March 6th "2024" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 66, known National Dentist’s Day as well as White Chocolate Cheesecake Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of June 13th in the previous year. Your star sign is Pisces and your birthstone is Aquamarine.
2018 – The world’s oldest message in a bottle was found. The bottle was discovered by a couple walking on a beach in Western Australia.
Todays birthdays
1946 – David Gilmour (78), English musician, singer and songwriter, who is a member of the rock band Pink Floyd (“Another Brick in the Wall”), born in Cambridge.
1947 – Kiki Dee (77), English pop singer best known for “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” which she sung alongside Elton John, born in Little Horton, Bradford, West Yorkshire.
1949 – Martin Buchan (75), Scottish former professional footballer (Aberdeen, Manchester United, Oldham Athletic), born in Aberdeen.
1966 – Alan Davies (58), English comedian and actor (Jonathan Creek, Whites, Bob and Rose), born in Loughton, Essex.
1972 – Shaquille O’Neal (52), American former professional basketball player (Los Angeles Lakers, Phoenix Suns, Boston Celtics), born in Newark, New Jersey, United States.
Famous deaths
1951 – Ivor Novello (b. 1893), Welsh singer-songwriter and actor. The Ivor Novello Awards for songwriting were established in 1955 in Novello’s memory and are awarded each year by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.
1961 – George Formby (b. 1904), English singer-songwriter and actor famous for his Ukelele (“When I’m Cleaning Windows”, With My Little Stick of Blackpool Rock”).
The day today
1970 – The British Government announced a ban on the importation of domestic pets following the death from rabies of a dog imported from Pakistan.
1984 – The National Coal Board announced a plan of massive job cuts & pit closures. (Additional note – On 18th December 2015 miners at Kellingley Colliery worked their final shifts. It was the end of an era; the closure of the UK’s last deep coal mine.)
1985 – The Conservative MP Ivar Lawrence made the longest speech of the 20th century in the House of Commons. He spoke for 4 hours and 23 minutes on the subject of the fluoridation of drinking water.
1987 – The British-owned cross-channel ferry the ‘Herald of Free Enterprise’ left Zeebrugge, Belgium, with its bow doors open. The ferry capsized killing 193 passengers.
2018 – The world’s oldest message in a bottle was found. The bottle was discovered by a couple walking on a beach in Western Australia. Sailors on a German barque called Paula tossed a gin bottle with a message inside into waters hundreds of miles off the western coast of Australia dating back to 1886.
Today in music
1966 – The Rolling Stones started recording sessions for their tenth UK single ‘Paint It, Black’ at RCA studios in Hollywood. It was originally titled ‘Paint It Black’ without a comma. Keith Richards has stated that the comma was added by the record label, Decca.
1971 – Mungo Jerry were at No.1 on the UK singles chat with ‘Baby Jump’, the group’s second and final No.1.
1973 – Slade scored their fourth UK No.1 single with ‘Cum On Feel The Noize’, the first single to enter the charts at No.1 since The Beatles ‘Get Back’ in 1969. Elton John had the No.1 album with ‘Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player’.
1990 – …But Seriously the fourth studio album by English drummer and singer-songwriter Phil Collins was at No.1 on the UK album chart. It was the best selling album of 1990 in the UK, eventually selling 2.75 million copies there and 4 million in the US. The lead single ‘Another Day in Paradise’ won a Grammy Award for Record of the Year.
2009 – Michael Jackson was mobbed by screaming fans as he took his two youngest children to see Oliver! at Drury Lane. The youngest two of Jackson’s three children – seven-year-old Prince Michael II (known as Blanket) and 11-year-old Paris, hid their faces as they were escorted through the crowd. Jackson was in London, England to announce his series of summer concerts at the O2. Jackson died three weeks before the shows were to start.
Today in history
1204 – The Siege of Château Gaillard ends in a French victory over King John of England, who loses control of Normandy to King Philip II Augustus.
1340 – The birth of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster and the third surviving son of King Edward III.
1893 – The opening of the Liverpool Overhead Railway (known locally as the Dockers’ Umbrella) which operated for 7 miles along the Liverpool Docks. The railway had a number of world firsts – it was the first electric elevated railway, the first to use automatic signalling, electric colour light signals and electric multiple units and was home to one of the first passenger escalators at a railway station.
1899 – Felix Hoffmann a German chemist patented one of the world’s most common drugs, Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid).
1917 – The birth of the comedian Frankie Howerd, famous for his risqué double entendres whose career spanned six decades. He hid his potentially career-destroying homosexuality from both his audience and his mother, as acts between consenting males was illegal in England and Wales until 1967 and illegal in Scotland until 1981. Howerd died on 19th April 1992, one day before fellow comedian Benny Hill.