View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
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1957 – Jayne Torvill, English ice skater, was born. With fellow skater Christopher Dean, they won a gold medal at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics and a bronze medal at the 1994 Winter Olympics. The 1984 Winter Olympics led to world fame when they performed to the music of Maurice Ravel’s Boléro and received twelve perfect 6.0 marks, one of five occasions when they were awarded all perfect scores for artistic impression.
1959 – Three hundred people were rescued after being cut off by a blaze on Southend’s pier, (the world’s longest pleasure pier on England’s south-east coast).
1959 – The birth of Simon Cowell, television producer, entrepreneur, and television personality. He is known as a talent judge on TV shows such as Pop Idol, The X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and American Idol. He is also the owner of the television production and music publishing house Syco.
1966 – The Rolling Stones made their last appearance on ITV’s ‘Ready Steady Go’.
1977 – Ninety sets of Swedish identical twins travelled to Felixstowe for a brief shopping trip!
1983 – Plans to abolish the Greater London Council (GLC) were announced.
1986 – A new British newspaper, The Independent, was published.
1992 – The first Braille cash dispenser was installed, by the Northern Rock Building Society in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear
1996 – Two IRA car bombs exploded at a British military base in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, injuring 21 soldiers and 10 civilians.
2004 – The death of Kenneth Bigley, an English civil engineer who was kidnapped in Baghdad on 16th September 2004, along with his colleagues Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, both U.S. citizens. All were subsequently beheaded despite the attempted intervention of the Muslim Council of Britain and the indirect intervention of the British government.
2008 – UK banking shares plunged on fears that more financial institutions would need government assistance to stay solvent. HBOS shares dropped 42% and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) fell 39%.
2013 – Buckingham Palace held its first official football match to mark the Football Association’s 150th anniversary. The competitive fixture was the idea of FA president Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge. London side Civil Service FC, the only surviving team of 11 that formed the FA on 26th October 1863, lost 2-1 against Polytechnic FC, set up in 1875. At half-time, palace footmen and women – wearing waistcoats and tail-coats – carried water, orange slices and chocolate bars on silver-plated platters onto the pitch for the players.
2013 – The Scout Association announced an alternative version of its membership promise for young people who do not believe in God. As from January 2014, instead of vowing “to do my duty to God”, scouts would be able to promise to “uphold our scout values”; with the new promise existing alongside the core scout promise, which has remained unchanged for 106 years.
2018 – Jodie Whittaker debuts in her first full episode as the 13th and first female Doctor Who on BBC TV.
Did you know that on this day in 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of California? This was the result of a recall election to remove the previous governor, Gray Davis.
The first feature film created solely with Computer Generated Imagery (CGI or CG) was “Toy Story”, in 1995.
Every day, half of all the lawyers in the world are proven wrong.
The giant red star Betelgeuse has a diameter larger than that of the Earth’s orbit around the sun.
There is a box in my kitchen that is constantly beaming wireless information 24/7 to every device in my house and sometimes I get mad at it when it slows down for 5 minutes.
The Capital of Kosovo is Pristina
People born blind use the same facial expressions as sighted people when expressing emotions, meaning that our facial expressions are innate and not learned behavior.
Wonder Woman was created by psychologist and inventor of the lie detector test, William Marston.
Biggest film of 1925: The Big Parade (Drama) earned ~ $11,000,000
Charlton Heston narrated for highly classified military and Department of Energy instructional films, particularly relating to nuclear weapons. For six years, he held the nation’s highest security clearance.
You can’t beat any record in the Guinness World Record Books that starts with “First”.
Ben Franklin’s 13 Virtues # 7 – Sincerity.
Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” – Niels Bohr
“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” – Desmond Tutu
“Work hard, be patient, and be a sponge while learning your business. Learn how to take criticism. Follow your gut instincts and don’t compromise.” – Simon Cowell
“I always wanted to be a movie star. I thought it meant being famous and having breakfast in bed. I didn’t know you had to be up at 4:00 a.m.” – June Allyson
“Four things support the world: the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the good, and the valour of the brave.” – Elijah Muhammad
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.