View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
What : day is it
1938 – The birth, in Bingley, of Harvey Smith, controversial English showjumper. He competed in two Summer Olympics. His best Olympic finish was fourth, in the individual show jumping event at Munich in 1972.
1940 – London suffered its most devastating air raid when Germans firebombed the city. Hundreds of fires caused by the exploding bombs engulfed areas of London, but fire fighters showed a valiant indifference to the bombs falling around them and saved much of the city from destruction. The next day, a newspaper photo of St. Paul’s Cathedral standing undamaged amid the smoke and flames seemed to symbolize the capital’s unconquerable spirit during the Battle of Britain.
1975 – New legislation introducing a woman’s right to equal pay and status in the workplace, and in society, came into force in the UK.
1986 – Lord Stockton, the former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, died aged 92.
1997 – British journalist Dawn Alford, of the Daily Mirror, who claimed a Cabinet Minister’s son had sold her drugs, was arrested on suspicion of possessing cannabis, hoisted (as the saying goes) by her own petard!
2012 – Tony Greig, the 66 year old former England Test cricket captain turned commentator died after suffering a heart attack in Sydney. Greig scored 3,599 runs at an average of 40.43, took 141 Test wickets and was named one of Wisden’s Cricketers of the Year in 1975.
2013 – Formula 1 legend Michael Schumacher suffers a serious head injury in a ski accident in the French Alps.
2012 – Bradley Wiggins, who won the Tour de France and an Olympic gold, was knighted in the New Year Honours list. Paralympic cyclist Sarah Storey, born in Disley became a dame after taking four gold medals. The most decorated sailor in Olympic history, Ben Ainslie, was also knighted. In all, 78 awards were linked to the 2012 Olympics or Paralympics.
2013 – A painting bought for £400 and featured on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow was revealed to be a Van Dyck portrait worth about £400,000. Father Jamie, who runs a retreat house in Whaley Bridge, on the edge of the Peak District, said that he was planning to sell the piece by the 17th Century Flemish artist to buy new church bells.
2014 – Christopher Hooson (33) who stole an Android tablet from a Whitley Bay charity shop, only to try and donate it to them eight days later as it did not work, was recognized by staff from his CCTV images. He was ordered to pay £85 costs and a £20 victim surcharge.
2016 – US President Barack Obama retaliates against Russia for hacking American computer systems and trying to influence the 2016 presidential election by ejecting 35 Russian spies and imposing sanctions.
Did you know that on this day in 1965, Thunderball, the fourth James Bond film, had its UK premiere? It was exceptionally successful and, adjusting for modern prices, made around £1 billion.
While trying to publish his first novel Ernest Hemingway was meeting with an editor who wished to see more of his work. His wife packed all of his work she could find in a suitcase and went to meet him. While on the train she left the suitcase unattended, where it was lost and never seen again. #samethinghappenedtome
“The leading cause of death among fashion models is falling through street grates.” – Dave Barry
Pretty much any survivor of a paranormal horror movie is going to prison… “Ghosts killed all those people whose blood I was covered in, if I didn’t read the incantation to banish their spirits in time I would have been next” would never fly in court.
The protagonist in Wicked was based on Margaret Hamilton’s approach to the character, as explained to TV’s Mister Rogers.
Biggest film of 2009: Avatar (Action) earned ~ $760,000,000
“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” – Captain (Strother Martin) in Cool Hand Luke, 1967
Burl Ives – Real Name: Burl Ivanhoe
Before Elvis Presley became famous, he had a troubling past of getting bullied. Once in High School, three guys were going to cut his hair off. Then a man, named Red West intervened in the scene and stopped them. He would become Elvis’s bodyguard and friend and was with him from 1956 to 1975.
Birthday : quotes
“If I am shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet.” – Andrew Johnson
“If you analyze the bad times you find that it’s because you wanted to have a bad time.” – Marianne Faithfull
“Pain nourishes courage. You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.” – Mary Tyler Moore
“It’s funny that we think of libraries as quiet demure places where we are shushed by dusty, bun-balancing, bespectacled women. The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy, and community. Librarians have stood up to the Patriot Act, sat down with noisy toddlers, and reached out to illiterate adults. Libraries can never be shushed.” – Paula Poundstone
“Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home.” – William Ewart Gladstone
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.