January 1st "2025" Daily Prep
Welcome to New Years Day! Known as Commitment Day, Euro (currency) Day, New Years Day. Your star sign is Capricorn and your birthstone is Garnet.
1999 – The Euro currency was introduced and adopted by 11 Member States – Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.
Todays birthdays
1954 – Richard Gibson (71), English actor, best known for his role as the Gestapo Officer Herr, Otto Flick in the BBC sitcom series, ‘Allo ‘Allo!, born in Kampala, Uganda.
1961 – Fiona Phillips (64), English journalist, broadcaster and television presenter (GMTV), born in Canterbury.
1969 – Paul Lawrie (56), Scottish professional golfer who is best known for winning The Open Championship in 1999, born in Aberdeen, Scotland.
1980 – Richie Faulkner (45), English musician best known as one of the lead guitarists for the heavy metal band Judas Priest since 2011, born in London.
1992 – Jack Wilshere (33), English football coach and former professional player (Arsenal, England), born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire.
Famous deaths
2023 – Tom Wilkinson (b. 1948), English actor (The Full Monty, Valkyrie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel).
The day today
1919 – More than 200 men, returning home after the end of World War One, died when the naval yacht HMY Iolaire hit a reef in bad weather close to Stornoway harbour and sank just yards from the Lewis coastline.
1951 – The first episode of the BBC’s radio serial The Archers – farming folk of Ambridge. It is the world’s longest running radio ‘soap’. By 18th December 2011 it had reached 16,600 episodes.
1965 – Stanley Matthews was knighted, the first professional footballer to receive this honour.
1985 – Michael Harrison, the son of former Vodafone chairman Sir Ernest Harrison, made the first ever mobile phone call in Britain. He called his father from London’s Parliament Square on the newly-launched Vodafone network using an 11lb (5kg) Transportable Vodafone VT1, which boasted around 30 minutes of talk time. A few days later, a crowd gathered at St Katherine’s Dock in London to watch comedian Ernie Wise make the first public mobile phone call using the same device. All were far from portable and cost around £2,000 – equivalent to roughly £5,000 today.
2022 – Tobias Weller, aged 11 and Max Woosey, 12, became the youngest-ever recipients of New Year’s Honours after raising more than £700,000 between them for charity. Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism walked more than 50 miles using his walking frame, plus a 112 mile ride on his trike, a 4km swim and running the length of a full marathon. Max inspired nearly 2,000 other young people all over the world to raise money for their own charities through Max’s Big Camp Out and has spent every night in a tent since March 2020.
Today in music
1956 – Bill Haley’s ‘Rock Around the Clock’ went to No.1 on the UK singles chart for the second time. The single is often cited as the biggest-selling vinyl rock and roll single of all time with sales over 25m.
1964 – The first edition of the BBC TV show Top Of The Pops was transmitted from an old church hall in Manchester, England. Acts miming to their latest releases included The Rolling Stones, (I Wanna Be Your Man), The Dave Clark Five, (Glad All Over), The Hollies, (Stay), and The Swinging Blue Jeans, (Hippy Hippy Shake). The first song played was Dusty Springfield’s ‘I Only Want To Be With You’. Also featured on disc and film, The Beatles (I Want to Hold Your Hand), Freddie & the Dreamers, Cliff Richard and the Shadows and Gene Pitney.
2007 – Queen beat The Beatles to be crowned greatest British band of all time by BBC Radio 2 listeners in the UK.They pipped the Fab Four in a live contest, trouncing other finalists The Rolling Stones, Oasis and Take That.The bands were judged on song-writing, lyrics, live performances, originality and showmanship.More than 20,000 listeners voted by email, text and phone.
2009 – According to official UK sales figures Duffy’s debut album Rockferry came top of the year-end chart, with 1.685 million copies sold. Take That had the second biggest seller with The Circus, Kings of Leon, Only By The Night was third, Spirit by Leona Lewis was fourth and Coldplay had the fifth biggest seller with Viva La Vida. X Factor winner Alexandra Burke had the UK’s top-selling single after her version of Hallelujah sold 888,000 copies in the last two weeks of the year.
2013 – Ultravox’s 1981 hit ‘Vienna’ was voted the UK’s favourite number two single. The song topped a poll by BBC Radio 2 and the Official Charts Company to find the greatest track to miss out on the number one spot. Vienna was held off by novelty track ‘Shaddup You Face’ by Joe Dolce. ‘Fairytale of New York’ by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl was voted into second place. Other songs to feature included The Beatles ‘Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever’, The Who’s ‘My Generation’ and Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’.
Today in history
1651 – Charles II was crowned King of Scotland at Scone, a village in Perth and Kinross.
1660 – Samuel Pepys began writing the Diary which he kept for nine years, writing in an early form of shorthand.
1760 – The death in Rome of ‘the Old Pretender’, James Stuart, father of Bonnie Prince Charlie. He is buried in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.
1773 – The hymn that became known as “Amazing Grace”, was first used to accompany a sermon, led by John Newton in the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire.
1818 – The publication of Mary’s Shelley’s book ‘Frankenstein’, frequently called the world’s first science fiction novel.