View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
1918 – The SS Tuscania was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland by the German U-boat UB-77. She sank with the loss of 210 lives and was the first ship carrying American troops to Europe to be torpedoed and sunk.
1920 – Founding of the RAF Training College at Cranwell, in Lincolnshire.
1924 – The Royal Greenwich Observatory begin broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal or the “BBC pips”.
1953 – Sweets were taken ‘off ration’ in Britain, 8 years after the 2nd World War had ended.
1954 – Britain opened its first atomic power station, at Harwell.
1958 – Parking meters first appeared on the streets, in London’s exclusive Mayfair district. The meters were first used in America in 1935.
1967 – A ban by the Musicians’ Union, ‘in the cause of decency’, stopped The Rolling Stones’ latest record Let’s Spend the Night Together, from being performed on television.
1968 – Another trawler from Hull sank off the coast of Iceland. Over a period of three weeks 60 fishermen lost their lives in Iceland’s worst storms since 1925.
1982 – The small, independent Laker Airlines, created by former British pilot Sir Freddy Laker to cut prices and make air travel more accessible, collapsed with debts of £270m.
1993 – In the Antarctic, British explorers Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Dr Michael Stroud broke the record for longest unsupported polar march.
1996 – Two British supermarket chains (Safeway and Sainsbury) became the first to stock genetically modified food when they sold GM tomato puree.
1998 – Prime Minister Tony Blair, announced that veteran US entertainer Bob Hope, who was born in England, would receive an honorary knighthood.
2004 – Twenty-three Chinese people drown when a group of 35 cockle-pickers are trapped by rising tides in Morecambe Bay.
2014 – Overnight storms caused the loss of the sea wall and railway line at Dawlish, between Exeter and Cornwall. Around 30 residents had to be evacuated from their homes in the seaside town, while beach huts that once stood on the sea wall were destroyed. The line reopened on 4th April 2014, in time for the Easter holidays.
2016 – The general release of “Dad’s Army”, based on the BBC television sitcom Dad’s Army. Much of it was filmed in Bridlington Old Town and at North Landing, Flamborough.
Did you know that on this day in 1869, the world’s largest golden nugget was found? It was discovered at Moliagul, Victoria, Australia and weighed 3,123 ozt (97.14 kg).
Downside Up isn’t the opposite up upside down. Upside up is.
A group of Meteorologists is a Shower.
Over 90% of all fish caught are caught in the northern hemisphere.
The oldies station will have come full circle when it starts playing Weezer’s “Buddy Holly.”
The very best place to do a shady transaction or deal is in neon animal costumes outside a mental institution because no one would believe the witnesses.
Jayne Mansfield – Real Name: Vera Jane Palmer
Sammy Hagar’s biggest single “I Can’t Drive 55” spawned from a speeding ticket he got in NY.
Calculus has not changed much over 1000 years, but there is always that new edition of a textbook that comes out.
I forgot my password. Old me has outwitted new me.
“It’s strong enough for both of us.” #famouslastwords
From the beginning of “Empire Strikes Back” to halfway through “Return of the Jedi,” Han Solo was wearing the same pants.
Pringles are only about 42% potato.
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.