April 5th "2024" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 96, known as National Dandelion Day, Deep Dish Pizza Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of July 13th in the previous year. Your star sign is Aries and your birthstone is Diamond.
1621 – The Mayflower departed for England after having deposited 102 Pilgrims at what became the American colony of Plymouth (Massachusetts), United States.
Todays birthdays
1950 – Agnetha Faltskog (74), Swedish singer, songwriter and a member of the pop group ABBA (“Waterloo”), born in Jönköping, Sweden.
1973 – Pharrell Williams (51), American record producer, singer, songwriter (“Happy”), born inVirginia Beach, Virginia, United States.
1978 – Dwain Chambers (46), British track sprinter winning international medals at World and European levels, born in Islington, London.
1982 – Hayley Atwell (42), British actress (Agent Carter, Captain America, The Duchess), born in London.
1989 – Lily James (35), English actress (Mamma Mia!, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Downton Abbey, Burnt), born in Esher, Surrey.
Famous deaths
2022 – June Brown (b. 1927), English actress best known for her role as Dot Cotton on the BBC soap EastEnders from 1985 to 2020 (2,884 episodes).
The day today
1955 – Sir Winston Churchill, the British leader who guided Great Britain through the crisis of World War II, retired as Prime Minister, aged 81, handing over to Anthony Eden.
1997 – The 150th running of the Grand National at Aintree, Liverpool was cancelled because of an IRA bomb scare.
1999 – Richard Dunwoody became the most successful jump jockey of all time, when he clocked up his 1,679th win at Wincanton. (The record is now held by Tony McCoy with over 4,000 winners.)
2002 – People queued for miles beside the Thames to pay their last respects to the Queen Mother, whose body was lying in state in Westminster Hall, London.
2020 – Dr Catherine Calderwood, Scotland’s chief medical officer, resigned after the Scottish Sun newspaper published photographs of her and her family visiting their second home during the coronavirus lockdown. The home was more than an hour’s drive from her main family home in Edinburgh and it was her second such visit. Calderwood had fronted TV and radio adverts urging the public to stay at home to save lives and protect the NHS, during the coronavirus epidemic and had taken part in daily televised media briefings alongside Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon.
Today in music
1975 – Minnie Riperton went to No.1 on the US singles chart with the Stevie Wonder produced song ‘Loving You’ (a No.2 hit in the UK). It was the singers only US chart hit. Riperton died of cancer on 12th July 1979.
1979 – Duran Duran made their live debut at The Lecture Theatre, Birmingham Polytechnic. The band have since then achieved 14 singles in the top 10 of the UK Singles Chart and 21 in the Billboard Hot 100, and have sold over 100 million records worldwide.
1985 – At 3:50pm GMT, over 5,000 radio stations worldwide aired the charity single by USA for Africa ‘We Are The World’. The single went on to be a No.1 in the US & UK, and most Western territories.
1994 – Kurt Cobain the 27-year-old frontman and co-founder of Nirvana, committed suicide at his home in Seattle. Cobain, who helped to define grunge music, formed Nirvana in 1987. The hugely influential trio recorded three albums, the most famous of which was 1993’s Nevermind, which included their anthemic Top 10 US and UK hit single “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
1998 – The Spice Girls performed their first ever-live UK concert when they appeared in front of a 9,000 strong audience in Glasgow, Scotland.
Today in history
1621 – The Mayflower departed for England after having deposited 102 Pilgrims at what became the American colony of Plymouth (Massachusetts), United States.
1722 – Jacob Roggeveen discovered Easter Island.
The Dutch explorer discovered the Polynesian island 1,400 miles from the coast of South America on Easter Sunday, hence the name Easter Island.
1811 – The death of Robert Raikes (“the Younger”). He was an English philanthropist and Anglican layman, noted for his promotion of Sunday schools. They pre-dated state schooling and by 1831 they schooled 1,250,000 children. His Sunday Schools were seen as the first precursor schools of the English state school system.
1847 – Birkenhead Park, on the Wirral Peninsula, opened On This Day. Designed by Joseph Paxton it is generally acknowledged as the first publicly funded civic park in Britain.
1902 – A stand box collapses at Ibrox Park (now Ibrox Stadium) in Glasgow, Scotland, which led to the deaths of 25 and injuries to more than 500 supporters during an international association football match between Scotland and England.