February 12th "2024" daily prep
Welcome to day 43, known as Charles Darwin Day, National Clean Out Your Computer Day and International Epilepsy Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of May 22nd. Your star sign is Aquarius and your birthstone is Amethyst.
2017 – Elaine Hopley, a 45 year old Scottish mother-of-two, broke the solo female record in a prestigious rowing race across the Atlantic.
Todays birthdays
1968 – Josh Brolin (56), American actor (Sicario, American Gangster, Jonah Hex, Deadpool 2), born in Santa Monica, California, United States.
1969 – Steve Backley (55), retired British track and field athlete who competed in the javelin throw (formerly held the world record 91.46m throw), born in Sidcup, South East London.
1974 – Naseem Hamed (50), British former professional boxer who competed from 1992 to 2002, born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.
1978 – Gethin Jones (46), Welsh television presenter (Blue Peter, The One Show, Sell Me the Answer), born in Cardiff, Wales.
1980 – Christina Ricci (44), American actress (The Addams Family, Casper, Sleepy Hollow, After.Life), born in Santa Monica, California, United States.
Famous deaths
1554 – Jane Grey (b. 1537), known as the “Nine Day’s Queen” for her brief period on the English throne.
1993 – James Bulger (b. 1990), was abducted from New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle.
2019 – Gordon Banks (b. 1937), English football goalkeeper (World Cup 1966, 73 England caps)
The day today
1932 – Ramsey MacDonald introduced a bill to improve youth courts, raise the age of juveniles and ban whipping of under 14s.
1943 – William Morris (Lord Nuffield), the founder of Morris Motors, created the Nuffield Foundation, Britain’s biggest charitable trust, with a gift of £10 million. The Nuffield Foundation’s income comes from the interest on its investments. It does not fund raise or receive funding from the Government. It is financially and politically independent.
1994 – One hundred people made history by walking from France to England. Each represented charities and voluntary organisations and walked the 31 mile Channel Tunnel which took, on average, 13 hours to complete. Also on this day, The famous iconic painting “The Scream” by Edvard Munch was stolen from a gallery in Oslo, Norway.
2002 – The trial of former President of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic begins at the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
2017 – Elaine Hopley, a 45 year old Scottish mother-of-two, broke the solo female record in a prestigious rowing race across the Atlantic. Her time for the event, dubbed “the world’s toughest row”, was 59 days, 19 hours and 14 minutes. She was raising money for Alzheimer Scotland and completed the challenge in her boat Jan, named after her mother.
Today in music
1956 – Dean Martin was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Memories Are Made Of This’. The American actor, comedian, singer and TV hosts biggest hit. Also covered by The Everly Brothers, Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra and The Driffters.
1969 – ‘(If Paradise Is) Half As Nice’ by Amen Corner was at No.1 on the UK singles chart, the group’s only UK No.1. The song was first offered to The Tremeloes as a potential single, who rejected it.
1970 – John Lennon performed ‘Instant Karma!’ on BBC TV’s Top Of The Pops, becoming the first Beatle to have appeared on the show since 1966. Lennon wrote, recorded, and mixed his new single, all in one day. It ranks as one of the fastest-released songs in pop music history. Lennon later stated, “I wrote it for breakfast, recorded it for lunch, and we’re putting it out for dinner.”
1972 – Al Green entered the singles chart (No. 7 in the UK) with ‘Let’s Stay Together’, his only US chart topper. It was ranked the 60th greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Tina Turner had a hit with the song in 1984.
2017 – Adele was the biggest winner at The 59th Annual Grammy Awards with five trophies, including Album of the Year for 25, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year for ‘Hello’. Adele also became the first artist in history to win all three general field awards in the same ceremony twice, previously winning all three categories in 2012. David Bowie won Best Rock Performance, Best Alternative Music Album, Best Rock Song and Best Recording Package for Blackstar.
Today in history
1554 – At the tender age of 16, the ‘nine days queen’, Lady Jane Grey and her husband Lord Guildford Dudley were beheaded; he on Tower Hill, she on Tower Green, after being implicated in the Wyatt’s rebellion. The rebellion arose out of concern over Queen Mary I’s determination to marry Philip II of Spain, which was an unpopular policy with the English.
1688 – The conclusion of the ‘Glorious Revolution’. James II fled with his family to France, and the Prince of Orange and Princess Mary were declared King and Queen of England, France and Ireland.
1733 – Englishman James Oglethorpe founded Georgia (USA), the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, and its first city at Savannah. The 12th of February is known as Georgia Day for its historic importance to the state.
1808 – A mortar-fired lifeline was used for the first time to save a person from a shipwreck, at Gorleston. It was invented by George William Manby who lived in the Norfolk village of Hilgay. He also invented the first modern form of fire extinguisher and built an ‘unsinkable’ ship but the boatmen rocked his boat back and forth, so that it eventually turned over.
1809 – Charles Darwin, English naturalist and author of The Origin of Species, was born, in Shrewsbury (a statue is outside Shrewsbury library, a building that was once Darwin’s former school). He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection. He published his theory with compelling evidence for evolution in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species. By the 1870s the scientific community and much of the general public accepted evolution as a fact. The Quantum Leap sculpture in Shrewsbury was created to celebrate the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth.