November 24th "2024" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 329 of the “leap” year! Known as Sardines Day and Celebrate Your Unique Talent Day. Your star sign is Sagittarius and your birthstone is Topaz.
1991 – Queen frontman Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara) died at the age of 45, following complications from the AIDS virus. His death came just one day after he announced his diagnosis. Mercury co-founded Queen in 1970, and remained the band’s frontman throughout his life.
Todays birthdays
1942 – Billy Connolly (82), Scottish actor (The Man Who Sued God), retired comedian, artist, writer, musician, and television presenter, born in Anderston, Glasgow.
1947 – Dwight Schultz (77), American television, film and voice actor best known for his role as Captain “Howling Mad” Murdock on the 1980s action series The A-Team, born in Baltimore, Maryland, United States.
1955 – Ian Botham (69), English former test cricketer and test team captain turned commentator and chairman of Durham County Cricket Club since 2017, born in Heswall, Merseyside.
1963 – Lisa Maxwell (61), English actress and television presenter best known for her role in The Bill as Samantha Nixon. She was also a regular panellist on ITV chat show series Loose Women between 2009 and 2014, born in London.
1974 – Stephen Merchant (50), English comedian, actor, director, and writer (co-writer and co-director of the British TV comedy series The Office, and co-writer, co-director, and co-star of both Extras and Life’s Too Short), born in Hanham, Bristol.
Famous deaths
2015 – Warren Mitchell (b. 1926), English actor and screenwriter best known for playing bigoted cockney Alf Garnett (Till Death Us Do Part, In Sickness and in Health).
2020 – Des O’Connor (b. 1932), English comedian, singer and television presenter (Today with Des and Mel, Take Your Pick!, Countdown).
The day today
1939 – Imperial Airways and British Airways merged to become BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation), which later merged with British European Airways and returned to one of the previous names, British Airways.
1962 – That Was the Week That Was’ went out live from the BBC, introduced by a new presenter, David Frost and with some material written by an equally unknown John Cleese.
1993 – The last 14 bottles of Scotch whisky salvaged from the SS Politician, wrecked in 1941 and the inspiration of the book and film, Whisky Galore, were sold at auction for £11,462.
2005 – New laws came in force in England and Wales allowing ’round-the-clock drinking’.
2010 – Weather forecasters predicted that the UK would be entering a prolonged cold spell which could bring one of the earliest significant snowfalls since 1993. A few days later more than a thousand schools were closed across the UK and snow caused travel chaos in Scotland and the north of England.
Today in music
1976 – Chicago started a three week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘If You Leave Me Now’, the American group’s only UK No.1. It went on to win a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance.
1983 – Irish group The Undertones split up. Lead singer Feargal Sharkey went on to have a No.1 UK single as a solo artist with ‘A Good Heart’ and later worked in A&R for various record labels, and later became the head of UK Music, an umbrella organisation representing the collective interests of the UK’s commercial music industry.
2002 – Robbie Williams started a five week run at No.1 on the UK album chart with his fifth studio album ‘Escapology’. The album became the best selling album of 2002 in the United Kingdom, selling 1.2 million copies.
2003 – Agadoo’ by Black Lace was named the worst song of all time by a panel of music writers. The song which peaked at No.2 on the UK charts in 1984 spent 30 weeks in the top 75 and went on to become the eighth best-selling single of 1984 in the UK. Black Lace themselves recorded an X-rated version of the song entitled ‘Have a Screw’, which was released on the B-side of the 12-inch vinyl ‘Gang Bang’.
2013 – Robbie Williams scored his 11th UK No.1 album when Swings Both Ways went to the top of the charts. It was also the 1,000 No.1 UK album since the charts began in 1956 when Frank Sinatra was at No.1 with Songs For Swingin’ Lovers.
Today in history
1434 – From this day until February 10, 1435, London’s Thames river completely froze. In 1806, English author B. Lambert wrote about the event in his book “The History and Survey of London and its Environs” after studying the Thames’ patterns of freezing over.
1542 – The English army defeated the Scots at the Battle of Solway Moss. It started as a family dispute when Henry VIII of England broke from the Roman Catholic Church and asked James V of Scotland, his nephew, to do the same, but James ignored his uncle’s request.
1639 – English astronomers Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree recorded the first known observation of a transit of Venus across the sun.
1806 – The birth of Reverend William Webb Ellis, Anglican clergyman and the alleged inventor of rugby football whilst a pupil at Rugby School. According to legend, Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it during a school football match in 1823. The William Webb Ellis Cup is presented to the winners of the Rugby World Cup.
1859 – Charles Darwin published his revolutionary work, On the Origin of Species. At its time of writing, Darwin’s claim that all life as we know it descended from a set of common ancestors was laughed at by many. It wasn’t until the 20th century that Darwin’s theories were taken as seriously as he would have wanted.