View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
1902 – In South Africa, Boer leaders met the British commander Lord Kitchener to discuss peace proposals to end the Boer War.
1927 – The British Cabinet came out in favour of voting rights for women.
1935 – The first flight of the Bristol Blenheim, a British light bomber aircraft designed and built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company that was used extensively in the early days of the Second World War. BAC went on to become a founding component of the nationalised British Aerospace, now BAE Systems.
1937 – British engineer, Frank Whittle, tested the first jet engine at the Thomson-Houston factory in Rugby. The first jet flight was achieved by the German Heinkel, but it was Whittle’s engine that was used as the prototype.
1939 – The birth of Sir Alan Ayckbourn, prolific English playwright. His plays have been translated into over 35 languages and are performed on stage and television throughout the world. Ten of them have been staged on Broadway, attracting two Tony nominations, and one Tony award. He was the Artistic Director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, where the majority of his work has been premiered.
1941 – Bobby Moore, English footballer was born. He captained West Ham for more than ten years and was captain of the England team that won the 1966 World Cup. He is widely regarded as one of the all-time greats of world football, and was cited by Pelé as the greatest defender that he had ever played against.
1954 – American, Bill Haley recorded ‘Rock Around The Clock’. It was first record to sell a million copies in Britain.
1984 – Arthur Scargill, leader of the miners’ union the NUM, would not allow a national ballot to take place on whether to stop the miners’ strike.
1989 – Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Cats’ was performed for the 3,358th time at the New London Theatre, Drury Lane, making it Britain’s longest running musical. Steven Wain who played one of the cats, was the only member of the original cast still in the show after eight years. Seats were booked to the end of 1999.
2000 – The Queen presented the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) with the George Cross, the highest civilian award for bravery.
2013 – Five members of the same family, including a baby, were killed in a crash on the A18 near Grimsby. A nationwide survey conducted by the Road Safety Foundation in 2010 deemed the Grimsby section the UK’s highest-risk stretch of road for car drivers.
2020 – The death (aged 90) of the British motor racing legend Sir Stirling Moss. Described as ‘A mighty racer and a true gentleman’, Stirling Moss was widely regarded as one of the greatest Formula 1 drivers of all time, even though he never won the World Championship. He won 16 of the 66 Formula 1 races he competed in (between 1951 and 1961) and in 1955, at Aintree, he became the first British driver to win a home grand prix.
Did you know that on this day in 1961, the first human visited space? Yuri Gagarin of the USSR completed a 108 minute orbital flight in a Vostok 1 Spacecraft.
I wonder if the reason aliens haven’t attacked us is that fiction is unique to human culture, and so they catch out movies floating around in space and think they’re seeing actual footage of us flying spaceships and wielding magic and all-around being unstoppable.
The formal name for the # symbol, commonly called the “hashtag” thanks to its widespread use in social media, is actually an “octothorpe.” #hashtag #octothorpe
The Capital of Nicaragua is Managua
The first victim of the Great Plague of London was Margaret Ponteous on April 12, 1665.
The Biggest film of 1956: The Ten Commandments
Boren’s Laws of the Bureaucracy: When in doubt, mumble. When in trouble, delegate. When in charge, ponder.
If you don’t want me stopping by for cake and ice cream, you probably shouldn’t advertise your birthday with balloons and a banner on your mailbox.
The ‘Happy Birthday’ song was placed into the public domain in September 2015.
“As for you, my galvanized friend, you want a heart. You don’t know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.” – The Wizard
“Give a man a mask and he will show his true face” – Oscar Wilde
The @ symbol dates back to 1345.
2018 – Xi’an, China, introduced a pedestrian lane for people who walk while looking at their phones.
1993 – The Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, fell into the sea following a landslide, making news around the world.
1805 – The first Trooping of the Colour took place on Horse Guards Parade. It was Edward VII who moved Trooping the Colour to its June date, because of the vagaries of British weather.