View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
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1975 – The world’s largest mining complex was opened at Selby, Yorkshire. Selby is now an attractive market town with an ancient abbey that dates back to shortly after the Norman conquest.
1983 – Yachtsman Chay Blyth had to cancel his plans to create a new world clipper record when his trimaran capsized 500 miles east of New York.
1986 – The final section of the M25 was opened. The motorway around Greater London was designed to relieve traffic congestion within the capital.
1988 – Two of Britain’s greatest middle distance runners, Sebastian Coe and Steve Cram, re-ran the 367 metre ‘Chariots of Fire’ race around the Great Court at Trinity College, Cambridge. Sebastian Coe was the winner in 45.52 seconds. In the original race Lord Burghley crossed the line in 42.5 seconds.
1989 – Eight people died when winds of almost 100mph struck South Wales and the West of England, causing flooding, fallen trees and power cuts.
2003 – The Conservative Party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, resigned after failing to win the backing of his fellow MPs.
2008 – TV and radio presenters Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand were suspended. All their shows were taken off air whilst the BBC investigated what the media called their ‘prank calls’ made to actor Andrew Sachs (Fawlty Towers) and comments made about the actor’s granddaughter. Brand and Ross called Sachs to interview him on-air; when he did not answer, they left a series of lewd messages on his answering machine, including comments about Brand’s relationship with Sachs’ granddaughter, Georgina Baillie. Brand and Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas resigned from the BBC. On 30th October, the BBC suspended Ross without pay for 12 weeks and the BBC was fined £150,000 by Ofcom. The BBC issued an apology on 8th November, stating that the telephone calls were “grossly offensive” and a “serious breach of editorial standards”.
2010 – Take That fans complained after facing major problems buying tickets to see Robbie Williams tour with the group for the first time in 16 years. The websites of official agencies including Ticketmaster, See Tickets, Ticketline and The Ticket Factory all buckled under the strain as the tickets went on sale at 0900 BST.
2012 – The UK’s first fourth generation (4G) mobile service was launched. 11 cities – London, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Glasgow and Southampton had access to network EE’s 4G from Tuesday morning, 30th October.
2013 – The Lonely Planet Guide named Yorkshire as one of the top places in the world to visit. It put the area third in the top 10 world regions, behind destinations in India and Australia. As a Yorkshireman I’m surprised that it took them so long to award this accolade!
2014 – The Serious Fraud Office initiated a criminal investigation into accounting irregularities at supermarket giant Tesco after the supermarket announced that its profits had been overstated by £263m.
Did you know that on this day in 2015, China increased its one-child policy to two children per family? The controversial policy had been in place since 1979 to slow population growth.
During the Great Tea Race of 1866, 3 ships left China at the same time, sailed 14000 miles over 99 days, and docked within 2 hours of each other.
James Cameron quit his job as a truck driver to enter the film industry after seeing Star Wars in 1977.
Most of the gold ever mined is still in circulation today. That gold ring or watch that you’re wearing could have belonged to historic figures like Cleopatra or Alexander the Great
A rumble strip on Route 66 outside Albuquerque, New Mexico plays ‘America The Beautiful’.
The human brain may be able to hold as much information in its memory as is contained on the entire Internet. It’s calculated that the brain could store 1 petabyte (or a quadrillion bytes) of information.
The Capital of Guinea-Bissau is Bissau.
“Play it, Sam. Play As Time Goes By.” – Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) in Casablanca, 1942
Susan Sarandon – Real Name: Susan Tomaling.
Smokey Bear was created in 1944 in response to the WWII Japanese submarine attacks on Santa Barbara, CA (1942) near Los Padres National Forest.
Whoever put an ‘s’ in the word lisp was an evil genius.
There is no such place as “South Detroit” nor has there ever been one in its history; Downtown Detroit’s southern border is the Detroit River, and the other side of the river is Canadian territory. #DontStopBelievin
“There are no rules. You can write a story, if you wish, with no conflict, no suspense, no beginning, middle, or end. Of course, you have to be regarded as a genius to get away with it, and that’s the hardest part – convincing everybody you’re a genius.” – Fredric Brown
“Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you?” – Fanny Brice
“It’s the imperfections that make something beautiful, that’s what makes it different and unique from everything else.” – Bob Ross
Sometimes the better an actor is, the less he’s noticed.” – Kate Jackson
“I had the X rating on my films. Now they do as much on The Simpsons as I got an X rating for Fritz the Cat.” – Ralph Bakshi
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.