May 23rd "2024" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 144, known as Chardonnay Day, World Turtle Day, World Crohn’s and Colitis Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of August 30th in the previous year. Your star sign is Gemini and your birthstone is Emerald.
1931 – The official opening of Whipsnade Zoo near Dunstable, in Bedfordshire. Animals began arriving at Whipsnade in 1928, with pheasants, llama, wombats and skunks among the first to arrive. When Whipsnade Park Zoo opened, it was an immediate success and welcomed tens of thousands of excited visitors in its opening week.
Todays birthdays
1933 – Joan Collins (90), English actress (Dynasty, Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie) and columnist, born in Paddington, London.
1938 – Johnny Ball (86), English television presenter, populariser of mathematics (Think of a Number, Play School) and father of BBC Radio 2 DJ Zoe Ball, born in Bristol.
1951 – Don Warrington (73), Trinidadian-born British actor (Death in Paradise), best known for his role as Philip Smith in Rising Damp, born in Trinidad, Trinidad and Tobago.
1959 – Bob Mortimer (65), English comedian and television presenter best known for his work with Vic Reeves as part of their Vic and Bob double act, born in Middlesbrough.
1977 – Richard Ayoade (47), British comedian, actor (The IT Crowd) and television presenter (Travel Man, The Crystal Maze), born in Whipps Cross, London.
1983 – Heidi Range (41), English singer, best known as a former member of the girl group Sugababes (“Push the Button”) and original singer with Atomic Kitten, born in Liverpool.
Famous deaths
2017 – Roger Moore (b. 1927), English actor (played James Bond in Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View to a Kill and as Simon Templar in The Saint).
The day today
1931 – The official opening of Whipsnade Zoo near Dunstable, in Bedfordshire. Animals began arriving at Whipsnade in 1928, with pheasants, llama, wombats and skunks among the first to arrive. When Whipsnade Park Zoo opened, it was an immediate success and welcomed tens of thousands of excited visitors in its opening week.
1945 – World War II: Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, committed suicide by means of a potassium cyanide capsule while in Allied custody, awaiting trial with other German leaders as a war criminal at Nuremberg.
1984 – Sixteen people died and dozens more were injured in an underground explosion whilst visiting a water treatment plant in the village of Abbeystead, near Lancaster.
1992 – Italy’s most prominent anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three body guards are killed by the Corleonesi clan with a half-ton bomb near Capaci, Sicily. His friend and colleague Paolo Borsellino was assassinated less than two months later, making 1992 a turning point in the history of Italian Mafia prosecutions.
2014 – Judges ruled that the remains of Richard III should be given a dignified reburial in Leicester, as the Justice Secretary attacked his distant relatives for wasting public money by challenging to have him interred elsewhere. Richard III’s body was buried in the now demolished Franciscan Friary in Leicester and was discovered in September 2012 under what had become a car park.
Today in music
1964 – Ella Fitzgerald became the first artist to have a hit with a Beatles cover when her version of ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ entered the UK chart.
2000 – Noel Gallagher walked out on his band Oasis during a European tour. The move was put down to a series of burst-ups with his brother Liam. The band drafted in replacement guitarist Matt Deighton for the rest of the European dates.
Also on this day… Eminem released his third studio album the Marshall Mathers LP. It debuted at No.1 on the Billboard 200, staying atop for eight consecutive weeks and went on to sell over 25 million copies worldwide. The album is one of the most groundbreaking and controversial albums in the history of American music. The Marshall Mathers LP has been named on several lists of the greatest albums of all time and is widely regarded as Eminem’s best album.
2002 – Winners at the 47th Ivor Novello awards included, Dido for Songwriter of the year, Best song went to U2, ‘Walk On.’ Kylie Minogue won The Dance Award and Most Performed Work and International Hit for ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head.’ Hear’say won Bestselling UK single for ‘Pure And Simple’. Mick Hucknall won Outstanding Song collection and Kate Bush was awarded Outstanding Contribution to British music.
2010 – The Rolling Stones scored their first UK No.1 album for 16 years with the re-release of their classic 1972 double LP Exile On Main Street. The album, which was first released in 1972, had been reissued with previously unheard tracks. Their last No.1 album was 1994’s Voodoo Lounge.
2019 – Richard Ashcroft regained rights to his song ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ after more than two decades. The Verve singer lost the rights to his most recognisable song, which ended up in the possession of The Rolling Stones’ Sir Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Released in 1997 on Urban Hymns, the track sampled The Rolling Stones’ song ‘The Last Time’, using a composition by Andrew Oldham, and became the centre of lawsuits, which saw Ashcroft stripped of rights and royalties.
Today in history
878 AD – The Saxon King Alfred defeated the Danes at Edington, Wiltshire. As part of the peace agreement, the Danish King, Guthrum, accepted Christianity and was baptized as a Christian.
1169 – ‘The First Conquerors’ landed in Ireland. They were Normans from Wales enlisted by Dermot MacMurrough to recover his kingdom of Leinster.
1533 – To the annoyance of the Pope, the English Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer declared Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon to be void and his marriage to Anne Boleyn, to be legal. The result was a break with the church in Rome despite Henry’s title as ‘Protector of the Faith’.
1701 – At London’s Execution Dock, British privateer Captain Kidd was hanged for piracy and murder. Commissioned by the British crown in 1695 to apprehend pirates in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, Kidd apparently turned to piracy himself in 1697.
1795 – Sir Charles Barry, the English architect who designed the Houses of Parliament, was born.