View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
What : day is it
1809 – Charles Darwin, English naturalist and author of The Origin of Species, was born, in Shrewsbury. This statue (see ©BB picture) is outside Shrewsbury library, a building that was once Darwin’s former school. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.
1932 – Ramsey MacDonald introduced a bill to improve youth courts, raise the age of juveniles and ban whipping of under 14s.
1943 – William Morris (Lord Nuffield), the founder of Morris Motors, created the Nuffield Foundation, Britain’s biggest charitable trust, with a gift of £10 million. The Nuffield Foundation’s income comes from the interest on its investments. It does not fund raise or receive funding from the Government. It is financially and politically independent.
1954 – The British Standing Advisory Committee on cancer claimed that the illness had a definite link with cigarette smoking.
1991 – Government ministries and bridges in Iraq were destroyed during the Gulf War.
1993 – A 2 year old boy, James Bulger, was abducted from the Strand Shopping Centre, Bootle, and later killed by two 10 year old boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. They were the youngest people to be charged with murder in England and Wales during the 20th century. A mere eight years later, in June 2001, the parole board ruled that the boys were no longer a threat to public safety and could be released. They were given new identities and moved to secret residence locations but on 2nd March 2010 Jon Venables was returned to prison, short term, for a violation of the terms of his licence of release.
1994 – One hundred people made history by walking from France to England for the first time in millions of years. Each represented charities and voluntary organisations and walked the 31 mile Channel Tunnel which took, on average, 13 hours to complete.
1996 – Prime Minister John Major pledged to rebuild the Ulster Peace Process, telling Sinn Fein to choose between ‘the ballot or the bullet’.
2017 – Elaine Hopley, a 45 year old Scottish mother-of-two, broke the solo female record in a prestigious rowing race across the Atlantic. Her time for the event, dubbed “the world’s toughest row”, was 59 days, 19 hours and 14 minutes. She was raising money for Alzheimer Scotland and completed the challenge in her boat Jan, named after her mother.
2019 – The death, aged 81, of Gordon Banks, English goal keeper. He made 628 appearances during a 15-year career in the Football League, and won 73 caps for England. He retired in August 1973 after losing the sight in his right eye in a motoring accident the previous year. Banks’ consistent performances in goal led to the re-wording of a common English phrase to ‘As safe as the Banks of England.’
The Capital of Poland is Warsaw
Biggest film of 1981: Raiders of the Lost Ark (Action/Adventure)
“Airplane!” (1980) is a remake of a serious 1957 TV movie called “Zero Hour”. The producers actually bought the rights to it.
A group of Bananas is called a Bunch.
The most complex object in the known universe is sitting right inside your skull.
Victoria Island, Canada’s 2nd largest island, the world’s 8th largest, and that it contains the world’s largest island within an island within an island.
“In a world full of people only some want to fly, isn’t that crazy?” #songlyrics
I don’t recall the last time I clicked “Next Page” on a Google search.
Every single person you meet knows something that you don’t.
George C. Scott refused the 1970 Academy Award for best actor for his portrayal of Patton because he believed every dramatic performance is unique and cannot be compared.
Gene Wilder – Real Name: Jerome Silberman
Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
“Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” – Abraham Lincoln
“History is the story of events, with praise or blame.” – Cotton Mather
“Success depends in a very large measure upon individual initiative and exertion, and cannot be achieved except by a dint of hard work.” – Anna Pavlova
“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” – Charles Darwin
“Most people think they know the answer. I am willing to admit I don’t even know the question.” – Arsenio Hall
“I’m satisfied and proud of the things I did – even the bumps and the bruises that I’ve had on the way. You fall down, you get up, you brush yourself off and you keep going. And that’s what we’re doing.” – Gucci Mane
“Leadership is intangible, and therefore no weapon ever designed can replace it.” – Omar Nelson Bradley
“The ancient Egyptians used to say: if you say a man’s name, he is alive. I take this opportunity to say, Jim Morrison.” – Ray Manzarek
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.