Welcome to day 314 of the year! Known as Forget-me-not Day, National Vanilla Cupcake Day and Sesame Street Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of February 17th 2023. Your star sign is “Scorpio” and your birthstone is Topaz.
1968 – England and Yorkshire fast bowler Fred Trueman announced his retirement. A bronze statue of him (pictured) is in the canal basin at Skipton, North Yorkshire, the town where he lived for many years.
Todays birthdays
1944 – Tim Rice (79), English lyricist best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber (Jesus Christ Superstar; Evita; Chess; The Lion King), born in Amersham, Buckinghamshire.
1963 – Hugh Bonneville (60), English actor (Notting Hill) best known for portraying Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, in the ITV historical drama series Downton Abbey from 2010 to 2015, born in Paddington, London.
1965 – Eddie Irvine (58), former racing driver from Northern Ireland. He competed in Formula One between 1993 and 2002, born in Newtownards, County Down, Northern Ireland.
1973 – Jacqui Abbott (50), English singer with the band The Beautiful South (Rotterdam; Don’t Marry Her) from 1994 to 2000, born in St Helens, Merseyside.
1989 – Taron Egerton (34), Welsh actor (Kingsman; Rocketman, Eddie the Eagle), born in Birkenhead, Merseyside.
The day today
1913 – Battersea elected the first black mayor in London, John Archer, born in Liverpool of Jamaican parents. The honour of Britain’s first black mayor goes to Allen Glaser Minns (Dr. Allan Glaisyer Minns?) who was elected Mayor of Thetford, Norfolk in 1904.
1942 – Buoyant after the desert victory at El Alamein, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said: ‘This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.’
1997 – Louise Woodward, British child-minder, was freed from jail in the United States after her conviction for murdering a baby was reduced to manslaughter. Her sentence was cut to 279 days, the exact length of time she had already spent in jail.
2010 – Tens of thousands of people protested against plans to treble tuition fees and cut university funding in England. The Conservative Party headquarters were stormed and outside, placards and banners were set on fire and missiles were thrown.
2012 – The BBC’s director general, George Entwistle, resigned in the wake of a Newsnight child abuse broadcast which wrongly implicated ex-senior Tory Lord McAlpine.
Today in music
1975 – David Bowie was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Space Oddity’ the track was first released in 1969 to tie in with the Apollo 11 moon landing. Rick Wakeman (former keyboard player with Yes) provided synthesizer backing. Bowie would later revisit his Major Tom character in the songs ‘Ashes to Ashes’, ‘Hallo Spaceboy’ and ‘Blackstar’.
1979 – Fleetwood Mac scored their second UK No.1 album with the double set ‘Tusk’, the 12th album by the British/American rock band.
1984 – Chaka Khan was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘I Feel For You.’ Written by Prince, the song featured Stevie Wonder on harmonica and the Rap was by Grandmaster Melle Mel. The repetition of Khan’s name by rapper Melle Mel at the beginning of the song was originally a mistake made by producer Arif Mardin, who then decided to keep it.
1999 – Eighties hit making team Stock, Aitken and Waterman went to court fighting over song rights. Stock and Aitken claimed Waterman owed them hundreds of thousands of pounds as musicians and songwriters.
2008 – Coldplay were declared the biggest-selling act of 2008 at the World Music Awards held in Monaco. The band picked up the prize ‘ along with the Rock Act Of The Year award ‘ after their current album ‘Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends’ topped charts around the globe.
Today in history
1702 – English colonists under the command of James Moore besiege Spanish St. Augustine during Queen Anne’s War.
1793 – The Festival of Reason was held at Notre Dame, Paris.
The Festival of Reason was part of France’s dechristianization, an attempt to banish Christianity. The Festival of Reason ordered that all Christian Churches be transformed into Temples of Reason. On this day across the country, altars were dismantled, and the churches were transformed. This was a new religious concept drawn up by the French government called the Cult of Reason, and this was a catalyst for the French revolution, as Christians had their religious beliefs and places of worship taken from them.
1847 – The passenger ship Stephen Whitney is wrecked in thick fog off the southern coast of Ireland, killing 92 of the 110 on board. The disaster results in the construction of the Fastnet Rock lighthouse.
1871 – Henry Morton Stanley locates missing explorer and missionary, David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika, famously greeting him with the words, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”.
1885 – German engineer Gottlieb Daimler unveiled the world’s first motorcycle, referred to as the Daimler Reitwagen.
Fact of the day
When the first Star Wars movie came out, France was still executing people with the guillotine. The first Star Wars movie, Episode IV, came out in 1977. France used the guillotine for capital punishment until it was abolished in 1981.