View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
What : day is it
1930 – The first British Empire Games (now the Commonwealth Games) were held at Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
1952 – Twelve bodies were recovered and 24 people were missing, feared dead, in a flood which swept through Lynmouth in north Devon.
1960 – Britain granted independence to the crown colony of Cyprus.
1969 – Hippie leader Abbie Hoffman is knocked offstage by Pete Townshend while attempting to make a political statement during The Who’s set on the second day at the Woodstock Festival.
1975 – Peter Gabriel announces that he is leaving Genesis.
1977 – Elvis Presley dies aged 42 on the toilet at his Graceland mansion in Memphis.
1980 – Bill Ward quits Black Sabbath, Cozy Powell quits Rainbow and Jools Holland quits Squeeze.
1985 – Former car maker John DeLorean is cleared of drug trafficking at a trial in LA. On the same day, Madonna marries actor Sean Penn on her 27th birthday.
1992 – Williams driver Nigel Mansell finishes second in the Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring to clinch the Formula 1 World Drivers Championship.
1997 – Blur, Prodigy, Beck, Kula Shaker, Dodgy, Foo Fighters, James and Ash appeared at the two-day V97 Festival in Chelmsford and Leeds.
2001 – Paul Burrell, former butler to Diana, Princess of Wales, was charged with theft from her estate relating to a total of 342 items, reportedly worth £5m.
2004 – Flash floods devastated the north Cornwall coastal village of Boscastle after the area’s average August rainfall fell in just two hours.
2005 – Madonna suffers three cracked ribs, a broken collarbone and a broken hand in a horse-riding accident on her and husband Guy Ritchie’s country estate on the Wiltshire/Dorset border.
2008 – Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt sets a new world record of 9.69 seconds to win the 100m gold medal at the Beijing Olympics. On the same day, Rebecca Adlington wraps up the 400/800m freestyle double at the Beijing Olympics with a world record 8:14.10 in the 800m.
2011 – Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan and Jordan Blackshaw were jailed for four years for using Facebook to incite disorder during the period of violence and looting that started on 6th August in a number of UK towns and cities. The men both admitted encouraging crime in Northwich, Cheshire, although there were no outbreaks of disorder in the town.
2018 – Soul legend Aretha Franklin dies aged 76 in Detroit. On the same day, British Columbia, Canada, declares a state of emergency with 566 wildfires burning.
The ’57’on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of pickle types the company once had.
The fear of cooking is known as Mageirocophobia and is a recognized phobia.
“I’m not talented or gifted. I’m a committed, meticulous workaholic. The only reason I succeed is that I refuse to fail.” – Jessie Snow
“Eh, what’s up doc?” #CartoonCatchphrase
Kidz Bop versions of lyrics are basically what the lyrics of those songs would have been if they had been written 60 years ago.
A group of ants is called a Colony or Army or Swarm or Nest.
Jeanne Clemont was the oldest person ever to live, surviving all the way up 120 years and 238 days.
There are more than 30,000 diets on public records. #snapplefacts
A strawberry is not a berry.
Rita Hayworth – Real Name: Marguerita Cansino
“You know, gingivitis is the number one cause of all tooth decay.” – Ace Ventura in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls #moviequotes
This orange juice says concentrate, but it doesn’t say for how long.
“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.” – T. E. Lawrence
“Do not try to excuse your faults; try to correct them.” – John Bosco
“Don’t settle for average. Bring your best to the moment. Then, whether it fails or succeeds, at least you know you gave all you had. We need to live the best that’s in us.” – Angela Bassett
“I’ve had it happen to me before where it turns out that they never had the money and couldn’t have made the movie in the first place. And these are the things you have to look for when trying to read the behaviour of the people you sit down with.” – Robert Culp
“Tell me I’m beautiful, it’s nothing. Tell me I’m intellectual – I know it. Tell me I’m funny and it’s the greatest compliment in the world anyone could give me.” – Julie Newmar
“If you settle for what you’ve got, you deserve what you get.” – Kathie Lee Gifford
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.
2012 – The Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant took place on the Tideway of the River Thames, as part of the celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.