View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
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1841 – Thomas Cook, a Baptist cabinet maker, founded the first travel agency. The first official ‘Cook’s Tour’ involved almost 600 teetotallers taking the train from Leicester to Loughborough to attend a temperance meeting.
1945 – Churchill lost the General Election after leading Britain throughout World War II. Attlee’s Labour Party won 393 seats to the Tories’ 213.
1948 – Britain’s National Health Service came into operation when Aneurin Bevan, the health secretary, launched the NHS at Park Hospital in Davyhulme (today known as Trafford General Hospital). It was the climax of a hugely ambitious plan to bring good healthcare to all.
1948 – The birth of Aneira Reece at Amman Valley Hospital in Carmarthenshire. She was the first baby born to be born under the National Health Service, just after the clocks chimed midnight. She was named Aneira, after the founding father of the NHS, Aneurin Bevan.
1954 – The BBC broadcast its first daily television news programme.
1969 – The Rolling Stones gave a free concert in Hyde Park, London, two days after the death of guitarist Brian Jones. It was attended by 250,000 people.
1979 – The Queen presided over the 1000th annual open-air sitting of the Isle of Man’s Parliament, Tynwald.
1991 – The Bank of England closed down UK branches of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International over allegations of fraud.
1996 – Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, is born in Scotland.
2012 – The Shard, Europe’s tallest building to date and ‘a gleaming feat of glass and gravity-defying engineering’, was officially unveiled in London. It stands at 309.6 metres tall, cost £1.5bn and was 12 years in the making.
2012 – Police apologised after a terror alert closed the M6 Toll for more than four hours. Armed officers, troops, firefighters and bomb disposal experts responded after a coach passenger saw smoke coming from another passenger’s bag. Police later confirmed that the device was an electronic cigarette which gives off a visible vapour.
2014 – The Tour de France cycle race made its first visit to the north of England. Day 1 started in Leeds and took in the town of Skipton.
2017 – Arsenal breaks the club transfer record, paying about €53m for Lyon striker Alexandre Lacazette.
2019 – Former governor of Rio de Janeiro, Sérgio Cabral says he paid a $2 million bribe to secure votes for his city to be granted 2016 Olympics.
Did you know that on this day in 1994, the e-commerce company Amazon was incorporated? It began as just an online bookstore before growing into the multinational company it is today.
An ancient megalake existed beneath what is now the Sahara Desert at one point covering over 42,000 square miles.
George Bernard Shaw is the only person to ever win a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award.
A group of Buzzards is called a Wake.
“You can’t fool me. There ain’t no Sanity Clause!” – Fiorello (Chico Marx) #moviequotes
The ancient sanction of Zaleucus: If someone proposes a change to the law that is rejected, that person gets strangled.
The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929.
Canada has more Costco locations per capita than any country in the world except Iceland, which has one Costco.
Peter Venkman, Egon Spengler, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zedmore were the original Ghostbusters.
Though I’ve seen the commercials my entire life, I’ve never actually met anyone with a Chia Pet.
Since I’m the only person who rated my local Mcdonald’s it is now a 5-star restaurant.
The only truly unrealistic thing about sci-fi movie technology is the lack of pop-ups and advertisements obscuring 60% of the holoscreen.
A ‘ton’ of people is really only about 15 of them.
“Beware how you trifle with your marvelous inheritance, this great land of ordered liberty, for if we stumble and fall, freedom and civilization everywhere will go down in ruin.” – Henry Cabot Lodge
“I love the idea of having a kid who says, ‘Yeah, of course I knew about Billie Holiday and Johnny Cash when I was nine years old.’” – Robbie Robertson
“One must not mistake majority for truth.” – Jean Cocteau
“The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive.” – Bill Watterson
“Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself.” – P.T. Barnum
“The noblest art is that of making others happy.” – P.T. Barnum
“We need to have a taste factor in our life. It isn’t about what’s popular; it’s about what’s really good.” – Robbie Robertson
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.