COUNTDOWN TO NOVEMBER 23RD

November 23rd

The anniversary of Doctor Who's first broadcast, Japan's Labor Thanksgiving Day and Fibonacci Day — plus the first coin-operated phonograph and Life magazine.

--Days

--Hours

--Minutes

--Seconds

Next: Monday, November 23, 2026.

What Makes This Day Special

November 23rd
Significance

📺

Doctor Who Premiere Anniversary

Doctor Who began on BBC television on Saturday, November 23, 1963, with the episode "An Unearthly Child," which started at 5:16 p.m. William Hartnell played the Doctor, with Carole Ann Ford as his granddaughter Susan and William Russell and Jacqueline Hill as schoolteachers Ian and Barbara. Because coverage of President Kennedy's assassination the day before overshadowed the launch, the BBC repeated the first episode on November 30 before episode two. The original series ran until 1989 and returned in 2005, and Guinness World Records lists Doctor Who as the longest-running science-fiction TV series. Its 50th-anniversary special, "The Day of the Doctor," was broadcast on November 23, 2013, in a global simulcast that set a Guinness record.

🌾

Labor Thanksgiving Day in Japan

November 23 is Labor Thanksgiving Day (Kinrō Kansha no Hi), a national holiday in Japan. It was established under that name in 1948 as a day to respect labor, celebrate production and give one another thanks. Its roots lie in Niiname-sai, an ancient harvest rite in which the Emperor offers the year's new rice to the kami (Shinto deities) and tastes it for the first time; the Emperor still performs the ceremony on this date.

🔢

Fibonacci Day

Written in the U.S. month/day format, November 23 is 11/23 — and 1, 1, 2, 3 are the first four numbers of the Fibonacci sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two before it. The sequence is named after the medieval Italian mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, known as Fibonacci, whose 1202 book Liber Abaci introduced it to European readers. Math teachers and fans use the day to explore the pattern, which also appears in plant growth such as the spirals of sunflower seeds and pinecones.

Historical Events

This Day
in History

1887

Boris Karloff Born

William Henry Pratt, who became famous as Boris Karloff, was born in London. His performance as the Monster in Universal's Frankenstein (1931) made him one of the best-known faces of horror cinema, and he later reached new generations as the narrator and voice of the Grinch in the 1966 TV special How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

1888

Harpo Marx Born

Adolph "Harpo" Marx was born in New York City. As one of the Marx Brothers he developed a silent comic persona, communicating through mime, a horn and a wild curly wig, and he was an accomplished self-taught harpist. He appeared with his brothers in films including Duck Soup (1933) and A Night at the Opera (1935).

1889

First Coin-Operated Phonograph

Louis Glass and William S. Arnold installed a coin-operated phonograph at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. The machine was an Edison phonograph fitted with a coin mechanism and several listening tubes, so customers paid a nickel to hear a recording through a tube. It is regarded as the forerunner of the jukebox.

1936

First Issue of Life Magazine

Henry Luce launched Life as a weekly photo magazine, with a first issue dated November 23, 1936, priced at ten cents. Its cover was Margaret Bourke-White's photograph of the Fort Peck Dam in Montana. Life became the leading American picture magazine of the mid-20th century.