View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
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1472 – Orkney and Shetland were pawned by Norway to Scotland in lieu of a dowry for Princess Margaret, daughter of Christian I, the King of Norway and Denmark. As the wife of King James III of Scotland she was the Queen Consort and the mother of the future King James IV of Scotland.
1938 – Anthony Eden resigned as British foreign secretary after the prime minister Neville Chamberlain decided to negotiate with Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
1940 – The birth of Jimmy Greaves, England’s third highest international goal scorer and the highest goal scorer in the history of Tottenham Hotspur football club. He was famed for his trademark catchphrase “It’s a funny old game.”
1947 – Lord Louis Mountbatten, cousin of King George VI and a hero of World War II, was appointed the last Viceroy of India, on the same day that London announced that the British would leave India by June 1948. In the same year he was granted the title of Baron Romsey.
1952 – Britain’s Jeannette Altwegg wins the Olympic women’s figure skating gold medal at the Olso Winter Games.
1958 – The government announces the closure of one of the oldest naval dockyards in the UK at Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.
1979 – 11 members of a loyalist gang known as the ‘Shankill butchers’ were sentenced for 19 sectarian murders in Belfast following a sensational trial.
1982 – US entrepreneur John de Lorean’s luxury sports car project in Belfast, set up with over £17 million of British taxpayers’ money, went into receivership. On his return to the US he was asked bluntly, ‘Are you a con man?’
1989 – Police hunted two IRA bombers who attacked an army barracks at Tern Hill in Shropshire. Fifty members of the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment escaped injury when two men were seen acting suspiciously in the early hours of the morning.
1990 – Environmentalists attacked the Government of Margaret Thatcher for proposing to spend £12.4 billion on new roads.
1993 – Ten year olds Jon Venables and Robert Thompson are charged with the abduction and murder of two-year old James Bulger.
2015 – Chelsea Football Club suspended three supporters as the club investigated racist chanting and phone footage of commuter, Sylla Souleymane being pushed and prevented access to a carriage on the Paris Metro.
2015 – Plans to build a wind turbine opposite Dylan Thomas’s Boathouse in Laugharne were quashed at the High Court. Carmarthenshire council’s planning committee had voted in favour of the development at Mwche farm in June 2014.
Slumber Party Barbie came with a book called “How to Lose Weight.” One of the tips was “Don’t eat.” #truestory
Building an averaged size house out of Lego would cost almost 6 times more than building it from real bricks.
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” was entirely filmed in Saxony, Germany. The interior scenes were shot in a department store.
Always count backward from the number of reps you wish to accomplish when you are exercising. #advice
Peppers taste hot because of a chemical compound called capsaicin.
“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” – Walt Disney
Dogs can now watch more TV due to higher refresh rates and resolutions, whereas before it was like watching a flickering image.
TV Quotes… “Resistance is futile” (Picard as Borg) on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”
After Haiti defeated France to earn its independence in 1804, France returned 20 years later with warships and demanded 150 million francs in gold to compensate for lost property. Haiti did not pay off this debt until 1947.
John Hurt holds the record by dying in over 40 different movies including Alien, Spaceballs, Elephant Man, Hellboy and V for Vendetta.
“The most important thing we can do is inspire young minds and to advance the kind of science, math, and technology education that will help youngsters take us to the next phase of space travel.” – John Glenn
“I am the me I choose to be.” – Sidney Poitier
“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.” – Kurt Cobain
“I’m always in love. If it’s not with a man, it’s something else. I love beauty. I love the sky I see outside the window. There’s so much beauty in the world.” – Gloria Vanderbilt
“The only difference between a good shot and a bad shot is if it goes in or not.” – Charles Barkley
“I don’t believe in the “supernatural,” I believe in the “supernormal.” To me, there is nothing that goes against nature. If it seems incomprehensible, it’s because we haven’t been able to understand it yet.” – Richard Matheson
“There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept.” – Ansel Adams
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.
2012 – The Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant took place on the Tideway of the River Thames, as part of the celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.