View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
1791 – The British Parliament passed the Constitutional Act of 1791 and split the old Province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada.
1855 – The death of the writer Dorothy Wordsworth, sister of the romantic poet William Wordsworth.
1858 – Mendelssohn’s Wedding March was first played at the wedding of Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Victoria and Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia.
1874 – The birth of William Somerset Maugham, English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930s.
1899 – The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company began manufacture of the first radio sets, at Chelmsford.
1911 – The Daily Herald was launched. It was the first newspaper to sell two million copies.
1919 – The founding of The League of Nations, forerunner of the United Nations. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace.
1972 – The world’s first kidney and pancreatic tissue transplant was carried out in London
1981 – ‘The Gang of Four’ (Roy Jenkins, Dr David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers) split from the British Labour party to form the Social Democrats.
1989 – Actor John Cleese won damages for libel at the High Court over an article in the Daily Mirror, which claimed he had become like Basil Fawlty in his comedy series Fawlty Towers.
1990 – The so called Burns’ Day Storm occurred on this day over north-western Europe, and was one of the strongest storms on record. It started on the birthday of poet Robert Burns, lasted for two days, caused widespread damage and was responsible for 97 deaths.
1995 – After being sent off in a Premier League match at Crystal Palace, Manchester United’s Eric Cantona launches a kung-fu attack on Palace fan Matthew Simmonds. He receives an eight-month ban from football.
1998 – Spice Girl Victoria Adams and footballer David Beckham announce their engagement. On the same day, The Queen Mother, 97, has hip replacement surgery. Also, the Denver Broncos beat the Green Bay Packers, 31-24 to win the Super Bowl.
2003 – During the Iraq invasion, a group of people left London for Baghdad, to serve as human shields and thus prevent the U.S. led coalition troops from bombing certain locations.
2013 – Thorpe Park ordered experts to redesign its £20m new rollercoaster ‘The Swarm’, due to open on 15th March, after dummies lost limbs during dry run tests.
2014 – Sixteen schoolgirls made history by ending a tradition of male-only choral singing at Canterbury Cathedral stretching back more than a thousand years. The girls’ choir had their first public performance ‘On This Day’, at evensong. “The girls will initially only be singing at services when boy choristers, boarders at St Edmund’s school, take their twice-termly breaks. There are no women in the cathedral’s adult choir.”
I wonder how many times a potential burglar has walked up to my house, tried to open my locked front door, and thought “meh- it’s locked, not robbing this house.”
Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge was named after George La Forge, a quadriplegic Star Trek fan who passed away in 1975.
A group of Cod is called a Lap.
“Gremlins” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” were largely responsible for the creation of the PG-13 rating.
“We had fantastical feasts… when I lived in the palace.” – Ursula #moviequotes
There should be an emergency lane at the grocery store where you’re only allowed to buy one item you forgot when making dinner.
Toilet paper as we know it now was invented in 1857, but it took until 1930 to be splinter-free. #ouch
The tall chef’s hat is called a toque.
“How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap, stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly thou!” – Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange #moviequotes
The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland’s baby daughter, Ruth.
“Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”- Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) #moviequotes
Google has more influence over our daily lives than any ruler or lawmaker throughout history.
Eagles were/are a symbol of monarchies in Europe. America’s symbol is a bald eagle, because it is a democracy and no one wears a crown.
Everything you want to be, you already are. You’re simply on the path to discovering it. – Alicia Keys
The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel. – W. Somerset Maugham
Dreams on paper are never as good as the real thing.
– Geoff Johns
The kids are really smart. They are sharp and they’re not yet bent over by the system. I think there’s a wonderful intelligence in today’s youth, and it’s a part of growing up. – Tobe Hooper
While fame impedes and constricts, obscurity wraps about a man like a mist; obscurity is dark, ample, and free; obscurity lets the mind take its way unimpeded. Over the obscure man is poured the merciful suffusion of darkness. None knows where he goes or comes. He may seek the truth and speak it; he alone is free; he alone is truthful, he alone is at peace. – Virginia Woolf
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.