View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
1943 – The famous ‘Dam Busters’ raid by the 617 Squadron of Lancaster bombers led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson breached the Mohne, Eder and Sorpe dams in Germany using the ‘bouncing’ bombs developed by Dr Barnes Wallis. The Dambuster Pilots practiced their techniques at the Derwent Dam in Derbyshire.
1951 – The first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights began between John F Kennedy International Airport in New York and Heathrow Airport in London.
1956 – England’s Jim Laker took all 10 Australian wickets for 88 in 46 overs at the Oval.
1983 – London police began wheel clamping illegally parked vehicles.
1985 – Two South Wales miners, Russell Shankland and Dean Hancock , both aged 21, were jailed for life for the murder of taxi driver David Wilkie during the miners’ strike. In November 1984, Shankland and Hancock had planned to disrupt a police escort and taxi taking miner David Williams to the Merthyr Vale pit. The taxi driver died after the men hurled a concrete block and a concrete post from a bridge over the Head of the Valleys Road at Rhymner.
1990 – Muppets creator Jim Henson dies from toxic shock syndrome caused by pneumonia, aged 53. On the same day, Sammy Davis Jr dies from throat cancer aged 64.
1990 – John Gummer (government minister) attempted to reassure the public that British beef was safe despite growing fears over BSE. He enlisted his daughter by having her filmed eating a beef burger for the benefit of the TV cameras.
1991 – Queen Elizabeth II addressed the U.S. Congress, the first British monarch to do so.
2001 – Labour’s Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, punched a man who threw an egg at him during his visit to, Rhyl, North Wales. The two men were then involved in a scuffle (dubbed the rumble in Rhyl) before the police intervened and arrested Craig Evans, aged 29.
2013 – Following earlier government plans to raise the state pension age, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a ‘think tank’, found that retirement resulted in a ‘drastic decline in health’ in the medium and long term. Many of us who are retired would disagree!
2013 – George Michael is injured when he falls out of a Range Rover travelling on the M1 Motorway. On the same day, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates regains his position as the world’s richest man with a fortune of $72.7 billion.
2019 – The Jeremy Kyle Show is axed by ITV after a guest later dies.
Anne Ramsey (The Goonies, Throw Mama from the Train) also founded the Theater of Living Arts (the TLA) in Philadelphia.
Almonds are a member of the peach family.
“Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt”.
“I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.” – Steve Martin
If 7 billion competed in a single-elimination rock paper scissor tournament, the winner would have only won 33 times in a row.
“Man has always learned from the past. After all, you can’t learn history in reverse!” – Archimedes #moviequotes
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off #moviequotes
Sometimes typing without looking at the keyboard works perfectly; other times it ends up kujw rgua~
The charcoal drawing of Kate Winslet in James Cameron’sTitanic was actually drawn by James Cameron.
“Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.” – Lawrence Walsh (Joe Mantell) #moviequotes
My mom always told me, “Don’t talk to strangers online.” But that’s all I do.
The Breakfast Club, Ferris Beuller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles, and Weird Science were all filmed in Highland Park, Illinois.
A group of Rabbits is called a Colony or Warren or Bury or Trace or Trip or Herd.
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.