National Cherry Cheesecake Day
National Picnic Day
Lover’s Day
April 23, 1533 – The Church of England declared that Henry VIII of England and Catherine of Aragon are not married.
Birthday of William Shakespeare (April 23, 1564).
Anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra in 1616; Spanish novelist, author of Don Quixote.
Dutch Boats in a Gale
Birthday of Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775), English landscape painter, admired for unusual use of light and color.
See Famous Works of J. M. W. Turner.
1789 – U.S. President George Washington moved into Walter Franklin House (also known as the Samuel Osgood House), New York. It was the first executive mansion.
Birthday of James Buchanan, (1791), 15th president of the United States. Scholars consistently rank Buchanan as one of the two or three worst American presidents because he did not act to prevent the Civil War.
1900 – The word “hillbilly” was first used in print in an article in the “New York Journal.” It was spelled “Hill-Billie”. It was defined as:
“A Hill-Billie is a free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him.”
1910 – Theodore Roosevelt made his The Man in the Arena speech.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”