View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
What : day is it
1913 – Battersea elected the first black mayor in London, John Archer, born in Liverpool of Jamaican parents. The honour of Britain’s first black mayor goes to Allen Glaser Minns (Dr. Allan Glaisyer Minns?) who was elected Mayor of Thetford, Norfolk in 1904.
1942 – Buoyant after the desert victory at El Alamein, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said: ‘This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.’
1944 – The birth of Tim Rice, best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, and additional songs for the 2011 West End revival of The Wizard of Oz.
1960 – Bookshops all over England sold out of Penguin’s first run of 200,000 copies of the controversial novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
1968 – England and Yorkshire fast bowler Fred Trueman announced his retirement. A bronze statue of him (pictured) is in the canal basin at Skipton, North Yorkshire, the town where he lived for many years.
1980 – Outspoken left wing MP Michael Foot defeated Denis Healey in a shock result to become the new leader of the Labour party.
1986 – The legendary jockey, Sir Gordon Richards, died aged 82.
1997 – Louise Woodward, British child-minder, was freed from jail in the United States after her conviction for murdering a baby was reduced to manslaughter. Her sentence was cut to 279 days, the exact length of time she had already spent in jail.
2002 – Viewers of the UK music channel VH1 voted ‘I Will Always Love You’ as the most romantic song ever.
2010 – Tens of thousands of people protested against plans to treble tuition fees and cut university funding in England. The Conservative Party headquarters were stormed and outside, placards and banners were set on fire and missiles were thrown.
2012 – The BBC’s director general, George Entwistle, resigned in the wake of a Newsnight child abuse broadcast which wrongly implicated ex-senior Tory Lord McAlpine.
2014 – The first UK TV adverts featuring the use of an electronic cigarette (vaping) were shown. While e-cigarette adverts have been on television for some time, showing the device itself was banned until a change in advertising rules which came into force ‘On This Day’.
Did you know that on this day in 1885, German engineer Gottlieb Daimler unveiled the world’s first motorcycle? It was referred to as the Daimler Reitwagen when it was announced.
Lucille Le Sueur was better known as Joan Crawford.
Mr. Rogers always kept these words from a social worker in his pocket: “Frankly, there isn’t anyone you couldn’t learn to love once you’ve heard their story.”
A group of Photographers is called a Clique.
An extra-large bathtub was installed in the White House after Taft, a rather large man, got stuck in it. He later became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
There’s no sense beating a dead horse – but if you’ve reached the point where you even seriously consider that abusing a dead animal might improve your lot in life, I say go ahead and give it a shot.
The Capital of Eritrea is Asmara
“I want to be alone.” – Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo) in Grand Hotel, 1932
Shoeless Joe Jackson was a lefthanded hitter, but Ray Liotta portrayed him as a righty in Field of Dreams.
“The Cream Does NOT Always Rise To The Top! There is a serious misconception, misconnection, and mistake in this idea of thinking.” – Loren Weisman
Birthday : quotes
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.