View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
1829 – The public hanging of Irish body-snatcher William Burke in Edinburgh. Burke and his accomplice William Hare, sold the corpses of their 17 victims to provide material for dissection to Doctor Robert Knox. Hare was offered immunity from prosecution if he confessed and if he testified against Burke. After Burke was hanged he was publicly dissected at the Edinburgh Medical College.
1896 – Walter Arnold of Kent was the first British motorist to receive a speeding fine, for exceeding 2 mph in a built-up area. He was doing 8 mph as he passed the house of the local policeman. The constable gave chase on his bicycle and after a 5 mile chase Mr. Arnold was arrested. He was fined one shilling for his offence.
1918 – The birth of Harry Corbett, the English puppeteer who created Sooty. According to the Guinness Book of Records, Sooty is the longest-running children’s programme in the UK. The puppet was 60 years old on 19th July 2008 and, as this was close to Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday, Sooty sent him a birthday message!
1953 – 19 year-old Derek Bentley was hanged at Wandsworth Prison. On 2nd November 1952, he and 16-year-old Christopher Craig were attempting to rob a confectioner’s warehouse in Croydon when they were caught by police. It was alleged that Bentley urged Craig to fire his gun, injuring one policeman and killing another. Both boys were found guilty of murder. Craig, too young to hang, was imprisoned, while Bentley was sentenced to death despite considerable public protest.
1958 – The Lego company patents its design of Lego bricks.
1973 – The Godfather wins best drama at the Golden Globes with Marlon Brando as best actor.
1983 – The death, aged 42, of Ronald William Wycherley, better known by his stage name Billy Fury. He equalled the Beatles’ record of 24 hits in the 1960s, and spent 332 weeks on the UK chart, without a chart-topping single or album.
1985 – The recording took place for We Are The World, the US equivalent of Band Aid at A&M Studios in Hollywood.
1986 – The space shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after take-off killing all seven astronauts on board.
1994 – The first women only boxing tournament was held at the Marine Halls, Fleetwood. Diane Berry became the first British super-flyweight women’s champion.
2014 – A report by the Commons public accounts committee found that the Queen’s advisers were failing to control her finances, while the royal palaces were ‘crumbling’. MPs said that her advisers had overspent to such an extent that her reserve fund had fallen from £35 million in 2001 to just £1 million. The Queen’s courtiers were advised to take money-saving tips from the Treasury.
2015 – Photographers took to Twitter to complain that their pictures of Arlington Row, in the Cotswold village of Bibury were being ‘blighted and photo-bombed’ by the bright yellow Vauxhall Corsa that belonged to one of the residents.
Mary Pickford – Real Name: Gladys Mary Smith
The entire 150,000+ moose population of the island of Newfoundland is descendant from just four moose released a little over 100 years ago.
“All-human staff” will eventually become a selling point for restaurants, like “free-range” or “fair trade”.
In 20 minutes characters in TV shows can save lives, destroy lives, end relationships, start relationships, betray friends, die protecting others, and what-not. While I will spend twenty minutes stressing over how I have to be at work soon.
The earth is 24,901 miles in circumference across its diameter.
The word ‘brackets’ (like [ ] and { }) is related to the french word for a codpiece and derives from the old Germanic word for pants.
If you told someone in 1990 that Ice Cube, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and OJ Simpson would be famous for: playing cops in movies, being Governor of California, alleged double murder …
In 1923, Mark Sennett, Harry Chandler, and the Los Angeles Times put up the ‘Hollywoodland’ (later shortened to ‘Hollywood’) sign, for $21,000.
A group of Bacteria is called a Culture.
It doesn’t make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement. – Jackson Pollock
Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. – Colette
If you love large, you’ve got to hurt large. If you’ve got a lot of light, you’ve probably got an equal amount of darkness. – Sarah McLachlan
Everything that divides men, everything that specified, separates or pens them, is a sin against humanity. – José Martí
It’s too bad I’m not as wonderful a person as people say I am, because the world could use a few people like that. – Alan Alda
Doctor Livingstone, I presume? – Henry Morton Stanley
The modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating. – Jackson Pollock
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.