April 23: Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day
Geek Holiday: International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day. Created in 2007 by Jo Walton in response to a rant by Howard V. Hendrix about people publishing their works for free on the internet.
Geek Events to celebrate on April 23:
1867 – William Lincoln patents the zoetrope, a machine that shows animated pictures by mounting a strip of drawings in a wheel.
2009 – The gamma ray burst GRB 090423 is observed for 10 seconds. The event signals the most distant object of any kind and also the oldest known object in the universe.
April 23 birthdays of geeky note:
1564 – William Shakespeare, English writer and actor (d. 1616) (traditional approximate birth date (in the Julian calendar) based on April 25th baptism)
1746 – Félix Vicq-d’Azyr, French physician and anatomist (d. 1794). He theorized the biological concept of homology and is the originator of comparative anatomy—the importance of which can only be rivaled by the fact that his name would earn about a zillion points on a Scrabble board.