Welcome to day 309 of the year! Known as Guy Fawke’s Night, International Stout Day and World Tsunami Awareness Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of February 12th 2023. Your star sign is “Scorpio” and your birthstone is Topaz.
1605 – Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes is arrested in the cellars of the Houses of Parliament, where he had planted gunpowder in an attempt to blow up the building and kill King James I of England.
Todays birthdays
1955 – Kris Jenner (68), American media personality, socialite, and businesswoman. She rose to fame starring in the reality television series Keeping Up with the Kardashians, born in San Diego, California, United States.
1959 – Bryan Adams (64), Canadian musician, singer, songwriter (Please Forgive Me
, Summer Of ’69), born in Kingston, Canada.
1970 – Tamzin Outhwaite (53), English actress best known for her role as Mel Owen in Eastenders and Sasha Miller in New Tricks, born in Ilford, East London.
1973 – Daniella Westbrook (50), English actress and television personality best known for portraying the role of Sam Mitchell in Eastenders, born in Walthamstow.
1975 – Lisa Scott-Lee (48), Welsh singer and member of the pop group Steps (Last Thing on My Mind), born in Denbighshire, Wales.
The day today
1912 – The appointment of a British Board of Film Censors. They decided on only two classifications – ‘Universal’ and ‘Not Suitable for Children’.
1927 – Britain’s first automatic traffic lights were installed at Princess Square road junction in Wolverhampton, in the West Midlands.
1991 – Millionaire publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell was found dead at sea, several hours after mysteriously disappearing from his yacht off the Canary Islands.
2006 – Following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 by a coalition of countries including Britain and America, Saddam Hussein, former president of Iraq was sentenced to death in the al-Dujail trial for his role in the massacre of 148 Shi’as in 1982. His execution was carried out on 30th December 2006.
2013 – The village of Wool, in the Purbeck district of Dorset, reported that at least 160 sheep had been stolen from nearby fields, sometime between 1st and 3rd November.
Today in music
1977 – The manager of the Virgin record store in Nottingham, England was arrested for displaying a large poster advertising the new Sex Pistols album, ‘Never Mind The Bollock’s, Here’s The Sex Pistols’. High street stores banned the album after police warned they could be fined under the 1898 indecent advertising act.
1983 – Billy Joel was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Uptown Girl’, which stayed at the top of the chars for five weeks. The song was initially written about his relationship with his then-girlfriend Elle Macpherson, but it ended up also becoming about his soon-to-be wife Christie Brinkley (both women being two of the most famous supermodels of the 1980s).
1988 – The Beach Boys went to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Kokomo’, it peaked at No.25 in the UK. The track had been featured in the film Cocktail.
1994 – Sheryl Crow scored her first UK Top 10 single when ‘All I Wanna Do’ entered the charts at No.4. The US singer songwriter went on to become the first US female to score six UK hits off her debut album Tuesday Night Music Club.
2012 – To mark the 60th anniversary of the UK singles chart the Official Charts Company published a chart which lists all the 123 songs that have sold more than a million copies since it began in 1952. Elton John was at No.1 with Candle In The Wind, No.2 was Band Aid with Do They Know It’s Christmas? followed by Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody on 2.36million copies.
Today in history
1492 – Christopher Columbus first learns about growing and harvesting maize (corn) from Cuba’s indigenous population.
1500 – Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus observed a total lunar eclipse in Rome, Italy.
1605 – Catholic conspirator Guy Fawkes attempts to blow up King James I and the British Parliament. The plot is discovered before Fawkes can light the gunpowder. Immediately before his execution on 31 January, Fawkes fell from the scaffold where he was to be hanged and broke his neck, thus avoiding the agony of being hanged, drawn and quartered.
1854 – Nineteen Victoria Crosses were won in the defeat of the Russians at the Battle of Inkerman.
1872 – Susan B. Anthony, a leader in the American women’s suffrage movement, cast a ballot in the presidential election, and she was later arrested for voting illegally and convicted in a trial she called “the greatest outrage history ever witnessed.”
Fact of the day
Men’s dress shirt collars used to be detachable.
To save on laundry costs, men’s shirt collars were removable in the mid-1800s. This was because the collar was the part that needed the most frequent cleaning.