View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
What : day is it
1738 – The birth of Arthur Phillip, English admiral and first governor of New South Wales, who founded the first penal colony at Sydney.
1821 – The birth, in Dulverton, Somerset, of George Williams the founder of the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association). As a young man, he described himself as a ‘careless, thoughtless, godless, swearing young fellow’ but he eventually became a devout Christian.
1899 – The start of the Boer War between the British Empire and the Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal in southern Africa.
1919 – The first airline meals were served on a Handley-Page flight from London to Paris. They were pre-packed lunch boxes at 3 shillings each (15p).
1937 – Bobby Charlton, English footballer, was born. He played almost all of his club football (from 1956–1973) at Manchester United.
1951 – Gordon Richards, champion British jockey, rode his 200th winner for the sixth successive season.
1957 – The largest radio telescope in the world (at that time) was switched on at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire.
1966 – The Post Office announced that all home and business addresses in Britain were to be allocated postcodes.
1982 – The Mary Rose, which had been the pride of Henry VIII’s English fleet until it sank in the Solent in 1545, was raised, by the Mary Rose Trust. It was one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology. She was one of the largest ships in the English navy and was one of the earliest examples of a purpose-built sailing warship. Since the mid-1980s, the hull of the Mary Rose has been kept in a covered dry dock in Portsmouth whilst undergoing conservation.
1984 – NASA astronaut Kathy Sullivan became the first woman to walk in space. She successfully spacewalked for 3.5 hours, proving that satellites could be refueled while in orbit.
1987 – A huge sonar exploration of Loch Ness failed to find the world famous monster, known affectionately as Nessie.
1988 – Girls began to study at Magdalene College, Cambridge for the first time. To mark the occasion male students wore black armbands and the porter flew a black flag.
2010 – George Michael is released from Highpoint Prison in Suffolk, after serving four of an eight week sentence for driving under the influence of drugs.
Did you know that on this day in 1984, NASA astronaut Kathy Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space? Her spacewalk lasted 3.5 hours while she demonstrated a refueling system.
The North Star is the 49th brightest star in the sky.
The Wright Brother’s flight was in Kill Devil Hills, not Kitty Hawk. Kitty Hawk was where the brothers sent their message of success to their father.
The crack from a whip is produced by a small sonic boom.
“Toga! Toga!” – John “Bluto” Blutarsky (John Belushi) in National Lampoon’s Animal House, 1978
I trust the top comment a lot more than the title of an article.
The Bayeaux Tapestry is technically an embroidery.
“It hurts when you lose a friend to death, it hurts even more when you lose a friend still living.” – C.J. Tulli
Leo the Lion is the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Mascot.
Someday an old man will say “back in my day we only had iPhones and VR, not this futuristic useless stuff.”
Useless Pronunciation: O as in oh
“Here’s Johnny!”- Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) #moviequotes
A group of Oxen is called a Team or Yoke or Drove.
Yen Sid, the sorcerer in “Fantasia”, is just “Disney” spelled backward.
“If you take a bunch of superstars and put them in a room where they don’t have their assistants and entourage, it’s funny to see what happens.” – Daryl Hall
“To do a common thing uncommonly well brings success.” – Henry John Heinz
“Why doesn’t Apple stop for a year and make medical devices? When people talk about technology, that’s where I start to get a little hot under the collar because I know that it’s the key to solving some of the world’s biggest problems. Having a faster, thinner telephone is not one of the world’s biggest problems.” – Luke Perry
“So go on and play, and if you make a mistake, make it loud so you won’t make it next time.” – Art Blakey
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
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.