View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
1886 – Cruft’s Dog Show was held in London for the first time. Previously it had been held in Newcastle. The organizer was Charles Cruft, general manager of a dog biscuit firm.
1914 – Suffragette Mary Richardson slashed Velazquez’s painting – ‘Rokeby Venus’ at London’s National Gallery with a meat cleaver as a protest against the Government’s treatment of Emmeline Pankhurst.
1919 – The British Government decided in favour of building a tunnel linking England to France.
1922 – Mahatma Gandhi was arrested by the British governors of India and sentenced to six years in prison.
1956 – Peter Twiss, former Brooke Bond tea taster and later a test pilot, became the first man to fly at more than 1,000 mph.
1964 – Prince Edward, youngest son of Queen Elizabeth II was born.
1967 – Singer Sandy Shaw released her record ‘Puppet on a String’ which won the Eurovision Song Contest for Britain.
1988 – Prince Charles narrowly escaped death in an avalanche at Kloisters (Switzerland). His friend Hugh Lindsay was killed.
1997 – The Spice Girls made pop music history by becoming the first group to top the charts with every one of their first four singles.
2003 – Former world motorcycle champion Barry Sheene died after a long battle against cancer.
2003 – MP Clare Short threatened to resign from the Cabinet if Tony Blair led the country to war against Iraq without approval from the UN and she did, on 12th May.
2015 – The Queen officially named the new cruise superliner ‘Britannia’. The 3,600 P&O passenger vessel is the largest cruise ship designed for the British holiday market. Its home port will be Southampton for the summer months, after being built in Italy at a cost of almost £0.5bn.
2015 – Music copyright infringement from Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke led to a record payout of $7.3 million to the family of Marvin Gaye. The duo copied Marvin Gaye’s 1977 hit “Got to Give It Up.”
2017 – The death (aged 83) of the former Formula 1 and motorcycling world champion John Surtees. Surtees is the only man to have won the grand prix world championship on both two wheels and four. He won four 500cc motorcycling titles – in 1956, 1958, 1959 and 1960 – and the F1 crown with Ferrari in 1964.
Did you know that on this day in 1876, the first ever telephone call was made? The call was made by Alexander Graham Bell to his assistant Thomas Watson.
In a 500-day period, I could theoretically meet someone, get married, have a baby, and get divorced and I’d still be using the same box of Q-tips.
Frank Welker has voiced the character, Fred Jones, in Scooby-Doo since the show’s conception in 1969.
According to the movie Titanic, if the lookouts weren’t so distracted looking at Rose and Jack smooching on the deck, they would have seen the Iceberg in time to avoid it.
There are Ides in every month, not just March. The Ides are basically the day marking the middle of each month.
TV Quotes… “I know nothing!” (Sgt Schultz) on “Hogan’s Heroes”
“Donaldism” is the name for Disney fandom particularly focused on comics and cartoons. The the Germans call their society: “D.O.N.A.L.D.” (“Deutsche Organisation nichtkommerzieller Anhänger des lauteren Donaldismus” or the German Organization of Non-commercial Devotees of Pure Donaldism)
Liechtenstein has won the most Olympic medals per capita of any country, with nearly one medal for every 3,600 inhabitants.
People are more likely to purchase things that are direct multipliers of the final price: “4 Pizzas and 6 Toppings for £24” (4×6=24)
When you’re smiling to the camera, you’re really smiling to someone in the future.
Lenny Bruce – Real Name: Alfred Schweiger
10 cards: 1 decacards
“What do you see when you turn out the light? I can’t tell you but I know it’s mine” #songlyrics
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.
2015 – Archaeologists began excavating up to 3,000 skeletons from a burial ground under London’s Liverpool Street station.