View todays celebrity birthdays and find out what happened in history today.
What : day is it
1905 – Thomas John Barnardo, British philanthropist (Barnardo’s Children’s Homes), died.
1934 – The birth of Brian Epstein, best known for being the manager of The Beatles until his death in 1967. Decca declined to sign the Beatles to a contract and after approaching nearly all of the major recording companies in London and being rejected, Epstein met a record producer, George Martin, who offered a contract on behalf of EMI’s small Parlophone label.
1945 – The Nazi propaganda broadcaster William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) was sentenced to hang for treason.
1946 – The Council of Europe was founded following a speech by Winston Churchill at the University of Zurich. It promotes co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation.
1949 – The birth of the model Twiggy. She became an icon of the ‘swinging sixties’ and in 1966 was voted British Woman of the Year.
1952 – The United States prevented the English born film legend Charlie Chaplin from returning to his Hollywood home until he was investigated by the Immigration Services.
1960 – The new traffic wardens issued the first 344 parking tickets in London. Britain’s first parking ticket was issued to Dr Thomas Creighton, who had parked his car outside a London hotel while treating a patient.
1970 – The first Glastonbury Festival was held at Michael Eavis’s farm in Glastonbury, starring T. Rex. The first festivals in the 1970s were influenced by hippie ethics and the free festival movement. Glastonbury Tor is at the focal point of the many mysteries that have surrounded the area for millennia.
1975 – The first episode of Fawlty Towers aired. Audiences were keen to see what John Cleese would do after Monty Python, but at first the situation comedy received some less than enthusiastic reviews. However the strength of the writing and casting – with Cleese as hotelier Basil Fawlty – ensured the series was a great success.
1990 – Goodfellas, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Ray Liota, is released.
1997 – An Intercity 125 ploughed into a freight train in Southall, west London, killing six and injuring more than 150.
1998 – Robbie Williams scored his first solo UK No.1 single with Millennium.
2000 – Chancellor Gordon Brown rejected a 60-day deadline to reduce petrol tax set by fuel price protesters.
2008 – George Michael is arrested in a public toilet in the Hampstead Heath area for possession of Class A and C drugs.
2014 – Alex Salmond stood down as Scotland’s First Minister and Scottish National Party leader after Scotland voted ‘No’ to becoming an independent country.
Did you know that on this day in 2017, Donald Trump threatened to “totally destroy North Korea”? The President’s United Nations speech was greeted by a mixture of silence and disapproval.
“Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects.” – Will Rogers
Tuna salad, pasta salad, ham salad, Caesar salad… only one of these has lettuce. So what makes a ‘salad’ a ‘salad’?
Congratulate many performers with “Bravi!” as long as at least one of the performers is a male.
A banana is a berry.
The Garfield comic strip debuted on June 19, 1978.
We actually live about 80 milliseconds in the past because that’s how long it takes for our brains to process information.
American Pie’s apple pie was bought from Costco.
The alphabet song only has 26 characters. (80 characters in the extended remix “now I know my ABC’s…”)
I kind of hope that one day in the future our recorded history gets lost or distorted to the point that the events of the Lord of The Rings are somehow misinterpreted to have actually happened long ago.
The Capital of Lithuania is Vilnius
“If you hang around long enough, they think you’re good. It’s either my tenacity or my stupidity, I’m not sure which.” – Adam West
“I think that anybody’s craft is fascinating. A taxi driver talking about taxi driving is going to be very, very interesting.” – James Lipton
“Art, well good art at least, takes you to a place you go during the experience of it, and then after you experience it you are different.” – Nile Rodgers
“Always be natural. Putting on airs will make a giggle out of you. Be yourself and if you don’t know something say so.” – Twiggy
“We all have our time machines, don’t we. Those that take us back are memories… and those that carry us forward, are our dreams.” – Jeremy Irons
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.