View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
What : day is it
1914 – The Christmas truce between British and German troops continued. At 2 a.m. a German band went along the trenches playing Home Sweet Home and God Save the King.
1932 – King George V made the first Royal Christmas broadcast to the Empire. Queen Elizabeth II made her first Christmas broadcast in 1952, and her first television Christmas message was broadcast in 1957.
1950 – The Stone of Scone, the Scottish coronation stone which had been in Westminster Abbey for 650 years was stolen by Scottish nationalists. The Stone, weighing 458lb (208kg) was said to have been taken from Scotland by Edward I.
1977 – Charlie Chaplin, the English born comic genius of silent films, died, aged 88.
2003 – Scientists failed to make contact with the British built Mars probe Beagle 2, which should have landed on the Red Planet ‘on this day’. Beagle 2 was named after HMS Beagle, which twice carried Charles Darwin during expeditions which would later lead to the theory of natural selection. Beagle 2 was officially declared lost on 6th February 2004. As of 2010 only 19 of 38 launch attempts to reach Mars have succeeded.
2010 – The body of landscape architect Joanna Yeates was found, covered with leaves in Failand, North Somerset. A post-mortem examination determined that she had been strangled. The police initially suspected and arrested Christopher Jefferies, Yeates’ landlord, who lived in a flat in the same building. The nature of press reporting on aspects of the case led to ‘substantial, undisclosed libel damages’ from eight newspapers being awarded to Mr. Jefferies. ITV commissioned a drama about Jefferies’ arrest entitled ‘The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies’ which was aired on 10th and 11th December 2014.
2013 – Earlier storms across southern England, stretching through Dorset, Hampshire, Surrey and Kent, led to extensive power cuts, with around 50,000 homes remaining without power through the Christmas period. Southern Electric said that it would guarantee a £75 payment for any customer who was without electricity for any time on Christmas Day.
2014 – The parcel delivery company City Link, which employed 2,727 people, went into administration.
2016 – Singer-songwriter George Michael (Georgios Panayiotou) dies at his home aged 53 from dilated cardiomyopathy with myocarditis and a fatty liver.
2019 – George Michael’s sister Melanie Panayiotou died suddenly age 59 on the third anniversary of her brother’s death.
2021 – The James Webb Space Telescope was launched from the Guiana Space Center. Jointly developed by NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, the telescope is the most advanced infrared telescope ever built.
Did you know that on this day in 1962, the film adaption of To Kill a Mockingbird was released? It earned more than six times its budget and won three academy awards.
The Terminator is the only cinematic character to appear on AFI’s list of Top 100 Villains and Heroes twice, once under each category.
Doc Brown needed 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to generate to power the DeLorean in “Back to the Future”.
The Orcs in The Lord Of The Rings have fabrics right? So… Does that mean they have Orc textilers? Orc fashion models? Are they always Orc angry all the time?
Chisholm’s Second Law: When things are going well, something will go wrong.
Walt Disney refused to grant Alfred Hitchcock permission to shoot a movie inside Disneyland, “because he made that disgusting film Psycho.”
C.S. Lewis’ middle name is Staples.
Biggest film of 2014: American Sniper (Drama) earned ~ $350,000,000
Every time you get dressed, remember that, if you die, that’s your ghost outfit forever.
When co-inventing the CD, Sony and Phillips agreed the length should be 74 minutes as to fit Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.
Australia has three A’s, all pronounced differently.
The wife of the French Minister of Finance murdered the editor of Le Figaro in 1914. She was later acquitted due to her “uncontrollable female emotions”.
A group of Stockbrokers is called a Portfolio.
Birthday : quotes
“Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.” – Yeshua (Jesus Christ)
“How many observe Christ’s Birth-day! how few his Precepts! O! ’tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments.” – Benjamin Franklin
“All you owe the public is a good performance.” – Humphrey Bogart (Said to Frank Sinatra)
Christmas is the one time of year when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ. – Bart Simpson, The Simpsons, 1989
“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” – Yeshua (Jesus Christ)
“The only real blind person at Christmas-time is he who has not Christmas in his heart.” – Helen Keller
“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” – Isaac Newton
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.