On This Day 2026
Hello, … and welcome to day 115 of the year.

Saturday, April 25th

Today is World Penguin Day, World Malaria Day, International Astronomy Day and World Healing Day. Your star sign is Taurus and your birthstone is Diamond.
Did you know: All Fools’ Day, also known as April Fools’ Day is a day for practical jokes and hoaxes, but only until 12 noon. The earliest recorded association between 1st April and foolishness can be found in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1392).
Today’s birthdays
1944 – 2023 – Len Goodman, English professional ballroom dancer, dance teacher and head judge on Strictly Come Dancing from 2004 to 2016.
1947 – 2016 – Johan Cruyff, Dutch professional football player and manager, regarded as one of the greatest players in history and as the greatest Dutch footballer ever.
1957 – 2018 – Eric Bristow, English professional darts player nicknamed “the Crafty Cockney”, one of the most iconic and successful players of the 1980s.

1932 – William Roache (94), English actor, best known for playing Ken Barlow, the longest-serving cast member in the ITV soap Coronation Street, born in Basford, Nottingham.

1940 – Al Pacino (86), American actor (The Godfather, Scarface, Donnie Brasco, Carlito’s Way), born in East Harlem, New York, United States.
1943 – Tony Christie (83), English musician and singer (“Amarillo”, “Avenues and Alleyways”), born in Conisbrough, Doncaster, South Yorkshire.
1945 – Björn Ulvaeus (81), Swedish musician, singer, songwriter and member of ABBA (“Dancing Queen”, “Chiquitita”), born in Gothenburg, Sweden.
1964 – Andy Bell (62), English singer and lead vocalist of the synth-pop duo Erasure (“Love to Hate You”, “A Little Respect”), born in Peterborough.
1964 – Hank Azaria (62), American actor known for voicing many characters in the The Simpsons, including Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum and Apu, born in Queens, New York, United States.
1964 – Fiona Bruce (62), British jounalist, newsreader (BBC News) and television presenter (Antiques Roadshow), born in Singapore.
1969 – Renée Zellweger (57), American actress (Bridget Jones Diary, Jerry Maguire, Chicago), born in Katy, Texas, United States.
1981 – Felipe Massa (45), Brazilan racing driver who competed in Formula One from 2002 to 2017, born in São Paulo, State of São Paulo, Brazil.
1988 – Jonathan Bailey (38), English actor (Wicked, Wicked: For Good, Broadchurch, Bridgerton), born in Wallingford, Oxfordshire.
Famous deaths
2002 – Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes (b. 1971), American singer-songwriter and member of the R&B girl group TLC (“No Scrubs”, “Creep”).
2007 – Alan Ball, Jr. (b. 1945), English professional football player. He won the 1966 World Cup with England and scored more than 180 league goals in a career spanning 22 years.

2023 – Harry Belafonte (b. 1927), American singer (“Day-O”, “Jump in the Line”) and actor (Sydney, Buck and the Preacher).

The day today
1915 – 90,000 Australian, New Zealand, British and French forces began landing on the Gallipoli Peninsular to attack Turkish positions. The Lancashire Fusliers won 6 VC’s before breakfast storming the Gallipoli beach. The victory came at a high price, with as many as 700 members of the regiment killed or wounded.
1945 – Soviet forces completed their encirclement of Berlin during the Battle of Berlin, sealing the German capital from the outside world and cutting off escape routes to the west. The city was declared fully surrounded by 27 April, and on 2 May 1945, the commander of the Berlin Defense Area, General Helmuth Weidling, surrendered the city to Soviet forces.
1953 – Two Cambridge University scientists published their answer to how living things reproduced. In an article published in Nature magazine, James D Watson and Francis Crick described the structure of a chemical called deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA. Their achievement was recognized in 1962 when they received the Nobel Prize for Physiology.
1969 – The BBC Radio serial Mrs. Dale’s Diary ended after 21 years and more than 5,400 episodes. Her final words were: “I’m rather worried about Jim…”
1985 – Germany banned the denial of Nazi genocide against Jewish people during the Holocaust to protect public peace and honour the memory of victims. Germany is one of several European countries, along with nations like Austria and Poland, that have similar bans in place, treating such denial as a form of antisemitism.

1990 – The Discovery Space Shuttle deployed the Hubble Space Telescope into low-Earth orbit. The Hubble mission was a joint operation between NASA and the European Space Agency. Discovery ferried the telescope under mission STS-31, with the deployment of the telescope as its primary objective. During deployment, one of the telescope’s solar arrays got stuck while unfurling, but fortunately, the mission’s ground team found a solution in time.

2005 – The final piece of the Obelisk of Axum is returned to Ethiopia after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937.
2007 – Former president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin’s funeral was a landmark event, marking the first time the Russian Orthodox Church sanctioned a funeral service for a Russian head of state since Tsar Alexander III in 1894. The funeral was attended by numerous dignitaries, including Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Gorbachev, and former US Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. The ceremony signified a return to pre-revolutionary traditions, held in a cathedral rebuilt during Yeltsin’s tenure.
2012 – A new initiative paired the Scottish hamlet of Dull with an American town named Boring. The Dull and Boring plan was hatched after a resident of Dull, near Aberfeldy in Perthshire, cycled through Boring in Oregon.
2012 – The UK economy entered a double-dip recession after shrinking by 0.2% in the first quarter, following a 0.3% contraction in Q4 2011. Prime Minister David Cameron described the figures as “very, very disappointing” and acknowledged a “very tough situation”.
2015 – Kathmandu, Nepal, was devastated by a major earthquake. The 7.8 magnitude quake broke out at 11:56 am. Nearly 9,000 people lost their lives, while 30,000 were injured.
2016 – The High Street chain BHS went into administration after 88 years trading. Subsequent rescue bids failed and 11,000 jobs were lost, 22,000 pensions were affected and 164 stores closed. It was the biggest retail failure since Woolworths folded in 2008 with the loss of almost 30,000 jobs.
2022 – The world’s first fully operational urban airport for electric flying cars (eVTOL) and large cargo drones, named Air-One, was officially launched by Urban-Air Port in Coventry, UK. The airport itself is powered by on-site hydrogen fuel cells, making it a zero-emission facility.
2023 – The Japanese company ispace confirmed that its Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) lunar lander likely crashed on the Moon’s surface, failing in its bid to become the first private entity to achieve a soft lunar landing. The lander, named Resilience, was aimed at the Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold) region. It successfully performed a braking maneuver but failed in the final stages of the descent.
2025 – A Los Angeles startup hosted the world’s first live “sperm race,” pitting human sperm samples against each other in a microscopic race. Sperm from USC and UCLA students competed through a micro-engineered racetrack simulating a reproductive tract, watched by over 1,000 spectators, with live commentary, betting, and messaging aimed at raising awareness about declining male fertility and reproductive health.
Today in music
1954 – Johnnie Ray was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Such A Night.’ The singer’s first of three UK No.1’s. He became deaf in his right ear aged 13 after an accident and would later perform wearing a hearing aid. Dexys Midnight Runners’ 1982 music video for ‘Come On Eileen’, used footage of Ray from 1954. The lyrics of the song say, “Poor old Johnnie Ray sounded sad upon the radio / he moved a million hearts in mono”.
1960 – Elvis Presley started a four week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Stuck On You’, his first hit single after his two-year stint in the US Army. It became his first No.1 single of the 1960s and thirteenth overall.
1967 – Just days after the completion of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles embarked upon their next project, recording the theme to ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ at Abbey Road studios in London.
1970 – The Jackson Five started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘ABC’. It was the group’s second US No. 1, a No.8 hit in the UK.
1979 – The Police made their debut on BBC TV’s Top Of The Pops performing ‘Roxanne’. The single which was taken from their album Outlandos d’Amour was written from the point-of-view of a man who falls in love with a prostitute.
1982 – Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Ebony And Ivory.’ This was McCartney’s 24th No.1 hit single as a songwriter. The title was inspired by McCartney hearing Spike Milligan say “black notes, white notes, and you need to play the two to make harmony folks!”. It was later named as the tenth worst song of all time by Blender magazine and in 2007 was named the worst duet in history by BBC 6 Music listeners.
1987 – Madonna went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘La Isla Bonita.’ The fifth and final single from her third studio album, True Blue, made her the only female artist to score four UK No.1 singles. The song had been offered to Michael Jackson for his Bad album.
2002 – TLC member Lisa Lopes was killed in a car accident in La Ceiba, Honduras, aged 30. Seven other people, including Lopes’ brother and sister, who were in the Mitsubishi Montero sports utility vehicle when the crash happened, were taken to a hospital. Lopes who was driving the car when it crashed had spent the past month in Honduras working on various projects including a clothing line, a new solo project and a book.
Today in history
1284 – The birth, at Caernarfon Castle in Wales, of King Edward II, who became the first heir-apparent to bear the title Prince of Wales. King from 1307, he ruled during a period of pestilence, famine and defeats at the hands of the Scots, and was eventually murdered.
1599 – The birth of Oliver Cromwell, Protector of England who led his ‘Ironsides’ in the English Civil War against the ‘Cavaliers’ of King Charles I. Cromwell’s victories enabled him to have the King tried and beheaded, after which he established a republic.
1719 – Robinson Crusoe first appeared in paperback. Written by Daniel Defoe it was based partly on the story of Alexander Selkirk who was marooned on a Pacific island for four years.
1769 – Mark Isambard Brunel, French-born British engineer was born. His son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel followed a similar career to his father in a life marked by projects unparalleled in engineering history.
1829 – Admiral Charles Fremantle arrived in HMS Challenger off the coast of modern day Western Australia prior to declaring the Swan River Colony for Britain.
1859 – British and French engineers broke ground for the creation of the Suez Canal. The excavation took some 10 years and altogether more than 1.5 million people from various countries were employed.
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