October 5th "2024" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 279 of the year! Known as World Teachers’ Day, World Meningitis Day, Bookshop Day, World Card Making Day. Your star sign is Libra and your birthstone is Pink Tourmaline.
1936 – The start of the ‘Jarrow March’ – around 200 unemployed shipyard workers from Jarrow in north east England began walking to London to protest about the lack of jobs. The protestors arrived on 31st October.
Todays birthdays
1947 – Brian Johnson (77), British singer and songwriter, currently the lead singer of the rock band AC/DC (Thunderstruck, Back in Black), born in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear.
1948 – Russell Craig Mael (76), American singer and lead singer for the band Sparks (“This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us), born in Los Angeles, California, United States.
1951 – Bob Geldof (73), Irish singer-songwriter (Boomtown Rats – “I Don’t Like Mondays”) and political activist, born in Dunleary, Ireland.
1952 – Harold Faltemeyer (72), German musician, composer and record producer (Axel F – Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun theme, Running Man theme) born in Munich, Germany.
1975 – Kate Winslet CBE (49), English actress (Titanic, Avatar: The Way of Water, Divergent) and the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, born in Reading.
1985 – Nicola Roberts (39), British pop singer with Girls Aloud (“Sound of the Underground”, “Can’t Speak French”), born in Stamford, Lincolnshire.
Famous deaths
2011 – Steve Jobs (b. 1955), American businessman, co-founder of Apple Inc.
The day today
1962 – Dr No, the first James Bond film, was released. Based on the 1958 Ian Fleming novel of the same name it starred Sean Connery as the secret agent 007. The film was produced with a low budget, the first of a successful series of 22 Bond films. A 23rd – ‘Skyfall’, with Daniel Craig as James Bond was premiered in London on 23rd October 2012, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the series.
1967 – For the first time in Britain, a court in Brighton accepted a ‘majority verdict’ from a jury instead of the usual ‘unanimous verdict’ required previously.
1969 – The first episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus aired on BBC. In all, 45 episodes were created over four series, from 1969 to 1974, plus two episodes for German TV. The series’ theme song was the first segment of John Philip Sousa’s The Liberty Bell, chosen because it was in the public domain and was free to use without charge.
1984 – Police and Customs in Essex seized Britain’s biggest ever haul of cannabis made in a single raid, (4.3 tons), with an estimated street value of almost £11 million.
2015 – The government imposed a new law in England, which required that all supermarkets (or large businesses employing 250 or more full-time equivalent employees in total) must levy a charge of 5p per ‘single-use’ plastic carrier bag used by customers, including plastic bags used for deliveries.
Today in music
1974 – Mike Oldfields ‘Tubular Bells’ went to No.1 for the first time on the UK album chart 15 months after being released. It went on to sell over 10 million copies worldwide.
1984 – Queen played the first of nine concerts at the Sun City Super Bowl, Sun City, Republic of Bophuthatswana (integrated into South Africa’s North West Province in 1994). The 1984 ‘The Works’ tours saw the reintroduction of older material to Queen’s live set, including songs from the first three albums.
1996 – “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” by American group Deep Blue Something was at No.1 on the UK singles chart. The song is a reference to the classic 1960 Audrey Hepburn film of the same name.
2000 – Top Of The Pops issued a Top 40 chart based on singles that had spent the longest time on the UK chart. No.3 was ‘My Way’ by Frank Sinatra, No.2 ‘She Loves You’, The Beatles and No.1 ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes To Hollywood’.
2008 – Pink started a three week run at No.1 on the UK singels chart with “So What”, the singers third UK No.1 hit.
Today in history
1568 – The Conference of York began as a trial against Mary, Queen of Scots, and was intended to be a political exercise rather than a judicial one. The outcome of the conference was that neither Mary nor the Confederate lords were proven guilty, but Mary remained in custody while Moray returned to Scotland as regent.
1796 – Spain declared war on Britain in the Napoleonic Wars.
1864 – The Great Cyclone of Calcutta hit India and destroyed over half the city.
As a result, 172 out of 195 ships were damaged or destroyed. Around 300,000 people died, thousands of homes were damaged, and even the city’s anemometer was blown away. This is known as the worst cyclone ever to hit Calcutta.
1895 – The first individual time trial for racing cyclists was held on a 50 mile course north of London.
1869 – A strong hurricane known as the Saxby Gale devastates the Bay of Fundy region in Maritime Canada. Incredibly British naval officer Stephen Martin Saxby predicted the storm 10 months earlier in December 1868 via astronomy.