March 26th "2024" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 86, known as National Nougat Day, Solitude Day and Live Long and Prosper Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of July 3rd in the previous year. Your star sign is Aries and your birthstone is Aquamarine.
2015 – Richard III (1452 – 1485), the only English monarch without a marked grave, was reinterred at Leicester Cathedral after much wrangling, including High Court action over his final resting place.
Todays birthdays
1944 – Diana Ross (80), American singer (“Chain Reaction”, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”) and actress, born in Detroit, Michigan, United States.
1948 – Steven Tyler (76), American singer and musician in the rock band Aerosmith (“Love In An Elevator”, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”), born in New York, United States
1960 – Jennifer Grey (64), American actress (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), best known as Frances “Baby” Houseman in Dirty Dancing, born in New York, United States.
1961 – William Hague (63), British politician who served as Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1997 to 2001, born in Wentworth, South Yorkshire.
1985 – Keira Knightley (39), English actress (Pirates of the Caribbean, Pride & Prejudice, Bend It Like Beckham), born in Teddington, Richmond upon Thames, London.
Famous deaths
1603 – Elizabeth I of England (b. 1533), she was the last monarch of the House of Tudor.
1905 – Jules Verne (b. 1828), French novelist, poet, and playwright (Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Around the World in Eighty Days.)
The day today
1920 – The British special constables, known as the Black and Tans, arrived in Ireland. Their nickname came from the colours of their uniform.
1981 – Four Labour defectors, known as the Gang of Four, launched the Social Democrats party. The four were Roy Jenkins, (former Labour cabinet minister), David Owen, William Rodgers and Shirley Williams. Their aim was to ‘reconcile the nation’ and ‘heal divisions between classes’.
1999 – Ex-miners suffering from lung diseases won a compensation deal worth £2 billion. It was the biggest industrial injuries case in British legal history.
2006 – From 6 a.m. the prohibition of smoking in all substantially enclosed public places came into force in Scotland.
2012 – New record temperatures for Scotland were set at Cromdale in Moray, which reached a temperature of 23.3C. making it the hottest 26th March since records began. The unseasonable warm weather made the UK hotter than southerly parts of Europe, including Barcelona, Nice, Majorca and Faro.
Today in music
1965 – Mick Jagger, Brian Jones and Bill Wyman all received electric shocks from a faulty microphone on stage during a Rolling Stones show in Denmark. Bill Wyman was knocked unconscious for several minutes.
1969 – Marvin Gaye was at No.1 on the UK singles chart, with ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’. The song was first recorded by The Miracles and had also been a million seller in 1967 for Gladys Knight and the Pips.
1983 – Duran Duran went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Is There Something I Should Know’. Their first No.1 and their eighth single release. The group were on a US promotional trip on this day, where they were greeted by 5,000 screaming fans at an in-store appearance in New York City.
1985 – Radio stations in South Africa banned all of Stevie Wonder’s records after he dedicated the Oscar he had won the night before at The Academy Awards to Nelson Mandela.
2001 – The toy figure of Eminem was facing a ban from UK shops. Woolworth’s and Hamleys were refusing to stock the dolls. Psychologists warned parents who buy the dolls for children will be inadvertently giving their approval to bad language.
Today in history
1344 – The Siege of Algeciras, one of the first European military engagements where gunpowder was used, comes to an end.
1484 – William Caxton printed his translation of Aesop’s Fables. As far as is known, Caxton was the first English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England. He was also the first English retailer of printed books.
1651 – Silver-loaded Spanish ship San José is pushed south by strong winds, subsequently it wrecks in the coast of southern Chile and its surviving crew is killed by indigenous Cuncos.
1839 – The Henley Regatta was born, at a public meeting held in Henley Town Hall. The regatta lasts for 5 days (Wednesday to Sunday) over the first weekend in July.
1885 – Sir Henry Thompson conducted the UK’s first cremation on the corpse of Mrs. Jeannette C. Pickersgill.
The Times described her as “a well-known figure in literary and scientific circles.”