Planck
Nobel Physicist
4-23-1858
Frank Borzage
Film Director
4-23-1894
Lester Pearson
Nobel Diplomat
4-23-1897
Warren Spahn
Baseball Pitcher
4-23-1921
Shirley Temple
Actress
4-23-1928

Events on April 23

April 23, 1344: King
Edward III founded
Order of the Garter
April 23, 1775: Mozart's
opera The Shephard King
premieres in Salzburg
April 23, 1789: Washington
resides at Presidential Mansion
Cherry Street, New York City

April 23, 1937:
Carl Hubbell wins
17th straight game
April 23, 1939:
Ted Williams hits
1st of 521 homers
April 23, 1954:
Hank Aaron hits
1st of 755 homers
April 23, 2000:
"Me at the Zoo":
First YouTube Video

April 23 Postmarks on Postage Stamps

April 23, 1953: U.S. 1019
Washington Territory
First Day Naval Service
April 23, 1964:
Great Britain 409
Shakespeare 1st Day

April 23, 1973: U.S. 1488
Copernicus First Day Cover
honoring his 500th birthday

April 23: Journal Writings on this Date

Goethe
(1749-1832) Girgenti, April 23, 1787, Evening:
From Sciacca to this place is a good day's ride. Shortly after Sciacca we halted
to look at the thermal baths. A hot spring, with a pungent odour of sulphur, gushes
out of a rock. The water tastes salty, but not foul. Can it be that the sulphur fumes
are not produced till it issues into the open air? A little higher up, there is a spring
of cool, odourless water, and on the top of the hill stands the cloister where the
steam baths are a dense cloud of vapour was rising from them into the pure air.
The beach here is made up of limestone fragments only; quartz and hornstone
have abruptly disappeared. I inspected the small rivers: Caltabellotta, Macaluba
and Platani. The first two carried limestone debris only, but in the bed of the Platani
I found yellow marble and iron pyrites, the eternal companions of that more noble
rock. Some small pieces of lava caught my eye, for I did not expect to find any
volcanic material in these parts. I even believe they must have been transported
here from far away to serve some human purpose; probably they were fragments
of old millstones. In he neighborhood of Monteallegro, thick beds of solid gypsum
overlie and interlie the beds of limestone. The little town of Caltabellotta looks so
odd, perched up on its crag. — Italian Journey (1786-1788), pp. 257-258

Eugène Delacroix
(1798-1863)
Paris, April 23, 1847:
In the evening, Villot came to keep me company. He tells me that Titian, at the end
of his life, used to say that he was beginning to learn his trade. Tintoretto used to
work at drawing tremendously, outside of his pictures; he copied certain heads of Vitellius hundreds of times, drawings by Michelangelo, etc.
Paris, April 23, 1849:
From knowledge which has been growing inescapable for a year. I believe one can
affirm that all progress must necessarily carry with it not a still greater progress,
but finally the negation of progress, a return to the point from which we set out.
The history of the human race is there to prove it... We must change. That which
ancient wisdom had discovered, before having made so many experiments, must
necessarily be accepted by us, and we must submit to it. What is at present dying
out among us will doubtless recreate itself, or will maintain itself at some other
place, for a time of more or less duration.
— Journal, 4-23-1847, p. 161; 4-23-1849, pp.196-197

Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862) Concord, Massachusetts, April 23, 1841:
Any greatness is not to be mistaken. Who shall cavil at it? It stands once for all
on a level with the heroes of history. It is not to be patronized. It goes alone.
When I hear music, I flutter, and am the scene of life, as a fleet of merchantmen
when the wind rises.
— Journal (1841), p. 251

Concord, Massachusetts, April 23, 1852:
It is a pleasant sight, among the pleasantest, at this season, to see the at first
reddish anthers of the sterile catkins of our earliest willow bursting forth on their
upper sides like rays of sunshine from amidst the downy fog, turning a more and
more lively yellow as the pollen appears,— like a flash of sulphur. It is like the sun
bursting out of a downy cloud or mists. I hear this morning, in the pine woods above
the railroad bridge, for the first time, that delicious cool-sounding wetter-wetter-wetter-wetter-wet' from that small bird I (pine warbler?) in the tops of the pines.
I associate it with the cool, moist, evergreen spring woods.
— Journal (1852), p. 458

Concord, Massachusetts, April 23, 1856:
The wind is now westerly and pretty strong. No sap to be seen in the bass.
The white birch sap flows yet from a stump cut last fall, and a few small bees,
flies, etc., are attracted by it. Along the shore by Dove Rock I hear a faint tsecp
and, looking sharp, detect upon a maple like a fox-colored sparrow, a white-
throated sparrow. It soon flies to the ground amid the birches two or three rods
distant, a plump-looking bird and, with its bright white and yellow marks on
the head distinctly separated from the slate-color, methinks the most brilliant
of the sparrows. Those bright colors, however, are not commonly observed.
— Journal (1856), p. 301

April 23: Birth Flower, Birthstone, Zodiac Sign

Birth Flower: Daisy
Innocence, loyal love, purity,
beauty, keeper of secrets

Birthstone: Diamond
Love, strength, courage,
Imagination & illumination

Zodiac Sign: Taurus, the Bull
Patience, persistence, reliable,
hard work, strength, tenacity

Goethe (1749-1832)	Girgenti, April 23, 1787, Evening: From Sciacca to this place is a good day's ride. Shortly after Sciacca we halted to look at the thermal baths. A hot spring, with a pungent odour of sulphur, gushes out of a rock. The water tastes salty, but not foul. Can it be that the sulphur fumes are not produced till it issues into the open air? A little higher up, there is a spring of cool, odourless water, and on the top of the hill stands the cloister where the steam baths are a dense cloud of vapour was rising from them into the pure air. The beach here is made up of limestone fragments only; quartz and hornstone have abruptly disappeared. I inspected the small rivers: Caltabellotta, Macaluba and Platani. The first two carried limestone debris only, but in the bed of the Platani I found yellow marble and iron pyrites, the eternal companions of that more noble rock. Some small pieces of lava caught my eye, for I did not expect to find any volcanic material in these parts. I even believe they must have been transported here from far away to serve some human purpose; probably they were fragments of old millstones. In he neighborhood of Monteallegro, thick beds of solid gypsum overlie and interlie the beds of limestone. The little town of Caltabellotta looks so odd, perched up on its crag. — Italian Journey (1786-1788), pp. 257-258
Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)	Paris, April 23, 1847: In the evening, Villot came to keep me company. He tells me that Titian, at the end of his life, used to say that he was beginning to learn his trade. Tintoretto used to work at drawing tremendously, outside of his pictures; he copied certain heads of Vitellius hundreds of times, drawings by Michelangelo, etc. Paris, April 23, 1849: From knowledge which has been growing inescapable for a year. I believe one can affirm that all progress must necessarily carry with it not a still greater progress, but finally the negation of progress, a return to the point from which we set out. The history of the human race is there to prove it... We must change. That which ancient wisdom had discovered, before having made so many experiments, must necessarily be accepted by us, and we must submit to it. What is at present dying out among us will doubtless recreate itself, or will maintain itself at some other place, for a time of more or less duration. — Journal, 4-23-1847, p. 161; 4-23-1849, pp.196-197
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)	Concord, Massachusetts, April 23, 1841: Any greatness is not to be mistaken. Who shall cavil at it? It stands once for all on a level with the heroes of history. It is not to be patronized. It goes alone. When I hear music, I flutter, and am the scene of life, as a fleet of merchantmen when the wind rises. — Journal (1841), p. 251 Concord, Massachusetts, April 23, 1852: It is a pleasant sight, among the pleasantest, at this season, to see the at first reddish anthers of the sterile catkins of our earliest willow bursting forth on their upper sides like rays of sunshine from amidst the downy fog, turning a more and more lively yellow as the pollen appears,— like a flash of sulphur. It is like the sun bursting out of a downy cloud or mists. I hear this morning, in the pine woods above the railroad bridge, for the first time, that delicious cool-sounding wetter-wetter-wetter-wetter-wet' from that small bird I (pine warbler?) in the tops of the pines. I associate it with the cool, moist, evergreen spring woods. — Journal (1852), p. 458 Concord, Massachusetts, April 23, 1856: The wind is now westerly and pretty strong. No sap to be seen in the bass. The white birch sap flows yet from a stump cut last fall, and a few small bees, flies, etc., are attracted by it. Along the shore by Dove Rock I hear a faint tsecp and, looking sharp, detect upon a maple like a fox-colored sparrow, a white- throated sparrow. It soon flies to the ground amid the birches two or three rods distant, a plump-looking bird and, with its bright white and yellow marks on the head distinctly separated from the slate-color, methinks the most brilliant of the sparrows. Those bright colors, however, are not commonly observed. — Journal (1856), p. 301