View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
1932 – The birth, in London, of the film actress Elizabeth Taylor. Her first success was in the 1944 film National Velvet. She played the title role in Cleopatra (1963) and married her co-star Richard Burton (twice).
1981 – The former Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced that he would not be standing for Parliament again at the next General Election.
1991 – The Gulf War came to an end with the liberation of Kuwait & the retreat of Iraqi forces.
1999 – While trying to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon, British pilots Colin Prescot and Andy Elson set a new endurance record after being in a hot air balloon for 233 hours and 55 minutes.
2002 – Spike Milligan, Irish comedian and writer died, aged 83. After the death of his friend Harry Secombe from cancer on 11th April 2001, Milligan said, “I’m glad he died before me, because I didn’t want him to sing at my funeral.” On his headstone is inscribed “I’Duirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite”, which is Irish for “I told you I was ill.” He was the favourite comic of Prince Charles who wrote a letter congratulating Milligan on winning a Lifetime Achievement Award, whereupon the comic, on live TV, jokingly labelled the Prince a “grovelling little bastard”.
2012 – The first 12 Nature Improvement Areas (NIAs) were announced, to help protect and enhance wildlife and ecosystems.
2014 – An ‘unreserved apology’ was issued by the government to the family of 47 year old Sheila Holt from Rochdale who was sent a letter encouraging her to find work, even though she had been in a coma for two months. She was sectioned under the Mental Health Act in December after struggling to cope with the government’s controversial new back-to-work scheme and had a heart attack on 17th December.
2015 – Former pop star Gary Glitter was jailed for 16 years for having sex with a 12 year old girl, attempting to rape an 8 year old and repeatedly molesting a third. Glitter was told by the judge that the sentence would have been longer if the offences had taken place today rather than in the 1970s. Glitter (real name Paul Gadd) was jailed in 1999 after admitting possessing 4,000 indecent images of children and was also jailed in Vietnam in 2002 after being found guilty of sexually abusing two girls aged 10 and 11.
2020 – Scientists observed the biggest explosion in the universe, 390 million light-years away. The explosion occurred in the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster.
Did you know that on this day in 1594, Henry IV was crowned as King of France at the Cathedral of Chartres? He was known as “Good King Henry” and remembered as an ideal king.
Benjamin Franklin coined the term battery during his experiments with electricity.
America’s population will be 60% over the age of 65 soon, so Hollywood is going to have to retool all their scripts and do a major national casting call soon for sexy old fogeys.
“You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.” – Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) in On the Waterfront, 1954
Place a slice of bread in a bag of a freshly cooked batch of cookies so the cookies will absorb moisture from the bread to stay fresh longer.
“People are strange when you’re a stranger. Faces look ugly when you’re alone.” #songlyrics
A group of Moles is called a Labor or Company or Movement.
Velcro is actually the name brand, the actual product is called Hook and Loop.
German Chocolate Cake is actually American and is named German Chocolate Cake after its creator, Sam German
A group of Computers is called a Network.
Fortune cookies were invented in 1916 by George Jung, in Los Angeles.
Out of the 10,000 members of the Communist Party USA in 1957, 1,500 were FBI informants.
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.