View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
What : day is it
November 24th is Sardines Day and Celebrate Your Unique Talent Day.
1939 – Imperial Airways and British Airways merged to become BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation), which later merged with British European Airways and returned to one of the previous names, British Airways.
1941 – The birth of Pete Best, British musician, principally known as the original drummer in The Beatles, until he was eventually replaced by Ringo Starr.
1951 Austin and Morris Motors agreed to merge.
1955 – The birth of Ian Botham, former England Test cricketer and Test team captain. He played mainly for Somerset and the County Ground at Taunton has a stand called the Sir Ian Botham Stand.
1962 – ‘ That Was the Week That Was’ went out live from the BBC, introduced by a new presenter, David Frost, and with some material written by an equally unknown John Cleese.
1972 – One of only eight 1933 pennies minted was auctioned at Sotheby’s for £7,000.
1974 – Police charged 6 men in connection with the Birmingham pub bombings 3 days previously.
1987 – Free eye tests were abolished by the Conservative government.
1991 – Freddie Mercury, English rock singer, quietly passed away at the age of 45 in his Kensington home. His death came just 24 hours after he publicly announced that he had AIDS.
1993 – The last 14 bottles of Scotch whisky salvaged from the SS Politician, wrecked in 1941 and the inspiration of the book and film, Whisky Galore, were sold at auction for £11,462.
2005 – New laws came in force in England and Wales allowing ’round-the-clock drinking’.
2008 – Chancellor Alistair Darling cut VAT, but took borrowing to record levels in moves that he said were needed to save the UK from a deep and long-lasting recession.
2010 – Weather forecasters predicted that the UK would be entering a prolonged cold spell which could bring one of the earliest significant snowfalls since 1993. A few days later more than a thousand schools were closed across the UK and snow caused travel chaos in Scotland and the north of England.
2012 – Psy’s “Gangnam Style” music video became the most viewed video on YouTube, passing 800 million views.
2014 – Cherry Campbell, aged 9, who plays the title role in CBeebies show Katie Morag became the youngest-ever winner at the Bafta Children’s awards.
2014 – NHS workers, including nurses, midwives and ambulance staff, staged four-hour strikes in England and Northern Ireland as part of a pay dispute. They were protesting about the decision not to implement a 1% rise for all staff as recommended by a pay review body.
2019 – Taylor Swift won six awards at the American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Artist of the Decade.
Did you know that on this day in 1995, Ireland ended its ban on divorce? About two-thirds of registered voters turned out and voted on the issue, with the winning vote being 50.28%.
The 3 films to win the most Oscars are Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), and The Lord of the Ring: The Return of the King (2003) with 11 Oscars each.
Gorbachev’s Glasnost reforms uncovered so many cover-ups about events in the Soviet Union that all school history exams in 1988 were cancelled.
Did you know, lemons contain more sugar than strawberries?
The world would be a much better place if everyone had SpongeBob’s work ethic, Sandy’s thirst for knowledge/intelligence, Larry’s workout regiment, Plankton’s perseverance, and Mr. Krabs’ business abilities.
The Capital of Comoros is Moroni
Point Nemo, an area in the southern Pacific Ocean 2,400 mi southeast of Wellington, is also a Spacecraft Cemetery. A total of more than 263 spacecraft were disposed of in this area between 1971 and 2016.
“E.T. phone home.” – E.T. (Pat Welsh) in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982
Whenever Aladdin lies, you’ll notice the feather on his turban falls in his face in the Disney animated film.
Listening to classical music while you study can improve memory retention and reduce stress, known as the “Mozart effect”.
Birthday : quotes
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” – Charles Darwin
“When I’m dead twenty-five years, people are going to begin to recognize me.” – Scott Joplin
“If you want to conquer fear, don’t sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” – Dale Carnegie
“My hope for humanity – and I think sensible science fiction has a beneficial influence in this direction – is that one day everyone born will be whole in body and brain, will live a long life free from physical and emotional pain, will participate in a fulfilling way in their contribution to the existence, will enjoy true love and friendship, will pity us 20th-century barbarians who lived and died in an atrocious, anachronistic atmosphere of arson, rape, robbery, kidnapping, child abuse, insanity, murder, terrorism, war, smog, pollution, starvation and the other negative ‘norms’ of our current civilization. I have devoted my life to amassing over a quarter-million pieces of SF and fantasy as a present to posterity and I hope to be remembered as an altruist who would have been an accepted citizen of Utopia.” – Forrest J. Ackerman
“A grief shared is half a grief. A joy shared is twice a joy.” – Candy Darling
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.