On This Day 2026
Hello, … and welcome to day 99 of the year.

Thursday, April 9th

Today is Winston Churchill Day, Global Holistic Wealth Day, National Mature Women’s Day and National Name Yourself 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
1926 – 2017 – Hugh Hefner, American magazine publisher and businessman. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine.

1937 – Valerie Singleton (89), English TV and radio presenter best known as a presenter of the popular children’s series Blue Peter from 1962 to 1972, born in Hertfordshire.

1941 – Hannah Gordon (85), Scottish actress (My Wife Next Door, The Elephant Man, Midnight at the Magnolia), born in Edinburgh, Scotland.
1954 – Dennis Quaid (72), American actor (The Day After Tomorrow, War Machine, Reagan), born in Houston, Texas, United States.
1954 – Iain Duncan Smith (72), British politician who was Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2001 to 2003, born in Edinburgh, Scotland.
1956 – Nigel Slater (70), English food writer, journalist (the principal writer for the Observer Food Monthly supplement) and broadcaster, born in Wolverhampton, West Midlands.
1963 – Marc Jacobs (63), American fashion designer and the head designer for his own fashion label Marc Jacobs, born in New York, New York, United States.
1970 – Tricia Penrose (56), English actress and singer best known for her role as Gina Ward in ITV’s long-running 1960s drama Heartbeat, born in Kirkby, Merseyside.
1975 – Robbie Fowler (51), English former football player (Liverpool) and coach (Saudi First Division League side Al-Qadsiah), born in Toxteth, Liverpool.
1978 – Rachel Stevens (48), English singer and member of pop group S Club 7 (“Don’t Stop Movin’”, “Bring It All Back”), born in Southgate, London.
1990 – Kristen Stewart (36) American actress (The Twilight Saga, Snow White and the Huntsman, Panic Room), born in Los Angeles, California, United States.
1998 – Elle Fanning (28), American actress (Predator: Badlands, Maleficent, The Great), born in Conyers, Georgia, United States.
Famous deaths
2021 – Prince Philip (b. 1921), Duke of Edinburgh and the longest-reigning consort in British history.
2021 – Nikki Grahame (b. 1982), British reality TV icon (Big Brother 2006).
The day today
1937 – The Kamikaze arrived at Croydon Airport in London. It was the first Japanese-built aircraft to fly to Europe. The flight from Tokyo to London (via via Taipei to Hanoi and Vientiane in French Indochina, then via Calcutta and Karachi in British India and Basra and Baghdad in Iraq, and then Athens, Rome and Paris) took 51 hours and 19 minutes.
1950 – British-born American comedian, actor and entertainer Bob Hope makes his first national television appearance when he hosted the “Star Spangled Revue” on NBC. Broadcast live from New York, this variety show marked his official transition to TV, although he had previously presided over television’s inaugural West Coast broadcast in 1947.
1952 – Shortly after her accession, Queen Elizabeth II declared in Council that her children and descendants would bear the surname Windsor, maintaining the name of the House of Windsor. This decision was later modified in 1960 to Mountbatten-Windsor for descendants without royal titles, honouring Prince Philip’s name.
1954 – Britain’s first TV soap opera ‘The Grove Family’ broadcast on the BBC and revolved around a lower-middle-class builder’s family, lasting 148 episodes until 1957. The show was a huge hit, with viewers sending letters to the BBC to ask for building advice from the character Bob. It is often credited as the precursor to soaps like Coronation Street.
1960 – NASA publicly announced the names of the first 7 American astronauts. Gordon Cooper, Deke Slayton, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, and Alan Shepard were dubbed the Mercury Seven as they were selected for NASA’s Mercury space program. All seven astronauts flew on various missions throughout the 20th century.
1963 – President John F. Kennedy granted Winston Churchill the first-ever honorary US citizenship.
1969 – Brian Trubshaw, the first British pilot to fly Concorde, made his first flight in the British built prototype. The 22 minute flight left from a test runway at Filton near Bristol and landed at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire.
1969 – Sikh busmen in Wolverhampton won the right to wear turbans on duty following a intense two-year campaign against a ban by the Wolverhampton Transport Committee.
1983 – English trainer Jenny Pitman became the first woman to train the winner of the Grand National (Corbiere) at Aintree, Liverpool.
1984 – At the 56th Academy Awards, Jack Nicholson won Best Supporting Actor for Terms of Endearment, Linda Hunt won Best Supporting Actress for The Year of Living Dangerously, Robert Duvall won Best Actor for Tender Mercies and Shirley MacLaine won Best Actress for Terms of Endearment.
1984 – During the UK miners’ strike, around 100 pickets were arrested following violent clashes with police at working coal pits in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. These confrontations were part of intense picketing aimed at halting production, reflecting the deep divisions during the 1984–85 National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) strike.
1986 – It was announced that Patrick Duffy would return to the TV show Dallas as Bobby Ewing, reversing the character’s death from the previous season. Bobby Ewing was killed off in the season 8 finale (aired May 1985) after Patrick Duffy decided to leave the show. The return happened at the end of Season 9 (May 16, 1986), when Pamela Ewing (Victoria Principal) discovered Bobby alive in her shower, revealing that the entire 31-episode season was a dream.
1989 – Nick Faldo won his first Masters Tournament becoming the first Englishman to win the title. He defeated Scott Hoch in a sudden-death playoff, birdieing the second extra hole after a final-round 65. This marked the first of his three Masters victories (1989, 1990, 1996).
1990 – John Major was elected Prime Minister (taking office in November 1990 serving until May 1997) of the United Kingdom, leading the Conservative Party to a record-breaking fourth consecutive general election victory. Major won over 14 million votes, the highest total in British electoral history. His premiership included winning the Gulf War in 1991, negotiating the Maastricht Treaty in 1991, and abolishing the poll tax.
1991 – The Republic of Georgia declared its independence from the Soviet Union.
2002 – The Queen Mother’s funeral was held at Westminster Abbey led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the service was attended by over 2,000 guests, including members of the Royal Family and international dignitaries, following her lying in state at Westminster Hall. She passed away at 101 years old on March 30, 2002.
2003 – US forces pulled down a statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad to symbolize the end of the Iraqi president’s brutal reign.
2005 – The Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles were married, in a civil ceremony at the Guildhall in Windsor.
2012 – Disney’s The Lion King officially became the highest-grossing Broadway show of all time, surpassing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera. Despite opening a decade later (1997 vs. 1988), The Lion King achieved this milestone through higher ticket prices and consistent capacity audiences.
2019 – Dutch ecologists reported that wolves were living in the Netherlands again for the first time in 140 years.
2021 – Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh and Queen Elizabeth II’s husband of 73 years and the longest-serving British consort in history, died aged 99 at Windsor Castle shortly before his 100th birthday (June 10). He died on the 99th day of the year, on the morning of the 9th day of the month.
2024 – Simon Harris becomes Ireland’s youngest taoiseach (Irish prime minister) at the age of 37 after the resignation of Leo Varadkar.
2024 – James and Jennifer Crumbley, the first parents held criminally responsible for a US mass school shooting committed by their child, are sentenced to 10-15 years for manslaughter in Michigan.
Today in music
1973 – Newly signed to EMI Records, Queen played a showcase gig for their new record label at the The Marquee London. They released their debut single ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ three months later on 6 July 1973.
1974 – Terry Jacks was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Seasons In The Sun.’ Jacks became the first Canadian to score a No.1 since Paul Anka in 1957. The song (written in French by Belgian, Jacques Brel), had English lyrics by poet Rod McKuen.
1977 – ABBA went to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Dancing Queen’, the group’s 7th US Top 40 hit and first No.1. The song was also a No.1 in the UK in 1976 and 12 other countries.
1983 – David Bowie was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with the title track from his latest album ‘Let’s Dance’, his fourth UK No.1 and featuring blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan. The song introduced Bowie to a new, younger audience oblivious to his former career in the 1970s and was a US No.1 hit, Bowie’s first single to reach number one on both sides of the Atlantic.
1988 – Billy Ocean started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car’, a No.3 hit in the UK.
1994 – Take That scored their fourth UK No.1 single with the Gary Barlow penned single ‘Everything Changes’ the fifth single from the band’s second album Everything Changes.
2000 – Moby started a five-week run at No.1 on the UK album chart with ‘Play’. The album went on to spend 81 weeks on the chart.
2000 – Craig David went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Fill Me In’. At 18 years 11 months he became the youngest UK male solo artist to write and sing a UK No.1.
2013 – According to the Official Charts Company one billion songs had now been downloaded in the UK. Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’ was the most downloaded single of all time in the UK, followed by tracks by Maroon 5 and Gotye. The Official Charts Company said on average more than three million tracks were now sold every week.
2016 – Fleetwood Mac announced that Lindsey Buckingham had been fired from the band and would be replaced by Crowded House’s Neil Finn and Mike Campbell, former lead guitarist of (with Tom Petty) & The Heartbreakers on their upcoming tour. Describing Lindsey’s departure as bittersweet, Stevie Nicks stated: “Our relationship has always been volatile.”
2021 – American rapper, songwriter DMX (Earl Simmons) died age 50. The official cause of death was a cocaine-induced heart attack. He began rapping in the early 1990s and released his debut album It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot in 1998, to both critical acclaim and commercial success. He was the first artist to debut an album at No. 1 five times in a row on the Billboard 200 charts. Overall, DMX has sold over 74 million records worldwide.
Today in history
1413 – Henry V was crowned King of England. He was the second English monarch from the House of Lancaster.
1483 – At the age of 12, Edward V acceded to the throne on the death of Edward IV and was later murdered in mysterious circumstances 75 days later on 25th June.
1585 – The expedition organised by Sir Walter Raleigh departed England for Roanoke Island (now in North Carolina) to establish a permanent English settlement in what later became the Virginia Colony.
1731 – British mariner Robert Jenkins’ ear is cut off by Spanish Guarde Costa in the Caribbean. Used as propaganda seven years later, this act of “Spanish cruelty” was leveraged by British politicians to declare war (The War of Jenkins’ Ear 1739 – 1748), aiming to boost commercial interests in the Caribbean.
1747 – The Scottish Jacobite Lord Lovat was beheaded on Tower Hill, London, for high treason. He was the last man to be executed in this way in Britain, in a form of execution which had been reserved for the nobility.
1770 – The explorer Captain Cook arrived in Botany Bay, Australia, the first European to do so.
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