View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
What : day is it
1951 – The launch of Holme Moss Transmitting Station, one of the highest in the country, reaching 228m above ground and 524m above sea level. In 1951 it provided BBC television (the only TV programme at the time) but now transmits VHF, FM and DAB radio to Derbyshire, Manchester and West Yorkshire, with coverage of around 13.5 million people.
1967 – Zoologist Desmond Morris stunned the world with his book The Naked Ape that compared human behaviour with animals.
1969 – The opening of Preston Bus Station, one of the largest in Western Europe. Threatened with demolition since the year 2000, campaigns and applications were made numerous times to save the building. It featured on the 2012 World Monument Fund’s list of sites at risk. Nevertheless, on 7th December 2012, Preston City Council announced that the bus station would be demolished, but in 2013 it was saved when English Heritage granted it the status of a Grade II listed building.
1979 – The publication of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the first of five books in the Hitchhiker’s Guide comedy science fiction series by the English writer and dramatist Douglas Adams. His memorial service on 17th September 2001 at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square was the first church service of any kind broadcast live, on the web, by the BBC.
1982 – British armed forces held a victory parade in London following the defeat of Argentina in the Falklands War.
1984 – Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escaped an assassination attempt when an IRA bomb exploded in the Grand Hotel, Brighton which was being used by delegates to the Conservative Party Conference. Five people were killed and 30 people injured, including the Employment Secretary Norman Tebbit and his wife Margaret, who was left permanently disabled.
1986 – Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to visit China.
1989 – The remains of Shakespeare’s original Globe Theatre were found on London’s Bankside.
2020 – Charity fundraiser Lloyd Scott completed his Three Peaks challenge climb (Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon) wearing a 59kg. (9st.) diving suit. A veteran of 30 years of fundraising and more than 50 events, Scott famously completed the London Marathon in 2002 in a deep-sea diving suit. His other challenges have seen him cycle across Australia on a penny farthing, complete an underwater marathon and walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats dressed as a T-Rex – all of which has helped him raise more than £5m for charitable causes.
“A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.” – Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins)
The first movie to be filmed in Technicolor was Becky Sharp, in 1934
The show was called Full House because Danny Tanner had to deal with 3 of a kind and a pair.
A group of Bison is called a Herd.
Ray Milland – Real Name: Reginald Truscott Jones
Why are so many ghosts from the Victorian age?
“I’m into leather.” – Alvy’s Classmate, Annie Hall #moviequotes
The Edge (U2) – Real Name: Dave Evans
The CEO of McDonald’s is “someone who works at McDonald’s.” #McDonalds #CEOproblems
If someone offers you something, take it. You’re doing them a favor by allowing them to do a good deed.
Scented deodorant is both an odorant and a deodorant.
On their deathbed, nobody said, “If I had a chance to do it all over again, I’d spend more time working.”
“Here’s Johnny!” – Ed McMahon (The Tonight Show) #TVQuotes
“People think I’m disciplined. It is not discipline. It is devotion. There is a great difference.” – Luciano Pavarotti
“It is necessary that we stop, once for all, this ignorant meddling with other people’s business. Each individual must be left free to follow his own path.” – Aleister Crowley
“And when night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed: just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands and leave it with Him.” – Edith Stein
“In life, you don’t regret the things you do, you regret the things you don’t do.” – Hugh Jackman
“I didn’t allow (Gumby) merchandising for seven years after it was on the air because I was very idealistic, and I didn’t want parents to think we were trying to exploit their children.” – Aer Clokey
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.