View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
1774 – The birth of Matthew Flinders, English explorer who circumnavigated Australia. The Flinders River in Queensland and the Flinders Range in South Australia are named after him.
1935 – The first driving test pass slip was presented to Mr. R. Beene of Kensington, a pupil of the British School of Motoring. Tests were introduced on a voluntary basis and became compulsory in June.
1940 – World War II: James Isbister became the first person killed in a German bombing raid; on Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands.
1942 – The first German V-2 rocket test launch. It exploded at lift-off but eventually over 3,000 V-2s were launched as military rockets by the Germans against Allied targets during the war, mostly London and later Antwerp. The attacks resulted in the death of an estimated 7,000+ military personnel and civilians, whilst 12,000 forced labourers were killed producing the weapons.
1964 – The Beatles set a new record for advance sales in the US with 2,100,000 copies of their latest single ‘Can’t Buy Me Love.’
1971 – The British heavyweight boxing champion Henry Cooper announced his retirement after being defeated by Joe Bugner.
1973 – Queen Elizabeth II opened the new London Bridge. The old one was sold to an American oil tycoon for £1m and transported to the United States.
1976 – Harold Wilson, Prime Minister for almost eight years, and leader of the Labour Party for 13 years, resigned. He insisted that there were no hidden reasons for his resignation although it was suggested that he might already have been aware of the first stages of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, which was to cause both his formerly excellent memory and his powers of concentration to fail dramatically.
1988 – A gunman killed 3 mourners and injured at least 50 who had been attending a funeral for IRA members shot dead in Gibraltar.
1993 – Britain’s Chancellor, Norman Lamont, announced the imposition of the Value Added Tax (VAT) on domestic fuel.
1996 – Mike Tyson defeats Frank Bruno in Round 3 for the world heavyweight title. On the same day, England beats Ireland, 28-15 at Twickenham for a second consecutive Five Nations Rugby Championship and Triple Crown.
1998 – Sir George Martin (producer of The Beatles in the 1960s and 70s) announced his retirement, aged 73.
2001 – According to a health survey, 16th March 2001 was the only day between 1993 and 2002 when nobody in the United Kingdom killed themselves.
2002 – The game between West Bromwich Albion and Sheffield United (dubbed the battle of Bramhall Lane) is abandoned when the Blades are reduced to six men through sendings off and injuries.
2013 – Wales routs England by a record 30-3 at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff to retain the Six Nation Rugby Championship.
Did you know that on this day in 1926, the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket was launched? The rocket reached an altitude of 41 feet in 2 seconds, averaging 60 mph.
The fear of the number 666 has a name: Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.
The human brain can compute 38 thousand trillion operations per second, which is 413 times more than the world’s most powerful supercomputer.
The 45, the 8-track, the cassette, the lazer disc, the floppy disk, the VHS, the video store and the CD have all have died during my lifetime.
The sounds made by the Brachiosaurs in Jurassic Park were a mix of whale and donkey sounds.
There is a whole generation that doesn’t know that Pirates of the Caribbean was a Disneyland ride decades before it was ever a movie.
The Capital of Uganda is Kampala.
The FDA allows five rodent hairs in every 18oz jar of peanut butter, while frozen berries can contain up to four larvae or 10 whole insects per 500g. #regulations
Red Wine gives most people a worse hangover than white wine.
Sid Vicious – Real Name: John Ritchie.
When we’re old, we will talk about old websites like how our parents talk about places that used to exist in their town.
Mary Westmacott – Real Name: Agatha Christie.
Grisel Torresola is the only member of the Secret Service who died protecting the US President (Truman).
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.