View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
What : day is it
1926 – Agatha Christie disappeared from her Surrey home and was discovered on the 14th December staying under an assumed name at the Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate. She said she had no recollection of how she came to be in Yorkshire.
1944 – Britain ‘stood down’ the Home Guard – formed in 1939 to defend Britain from invasion by Germany. They were officially disbanded in December 1945.
1948 – The birth of John Michael ‘Ozzy’ Osbourne, English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter, whose musical career has spanned over 40 years. He rose to prominence as lead singer of the band Black Sabbath and became known as the ‘Prince of Darkness’.
1961 – The whole of south East England was plunged into darkness for two hours, due to an error by an electrician.
1963 – The launch of Britain’s second nuclear submarine, HMS Valiant.
1976 – A giant 40ft inflatable pig could be seen floating above London after breaking free from its moorings at Battersea Power Station during a photo shoot for the cover of the next Pink Floyd album Animals. On the same day, seven gunmen burst into Bob Marley’s Kingston home injuring Marley, his wife Rita and manager Don Taylor.
1977 – Wings started a nine week run at No.1 with Mull of Kintyre. It was the first single to sell over 2 million in the UK.
1984 – British Telecom was privatised. The shares immediately made massive gains.
1988 – Junior Health minister Edwina Currie provoked outrage by saying that most of Britain’s egg production was infected with the salmonella bacteria.
1989 – President George Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev declare an end to the Cold War after two days of talks at the Malta summit.
1992 – Two bombs exploded in the centre of Manchester injuring 65 people. Miraculously no-one was killed, but much of the city centre had to be rebuilt.
2007 – Gillian Gibbons, a 54 year old teacher from Liverpool was released after eight days in custody and handed over to British officials in Sudan after being jailed for letting her class name a teddy bear Muhammad.
2009 – The death of Richard Todd, British actor, immortalized in the film Dam Busters (1955) as Wing Commander Guy Gibson, VC.
2010 – Phil Taylor successfully defends his PDC World Darts title with a 7–3 victory over Simon Whitlock of Australia.
2012 – St James’s Palace announced that the Duchess of Cambridge was expecting a baby. The baby, the couple’s first, would be born third in line to the throne, after Prince Charles and Prince William.
2015 – RAF Tornado jets carried out their first air strikes against ‘so-called Islamic State’ in Syria, hours after MPs had voted (397 votes to 223) in favour of UK action in Syria.
2019 – The 70th anniversary of NATO was marked by a gathering in London of world leaders, followed by a reception by Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.
Did you know that on this day in 1994, the original PlayStation launched in Japan? It became the first video game console to ship 100 million units.
In the King Kong movies, they find King Kong on an island that also has dinosaurs on it, and yet they choose not to bring back any dinosaurs for some reason.
Truman Capote – Real Name: Truman Streckfus Persons Streckfus
Always and Never are two words to always remember never to use.
The Beatles album cover for HELP does not spell out HELP in flag semaphore. It is NUVJ because the photographer thought it looked better.
The Capital of Brazil is Brasilia.
The eleven points of the maple leaf of the Canadian flag have no special significance: the number and arrangement of the points were chosen after wind tunnel tests and the chosen pattern is the least blurred under high winds.
William Shakespeare was married under the name “William Shagspere”.
The term “junkie” comes from the fact that heroin users in the early 1900s would collect (often steal) and sell scrap metal to pay for their heroin.
How come we never hear about anything else Lord Voldemort did except supposedly killing Harry Potter’s parents? #mysterytome
The song Fly Me to the Moon was the first music ever played on the Moon, when Buzz Aldrin played it on a cassette tape.
Birthday : quotes
“All idealization makes life poorer. To beautify it is to take away its character of complexity – it is to destroy it.” – Joseph Conrad
“I always approach comedy roles pretending they aren’t funny.” – Brendan Fraser
“I have never let my schooling get in the way of my education.” – Mark Twain
“My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel- it is, before all, to make you see. That- and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation, fear, charm- all you demand; and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.” – Joseph Conrad
“I’m good with getting older because I feel like one day, I know I will love myself.” – Amanda Seyfried
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.