View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
What : day is it
1928 – The voting age for women in Britain was reduced from 30 to 21.
1940 – The ‘Norway Debate’ began in the House of Commons. It led to the replacement of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the formation of a widely-based National Government led by Winston Churchill which was to govern Britain until the end of World War II.
1945 – Germany signed an unconditional surrender in a small school in Rheims (France) when General Jodl, German Army Chief of Staff, signed his name on documents that formally ended six years of war in Europe.
1947 – The death of Harry Gordon Selfridge, Sr., the American retail magnate who founded the London-based department store Selfridges.
1956 – Health Minister, RH Turton, rejected calls for a government campaign against smoking, saying no ill effects had been proven.
1959 – British Rail announced plans to close down 230 stations.
1965 – White voters in the African colony of Rhodesia backed Prime Minister Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Front which was demanding independence from the UK.
1987 – Ex-Guinness chairman Geoffrey Saunders was remanded on bail on a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
1994 – Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream” was found at a hotel, just three months after it had been stolen from a museum.
1997 – Glasgow Rangers won their 9th successive Scottish League title – to equal the record held by their closest rivals, Celtic.
2002 – The Queen officially opened the Gateshead Millennium Bridge that spans the River Tyne between Gateshead’s Quays arts quarter on the south bank, and the Quayside of Newcastle upon Tyne on the north bank. The tilting bridge (the world’s first) is sometimes referred to as the ‘Blinking Eye Bridge’ due to its shape and its tilting method to let tall ships pass underneath.
2014 – An international league table (Better Life Index) showed that people in Britain were 24 per cent more likely to go out of their way to help a stranger than the average inhabitant of the world’s other leading industrial countries.
2018 – Vladimir Putin is sworn in as Russian President for another six years. On the same day, Mark Williams defeats John Higgins 18-16 to win the World Snooker Championship at The Crucible in Sheffield and, as promised, does his press conference in the nude.
Did you know that on this day in 1946, Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering was founded? It would go on to become Sony and started out with only 8 employees.
When the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert was announced in 1992, all 72,000 tickets sold out in three hours, even though no performers were announced besides the remaining members of Queen.
Belinda Carlisle – Real Name: Leslie Wunderman
“After all, tomorrow is another day!” – Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) in Gone with the Wind, 1939
There is a museum in Croatia named “Froggyland” which is entirely composed of over 500 stuffed Frogs in human positions.
Xerox – Once the world’s largest “copier” company, they lost the rights to their trademarked name, XEROX, and became generic. Google may want to watch out.
EPCOT is an acronym for “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.”
US President #13 Millard Fillmore (1850-1853) Filmore was the first president not to be elected to the position. He became president when Zachary Taylor died. Fillmore had no vice president.
Gerald Ford (US President) – Real Name: Leslie King
When you eat at home as a family, everyone eats the same meal. But if you went out to a restaurant and everyone ordered the exact same thing, that’d be considered strange and even frowned upon.
The Capital of Sweden is Stockholm.
“There is a difference between conceit and confidence. Conceit is bragging about yourself. Confidence means you believe you can get the job done.” – Johnny Unitas
“To do good things in the world, first you must know who you are and what gives meaning to your life.” – Robert Browning
“It’s best to have failure happen early in life. It wakes up the Phoenix bird in you so you rise from the ashes.” – Anne Baxter
“There is no such thing as freedom of choice unless there is the freedom to refuse.” – David Hume
“I’m successful in spite of my past, not because of it.” – Traci Lords
“Success in marriage is more than finding the right person: it is being the right person.” – Robert Browning
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.