June 27th "2024" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 179, known as National Bingo Day, Work From Home Day, National Onion Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of October 4th in the previous year. Your star sign is Cancer and your birthstone is Pearl.
2009 – The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct was inscribed as a World Heritage Site. The aqueduct carries the Llangollen Canal over the valley of the River Dee in Wrexham in north east Wales. It is the longest and highest aqueduct in Britain.
Todays birthdays
1961 – Meera Syal (63), English comedian, writer and actress (Goodness Gracious Me, The Kumars at No. 42, Mrs Sidhu Investigates), born in Wolverhampton, West Midlands.
1962 – Michael Ball (62), English singer (“Love Changes Everything”), born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire.
1970 – Jo Frost (54), English reality television personality (Supernanny, Nanny On Tour), nanny, and author, born in London.
1975 – Tobey Maguire (49), American actor (Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, 3 and 4, The Cider House Rules), born in Santa Monica, California, United States.
1989 – Matthew Lewis (35), English actor, best known for his role as Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter film series, born in Leeds, West Yorkshire.
Famous deaths
2001 – Joan Sims (b. 1930), English actress best remembered for her roles in the Carry On franchise, appearing in 24 of the films.
The day today
1971 – England’s first national Scrabble Championship was held in London. The winner was teacher Stephen Haskell.
1988 – Dave Hurst and Alan Matthews, both from England, became the first blind climbers to reach the summit of Europe’s highest mountain, Mont Blanc – 15,781 feet high.
2009 – The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct was inscribed as a World Heritage Site. The aqueduct carries the Llangollen Canal over the valley of the River Dee in Wrexham in north east Wales. It is the longest and highest aqueduct in Britain.
2012 – ‘The Belfast Handshake’, the first historic encounter between the Queen and the former IRA commander, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, who went on to become Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister. (Prince Philip’s uncle, Lord Mountbatten, the Queen’s second cousin, was assassinated by the IRA who blew up his fishing boat in County Sligo in 1979.)
2014 – The mummified body of Anne Leitrim, who was in her 70s, was discovered in her flat in Bournemouth, where she had been undiscovered for six years. Her remains were finally found when bailiffs visited the property to collect unpaid debts.
Today in music
1970 – The newly formed Queen featuring Freddie Mercury (possibly still known as Freddie Bulsara) on vocals, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and Mike Grose on bass played their first gig at Truro City Hall, Cornwall, England. They were billed as Smile, Brian and Roger’s previous band, for whom the booking had been made originally. Original material at this time included an early version of ‘Stone Cold Crazy’.
1987 – Whitney Houston became the first women in US history to enter the album chart at No.1 with ‘Whitney’ she also became the first woman to top the singles chart with four consecutive releases when ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ hit No.1.
1992 – Michael Jackson played the first night on his Dangerous World tour at the Olympic Stadium in Munich, Germany. The tour consisted of 69 concerts to approximately 3.9 million fans across three continents. All profits made from the tour were donated to various charities including the Heal the World Foundation, Jackson’s main reason for conducting the tour.
1998 – After spending 30 weeks on the UK album chart The Corrs went to No.1 with ‘Talk On Corners’. It went on to be the best selling UK album of 1998 spending 142 weeks on the chart.
2008 – Kings of Leon, The Fratellis, Editors, The Gossip, The Feeling, KT Tunstall, Kate Nash, Jay Z, Amy Winehouse, The Raconteurs, James Blunt, Crowded House, Seasick Steve, Martha Wainwright, The Verve, Leonard Cohen, The Ting Tings, Goldfrapp, Neil Diamond, Pete Doherty, Scouting for Girls, Mark Ronson, Duffy, The Zutons, Groove Armada and John Mayer all appeared at this years 3 day UK Glastonbury Festival.
Today in history
1450 – Irish born Jack Cade led a 40,000 strong demonstration march from Kent to London to protest against laws introduced by King Henry VI of England. Cade was later beheaded for treason.
1497 – Cornish rebels Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank were executed at Tyburn, London. The rebels had marched on London to protest at King Henry VII levying a tax to pay for an invasion of Scotland as they believed that this was a northern affair and had nothing to do with them.
1693 – The first women’s magazine, The Ladies’ Mercury, was published by John Dunton in London. It contained a question-and-answer column which later became known as a ‘problem page’.
1746 – In Scotland, Flora MacDonald helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape to the Isle of Skye dressed as an Irish maid, following his defeat by the English at the Battle of Culloden.
1759 – General James Wolfe began the siege of Quebec against the French. He was killed at the height of the battle on 13th September but earned posthumous fame and became an icon of Britain’s victory in the Seven Years War and subsequent territorial expansion.