View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
What : day is it
1937 – The first issue of the Dandy comic. With a fan club of over 350,000, Desperate Dan proved a durable character. A copy of this first edition is worth between £850 and £1,000. The closure, on 4th December 2012, coincided with its 75th anniversary and the final print edition included a pullout reprint of the very first edition of the comic.
1948 – George Orwell completed the final draft of the book Nineteen Eighty Four which was published on 8th June 1949.
1952 – At least 4,000 people died in a week, from breathing difficulties, during a severe London smog.
1961 – Birth control pills became available on the NHS.
1976 – Benjamin Britten, considered to be Britain’s leading composer, died aged 63. He had been fighting ill health after a heart operation in 1973.
1980 – English rock group Led Zeppelin officially disbanded, following the death of drummer John Bonham on 25th September.
1997 – Europe’s health ministers voted to ban tobacco advertising throughout the European Union although they agreed that motor-racing, which relied heavily on sponsorship and advertising by tobacco companies, should be exempt for another 8 years.
2008 – The Bank of England cut interest rates by one percentage point, from 3% to 2% – the lowest level since 1951. The move followed a dramatic cut in November in an attempt to help the slowing economy.
2008 – Karen Matthews, the mother of nine-year-old Shannon, was convicted of kidnapping her own daughter. Matthews, 33, and her co-accused Michael Donovan, 40, were found guilty of kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice. The trial at Leeds Crown Court heard that the pair kept Shannon ‘drugged, subdued and hidden from the public’ so that they could claim £50,000 in reward money.
2012 – The highest lottery prize ever to remain unclaimed (£63.8m) eventually went to good causes as the winner did not come forward by the deadline of 23:00 GMT.
2013 – One of Edinburgh’s new trams (No. 264) completed the first test run along Princes Street, flanked by teams of engineers. It was the first time since 1956 that a tram had run on Princes Street. Council bosses said that it was another indication that they were back in control of the troubled project.
2014 – Knutsford council, in Cheshire, approved plans to widen the town’s pavements. 220 years previously, spinster Lady Jane Stanley had paid for narrow pavements to be laid in the town, to prevent lovers from strolling arm in arm.
2014 – The death, aged 85, of Jeremy Thorpe, former Liberal party leader.
2018 – French couture house Chanel ended its use of fur and exotic skins, following suit of bans by other companies.
Did you know bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers were all all invented by women.
The character Travis Bickle in ‘Taxi Driver’ (1976) was inspired by real-life assassin Arthur Bremer, who tried to kill Governor George Wallace in 1972.
The Capital of Botswana is Gaborone
“Soylent Green is people!” – Det. Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston) in Soylent Green, 1973.
The earliest recorded recipe for Mac & Cheese is from the 14th century.
Alfred Hitchcock chose to not conclude the film The Birds with the usual “THE END” title because he wanted to leave the audience on edge.
Shuttlecocks used in professional badminton are made of feathers from the left wing of a goose. Feathers from the right wing make them spin the wrong way.
Upon landing on the moon, Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad said, “That may have been a small one for Neil, but that’s a long one for me.”
The plastic piece on the end of a shoelace is called an aglet.
I wonder if Aliens have ever made a movie about how they invaded a nice looking planet with an underdeveloped species and then got defeated as the underdeveloped species took down their shields with one of their viruses.
The Capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina is Sarajevo
Birthday : quotes
“Someday, somehow, I am going to do something useful, something for people. They are, most of them, so helpless, so hurt and so unhappy.” – Edith Cavell
“The great characters of fiction live as truly as the memories of dead men. For the life after death, it is not necessary that a man or woman should have lived.” – Samuel Butler
“I will not lose, for even in defeat, there’s a valuable lesson learned, so it evens up for me.” – Jay-Z
“Every day, I wanna work on being a better person, not just to others but to myself.” – Fred Armisen
“Each man has his own desires; all do not possess the same inclinations.” – Tyra Banks
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.