View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
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1940 – Princess Elizabeth, aged 14, (now Queen Elizabeth II), made her first radio broadcast to child evacuees.
1946 – The birth of Edwina Currie, former Member of Parliament. She resigned as a Junior Health Minister in 1988 over the controversy of salmonella in eggs. Among her comments over the next two years were that good Christian people don’t get AIDS, that old people who couldn’t afford their heating bills should wrap up warm in winter, and that northerners die of ignorance and chips.
1954 – Chris Chataway broke the 5,000-metres world record by five seconds in the London v Moscow match at White City, West London.
1963 – The term Beatlemania was coined after The Beatles appeared at the Palladium. They made their debut as the top of the bill on ITV’s ‘Sunday Night at The London Palladium.’
1971 – The British Army blew up border roads in Northern Ireland to crack down on IRA gun-running.
1988 – The British Government failed to stop publication of the controversial book Spycatcher, written by a former secret service agent.
1988 – The Queen sued The Sun newspaper after it printed a private photograph.
1992 – The government announced plans to close one third of Britain’s deep coal mines, putting 31,000 miners out of work.
1996 – British racing driver Damon Hill, driving a Williams, won the Japanese Grand Prix to clinch his first (and only) World Championship.
2008 – The government said that they would pump billions of pounds of taxpayers money into three UK banks in one of the UK’s biggest nationalisations. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Lloyds TSB and HBOS would have a total of £37bn injected into them. In return for the investment, the government would get a say in how the banks were run, including controls over the bonuses paid to management.
2014 – The Royal College of Midwives took part in strike action for the first time in the organisation’s 133 year history, in protest at the government’s decision not to grant a 1% ‘across the board’ pay rise. The 4 hour strike, (from 7:00 a.m. at hospitals in England) also included nurses, paramedics, hospital porters and ambulance crews.
2014 – 176 people took part in the 48th World Conker Championships at Southwick, in Northamptonshire. Competitors came from overseas, including the United States, Mexico, and Italy.
2014 – UKiP leader Nigel Farage hailed it an ’emotional moment’ as he watched Douglas Carswell introduced to Parliament as the party’s first elected MP.
2016 – Queen Elizabeth II became the world’s longest-reigning monarch following the death of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej
The band Aerosmith made more money on Guitar Hero: Aerosmith than any of their albums.
Rome held the record for ‘largest city ever’ (1.2M people) for over 1600 years, before being surpassed by Beijing in the early 19th century.
The word ‘graffiti’ is actually the plural of ‘graffito’
I’m cutting the sleeves off my Snuggie because it makes me look more badass.
The word “quintessential” is actually Latin for ‘the fifth element”.
“An old man dies. A young woman lives. Fairtrade.” – Sin City #moviequotes
Red M&Ms were eliminated in 1976 over concern about the dye amaranth that could be carcinogenic despite M&Ms not containing it.
A group of Tasks is an Agenda.
I was gonna post a joke about apathy, but then I figured, why bother?
“I’m as pure as the driven slush.” – Tallulah Bankhead
“Star Wars” was originally prefixed by the definite article ‘The’.
“I do not regret one moment of my life.” – Lillie Langtry
“If you’re going to be able to look back on something and laugh about it, you might as well laugh about it now.” – Marie Osmond
“The American Constitution was not written to protect criminals; it was written to protect the government from becoming criminals.” – Lenny Bruce
“Answers make you wise, but questions make you human.” – Yves Montand
“I was eating in a Chinese restaurant downtown. There was a dish called Mother and Child Reunion. It’s chicken and eggs. And I said I gotta use that one.” – Paul Simon
“It’s so important to never limit yourself, to find yourself in a box.” – Ashanti
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.