January 25th "2024" daily prep

Welcome to day 25, known as Fluoride Day, Macintosh Computer Day, National Irish Coffee Day, National Opposite Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of May 4th. Your star sign is Aquarius and your birthstone is Garnet.
1995 – After being sent off in a Premier League match at Crystal Palace, Manchester United’s Eric Cantona launches a kung-fu attack on Palace fan Matthew Simmonds.
Todays birthdays
1949 – John Cooper Clarke (75), English performance poet and comedian who styled himself as a “punk poet” in the late 1970s, born in Salford, Greater Manchester.
1950 – Christopher Ryan (74), British actor (‘Mike TheCoolPerson’ – Young Ones, ‘Dave Hedgehog’ – Bottom, ‘Tony Driscoll’ – Only Fools and Horses), born in Bayswater, London.
1967 – David Ginola (57), French former professional footballer (Paris Saint-Germain, Tottenham Hotspur, Everton) and football pundit, born in Gassin, France.
1977 – Michael Brown (47), English former professional footballer (Leeds United) and football manager (Port Vale) who now works as a pundit, born in Hartlepool, County Durham.
1981 – Alicia Keys (43), American singer and songwriter (“Girl on Fire”, “Empire State of Mind”), born in Hell’s Kitchen, New York, United States.
The day today
1919 – The founding of The League of Nations (French: Société des Nations) and forerunner of the United Nations. It was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace.
1924 – The world’s first Winter Olympics took place in Chamonix, France. Sixteen nations from across the world took part in the games, with Germany being banned from entering. It is generally accepted that the ban was due to the French occupation of the Ruhr and the Rheinland at the time.
1990 – The so called Burns’ Day Storm occurred on this day over north-western Europe, and was one of the strongest storms on record. It started on the birthday of poet Robert Burns, lasted for two days, caused widespread damage and was responsible for 97 deaths.
1995 – After being sent off in a Premier League match at Crystal Palace, Manchester United’s Eric Cantona launches a kung-fu attack on Palace fan Matthew Simmonds. He receives an eight-month ban from football.
2013 – Thorpe Park ordered experts to redesign its £20m new rollercoaster ‘The Swarm’, due to open on 15th March, after dummies lost limbs during dry run tests.
Today in music
1963 – The Rolling Stones played at the Ricky Tick Club at the Star and Garter Hotel, Windsor, Berkshirehire, UK. This was the first time The Rolling Stones, including Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman, played at this venue. All the walls in the club were painted black and the lighting was made out of old ice-cream tins.
1975 – The last Sunbury Rock Festival in Victoria Australia was held. The promoters who had made heavy losses only paid Deep Purple. AC/DC were scheduled to play after Deep Purple but a fight started on stage between road crews after Purple’s set when they began packing up the lights and PA and denied AC/DC use of them, who then left the festival site without playing at all.
1978 – After changing their name from Warsaw, (inspired by the song Warszawa on David Bowie’s Low album), Joy Division made their live debut when they played at Pips Disco in Manchester, England.
1986 – Norwegian group A-Ha were at No.1 in the UK with ‘The Sun Always Shines On TV,’ becoming the first ever-Norwegian act to score a UK No.1 hit single. The track was released as the third single from their debut studio album, Hunting High and Low (1985).
2014 – Susan Boyle applied for a minimum wage, £6-an-hour cashier’s job after spotting a job advert in the window of her local bookmakers, Ladbrokes, in Blackburn, west Lothian. Upon reading the advert the singer who is said to worth over £20m entered the premises and spent around five minutes talking to the shop’s deputy manager David Corr about the role.
Today in history
1327 – The accession of King Edward III. During his long reign of 50 years (the second longest in medieval England) he transformed the country into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe and saw vital developments in legislation and government, in particular the evolution of the English Parliament.
1533 – The Bishop of Lichfield secretly married King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, the second of Henry’s six wives. She had, ten days previously, discovered that she was pregnant.
1554 – Sir Thomas Wyatt gathered an army of 4000 men in Kent at the start of his rebellion against Queen Mary. His fellow conspirators were timid and inept and he eventually surrendered. He was executed and his body ‘quartered’ on 11th April.
1759 – The birth of Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet. He lived in Dumfries from 1793 until his death. His birthday is celebrated as ‘Burns Night’ by Scotsmen all over the world. Burns also collected folk songs from across Scotland, often revising or adapting them. His poem (and song) Auld Lang Syne is often sung on New Year’s Eve, or Hogmanay, as it’s known in Scotland.
1858 – Mendelssohn’s Wedding March was first played at the wedding of Queen Victoria’s daughter, Princess Victoria and Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia.
Fact of the day
Fleas can jump 200 times its height. The flea is claimed to be the best jumper in the world due to their size and the lengths they can jump. The height a flea jumps equivalents to a human being jumping to the top of the empire state building from the ground.