On This Day 2026
Hello, … and welcome to day 95 of the year.

Sunday, April 5th

Today is Easter Sunday, Deep Dish Pizza Day, Geologist’s Day and Caramel Day. Your star sign is Aries 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
1912 – 1983 – John Le Mesurier, English actor best remembered for his comedic role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the BBC television situation comedy Dad’s Army.

1929 – 2001 – Nigel Hawthorne, English actor on stage and screen (Yes Minister, Demolition Man, Madeline, The Madness of King George).

1942 – Allan Clarke (84), English singer, musician and a founding member of The Hollies (“The Air That I Breathe”, “He Ain’t Heavy He’s My Brother”), born in Salford.

1950 – Agnetha Fältskog (76), Swedish singer, songwriter and a member of the pop group ABBA (“Waterloo”, “Dancing Queen”), born in Jönköping, Sweden.

1971 – Victoria Hamilton (55), English actress (Goodbye Mr. Chips, COBRA, Victoria and Albert, Lark Rise to Candleford), born in Wimbledon, London.

1973 – Pharrell Williams (53), American singer (“Happy”, “Blurred Lines”), songwriter, record producer and fashion designer, born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States.

1975 – John Hartson (51), Welsh former professional footballer (Arsenal, Celtic), coach and pundit for S4C, Sky Sports, Premier Sports TV and TNT Sports, born in Swansea, Wales.
1978 – Dwain Chambers (48), English track sprinter winning international medals at World and European levels, born in Islington, London.
1982 – Hayley Atwell (44), English actress (Agent Carter, Captain America, Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft), born in London.
1989 – Lily James (37), English actress (Cinderella, Mamma Mia!, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Downton Abbey, Burnt), born in Esher, Surrey.
Famous deaths
1994 – Kurt Cobain (b. 1967), American musician, songwriter and lead vocalist with Nirvana (“Smells Like Teen Spirit”, “Come as You Are”).

2006 – Gene Pitney (b. 1940), American singer (“Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart”, “24 Hours from Tulsa”). In the UK, he had 22 top-40 hit singles, including 11 in the top ten.

2008 – Charlton Heston (b. 1923), American actor (Ben-Hur, Planet of the Apes, Tombstone, El Cid).

2018 – Eric Bristow (b. 1957), English professional darts player. Nicknamed “the Crafty Cockney”, Bristow was one of the most iconic and successful players of the 1980s.

2020 – Honor Blackman (b. 1925), English actress (The Avengers, The Upper Hand), known for her iconic role as “Bond girl” Pussy Galore in Goldfinger.

2021 – Paul Ritter (b. 1966), English actor (Quantum of Solice, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Friday Night Dinner, Chernobyl).
The day today
1942 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy launched a carrier-based air attack on Colombo, Ceylon during the Indian Ocean Raid. The port was damaged, civilians were injured and the Royal Navy cruisers HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire were sunk south-west of the island.
1955 – Sir Anthony Eden officially succeeded Sir Winston Churchill as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, following Churchill’s resignation due to failing health. Eden, who served as Foreign Secretary, immediately called a general election for May 1955, increasing the Conservative majority before his premiership was marred by the 1956 Suez Crisis.
1965 – At the 37th Academy Awards, Julie Andrews wins Best Actress award for Mary Poppins whilst Rex Harrison wins Best Actor award for My Fair Lady.
1976 – James Callaghan became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, following the surprise resignation of Harold Wilson, which was announced on March 16, 1976. Callaghan won the Labour Party leadership contest, defeating Michael Foot.
1976 – Rioters gathered at Tiananmen Square in Beijing to protest against the Chinese government following the death of pro-reform leader Hu Yaobang and escalated into mass calls for political reform, freedom of speech, and an end to corruption. The protests lasted for weeks, involving over a million citizens at their height, before being forcibly crushed by the military on June 4, 1989.
1982 – The British Royal Navy aircraft carriers HMS Invincible and HMS Hermes departed Portsmouth for the Falkland Islands, heading a massive task force to retake the territory from Argentine occupation. The rapid deployment included Sea Harriers and Sea King helicopters aimed at securing air superiority in the South Atlantic.
1997 – The 150th running of the Grand National at Aintree, Liverpool was cancelled because of an IRA bomb scare.
1997 – Steve Irwin’s The Crocodile Hunter debuted internationally on Animal Planet. The show, featuring Steve and his wife Terri, gained global popularity for its energetic, hands-on approach to wildlife conservation, transforming Irwin into an internationally known, khaki-clad icon. On 4 September 2006, Irwin died from an injury caused by a stingray while filming an underwater documentary in the Great Barrier Reef.
1999 – Richard Dunwoody became the most successful jump jockey of all time, when he clocked up his 1,679th win at Wincanton (until surpassed by Tony McCoy in 2002).
1999 – Two Libyans suspected of bringing down Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 are handed over for eventual trial in the Netherlands at a specially convened Scottish Court in the Netherlands set up under Scots law and held at a disused United States Air Force base called Camp Zeist near Utrecht.
2001 – Perry Wacker, a Dutch lorry driver was sentenced to 14 years in prison for his part in the deaths of 58 Chinese illegal immigrants. They were found suffocated in the back of his lorry when it was searched at Dover in June 2000.
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.
2016 – PayPal withdrew a $3.6 million investment in North Carolina, United States due to the state passing anti-gay legislation. Then-CEO Dan Schulman noted that operating in a state without equal rights protections for all employees was “untenable”.
2020 – Queen Elizabeth II delivered a historic televised address to the nation and Commonwealth regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, marking only the 5th special address of its kind during her then 68-year reign (spanning from 1952 to 2020). The address was recorded at Windsor Castle to reassure a nation in lockdown, thank frontline workers, and invoke the spirit of wartime resilience, echoing the words of Dame Vera Lynn’s song “We’ll Meet Again”.

2020 – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson admitted to hospital suffering from COVID-19 after suffering 10 days of symptoms including a high fever.

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.
2022 – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the Russian military of committing the worst war crimes since World War II including execution, rape and torture of civilians and urges the UN Security Council to act against Russia.
2025 – Inventors of the weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy were awarded the $3 million Breakthrough Prize (often called the “Oscars of Science”). The medications, which work by mimicking a hormone to stimulate insulin release in the gut, showed potentially revolutionary results in the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity.
Today in music
1967 – Monkees fans marched from London’s Marble Arch to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square to protest the planned U.S. Army draft call-up of British-born member Davy Jones. Fans aimed to prevent the singer from being drafted, though Jones was ultimately exempted due to his responsibility for supporting his father.

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.
1984 – Marvin Gaye’s funeral took place at The Forest Lawn Cemetery, Los Angeles; Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, Berry Gordy and other Motown singers, writers and producers, attended the service.
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.
2006 – Gene Pitney was found dead aged 65 in his bed in a Cardiff hotel. The American singer was on a UK tour and had shown no signs of illness. Pitney helped The Rolling Stones break the American market with his endorsement of the band. Jagger and Richards wrote his hit ‘That Girl Belongs to Yesterday’ which became the Stones duo’s first composition to reach the American charts. He scored the 1962 US No.4 single ‘Only Love Can Break A Heart’. and 1967 solo UK No.5 & 1989 UK No.1 single with Marc Almond ‘Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart’, plus over 15 other US & UK Top 40 hits.
2016 – Canadian hip hop artist Drake released the single ‘One Dance’. The track reached No.1 in ten countries including the US and topped the UK Singles Chart for 15 consecutive weeks, making it the joint-second longest consecutive No.1 in the country with Scottish band Wet Wet Wet’s cover of Love Is All Around.
Today in history
1424 – Scottish King James I returned to Scotland in April 1424 after 18 years of detention in England. Captured by pirates in 1406, he was held by Henry IV and V, receiving a high-level education before his release via the Treaty of London, which required a £40,000 ransom.

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.
1827 – The birth of Joseph Lister, the English physician who introduced the idea of using antiseptics during surgery.
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.
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