Donald Forrester Brown (23 February 1890 – 1 October 1916) was a New Zealand recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for valour in the face of the enemy that could be awarded at that time to members of the British and Commonwealth armed forces. Born in Dunedin, Brown was a farmer when the First World War began. In late 1915, he volunteered for service abroad with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) and was posted to the 2nd Battalion, the Otago Infantry Regiment. Fighting on the Western Front, he performed the actions that led to the award of the Victoria Cross in September 1916 during the Battle of Flers–Courcelette, part of the Somme offensive. As he was killed several days later during the Battle of Le Transloy, the award was made posthumously. His Victoria Cross was the second to be awarded to a soldier serving with the NZEF during the war and was the first earned in an action on the Western Front. (Full article...)

• ...that the Roman de Fergus is the earliest piece of non-Celtic vernacular literature to have survived from Scotland?
• ...that the Philharmonia Hungarica made the first complete recording of Haydn's symphonies, was an orchestra founded by Hungarian exiles and funded by the West German government during the Cold War?
• ...that the dachas of the Russian poets Boris Pasternak, Korney Chukovsky, and Bulat Okudzhava in the village of Peredelkino near Moscow are open to the public as memorial houses?
• ...that an aerosani is a type of air-powered, armoured snowmobile, which was used for transport, reconnaissance, and raiding by the Red Army in the Winter War and the Second World War?
• ...that a push–pull converter is a type of DC-to-DC converter that uses a transformer to step the voltage of a DC power supply?
• ...that the Chicana artist Yolanda Lopez became famous with the painting "Virgen de Guadalupe", which represents Lopez's personal investigation into Virgen de Guadalupe's status in Mexican society?

Relief of Thutmosis II at Karnak

• Archaeologists announce that the empty tomb Wadi C-4 near Luxor, Egypt, was that of the pharaoh Thutmose II (relief pictured).
• At the British Academy Film Awards, Conclave wins four awards, including Best Film.
• Mahamoud Ali Youssouf is elected chairman of the African Union Commission.
• President of Romania Klaus Iohannis resigns from office, and is succeeded by Ilie Bolojan in an acting capacity.
• A bus falls off a bridge over the Las Vacas River in Guatemala City, killing at least 55 people.

February 23: The Emperor's Birthday in Japan (1960)

Christian, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels

• 1725 – J. S. Bach first performed his Shepherd Cantata for the birthday of Christian, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels (pictured).
• 1854 – The Orange River Convention was signed in Bloemfontein, with the United Kingdom agreeing to recognise the independence of the Orange Free State in present-day South Africa.
• 1886 – American inventor Charles Martin Hall discovered an inexpensive method of producing aluminium.
• 1987 – SN 1987A, the first supernova that modern astronomers were able to study in great detail, was observed from Earth occurring in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
• 2021 – Riots in four Ecuadorian prisons, caused by gang rivalries, resulted in the deaths of 79 inmates.

Boobies are a group of seabirds closely related to gannets. They are large birds with long pointed wings and long bills.

Boobies hunt fish by diving from a height into the sea and pursuing their prey underwater. They have facial air sacs under their skin that cushion the impact with the water. Boobies normally lay one or more chalky blue eggs on the ground or sometimes in a tree nest. Their name is based on the Spanish slang term bubi, meaning "dunce".

Photo credit: United States Coast Guard
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