Wednesday, August 13th "2025" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 225, known as National Prosecco Day, World Calligraphy Day, Lefthanders Day. Your star sign is Leo and your birthstone is Peridot.
2012 – If Yorkshire was regarded as an independent country, it was calculated that it would have finished 12th out of the 204 competing countries in the medals table at the London Olympics! The county won seven gold medals, two silver and three bronze.
Todays birthdays
1933 – Madhur Jaffrey (92), Indian-born British actress, food and travel writer (Madhur Jaffrey’s Flavours of India), born in Delhi, India.
1958 – Feargal Sharkey (67), Irish punk rock singer who was the lead vocalist of the Undertones (“My Perfect Cousin”) and had the No.1 hit “A Good Heart”, as a solo artist in 1985, born in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
1959 – Mark Nevin (66), English songwriter and guitarist with Fairground Attraction (“Perfect”), born in Ebbw Vale, Gwent, Wales.
1960 – Phil Taylor (66), English former professional darts player, widely considered the greatest darts player of all time. Nicknamed The Power, born in Stoke-on-Trent.
1968 – Tony Jarrett (57), English former sprint and hurdling athlete who competed in the 88, 92, 96 and 2000 Olympics, born in the London Borough of Enfield, Greater London.
1970 – Alan Shearer (55), English former professional footballer (Blackburn Rovers, Newcastle United) and broadcaster (BBC), born in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne.
1974 – Joe Perry (51), English professional snooker player nicknamed “The Gentleman”, turning professional in 1992, born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.
Famous deaths
1964 – Ian Fleming (b. 1908), British writer, best known for his postwar James Bond series of spy novels.
2015 – Stephen Lewis (b. 1926), English actor and screenwriter best known for his roles as Inspector Blake in On The Buses and as Smiler in Last of the Summer Wine.
2021 – Una Stubbs (b. 1937), English actress, TV personality, and dancer (Till Death Us Do Part, In Sickness and in Health).
The day today
1910 – The death of Florence Nightingale, English nurse who came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers.
1913 – The first production in the UK of stainless steel by Sheffield born Harry Brearley. Brearley’s life had humble beginnings. He was the son of a steel melter and left school at the age of twelve to enter his first employment as a labourer in one of the city’s steelworks.
1915 – The ‘Brides In The Bath’ murderer George Joseph Smith, who drowned his brides in a zinc bath after ensuring their finances were in his favour, was hanged.
1946 – The death of the writer Herbert George Wells (often referred to as H.G. Wells). He is now best remembered for his science fiction novels including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897) and The War of the Worlds (1898). Wells was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.
1964 – The last hangings in Britain took place when two men, Gwynne Evans and Peter Allen, were hanged for the murder of John Alan West, a laundry van driver from Seaton, Cumbria. Evans was hung at Manchester’s Strangeways Prison at 8:00 a.m. and at exactly the same time, Peter Allen was hung at Liverpool’s Walton Prison.
1985 – A three-year-old boy from Dublin became the world’s youngest heart and lung transplant patient.
Jamie Gavin had the four-hour operation at Harefield Hospital in Middlesex, London.
1991 – Britain introduced the Dangerous Dog Act in which aggressive dogs must be muzzled and held on a leash in public.
1995 – Alison Hargreaves, British mountaineer and the first woman to make a solo summit of Mt. Everest without supplemental oxygen, died descending K2 during a severe storm.
2012 – If Yorkshire was regarded as an independent country, it was calculated that it would have finished 12th out of the 204 competing countries in the medals table at the London Olympics! The county won seven gold medals, two silver and three bronze.
Today in music
1964 – Manfred Mann were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Do Wah Diddy Diddy’, the bands first of three UK No.1’s. The song which was written by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich was originally recorded in 1963 by the American vocal group The Exciters.
1964 – The Supremes recorded ‘Baby Love’, written and produced by Motown’s main production team Holland–Dozier–Holland, the song went on to be the group’s first UK No.1 and second US chart topper.
1983 – KC and the Sunshine Band were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Give It Up’. The American disco group’s only UK chart topper spent three weeks at No.1
1994 – Members from Oasis and The Verve were arrested after smashing up a hotel bar and breaking into a church to steal communion wine. Both bands had been appearing at Hulsfred Festival in Sweden.
1999 – Mick Jagger’s marriage to model Jerry Hall was declared null and void at the High Court in London. Neither Jagger nor Hall were present for the 30-minute hearing before Mr Justice Connell. After hearing evidence on behalf of Hall the judge ruled their “marriage” in Bali in 1990 was not valid either in Indonesia or under English law, and a decree of nullity was granted to Hall. The annulment avoided what had been expected to be a long and costly court battle, in which Ms Hall, 43, was reportedly seeking a £30m share of Jagger’s wealth.
2004 – ‘Angels’ by Robbie Williams was voted the best single which should have been a No.1 but never was, in a poll for VH1. The ballad, which reached No.4 in December 1997, beat Savage Garden’s ‘Truly, Madly, Deeply’ and Aerosmith’s ‘I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing.’ Other songs said to have deserved a No.1 included Madonna with ‘Ray of Light’, ‘Beautiful Stranger’, ‘Crazy For You’ and ‘Material Girl’, Bon Jovi with ‘Always’ and Oasis with ‘Wonderwall’ and ‘Live Forever’. Sir Cliff Richard’s hit ‘Millennium Prayer’ was voted the worst No.1 single of all time.
2007 – Amy Winehouse pulled out of two Rolling Stones gigs in Hamburg Germany citing exhaustion, British group Starsailor replaced Winehouse for the shows.
Today in history
1608 – English soldier, explorer, colonial governor, admiral of New England John Smith, famous for setting up the first permanent English colony in the New World, told the first stories about Jamestown in Virginia.
1704 – French and Bavarian forces were routed by a combined British, German and Dutch army at the Battle of Blenheim, in Bavaria . The victors lost 6,000 soldiers compared with 21,000 French and Bavarian troops. Blenheim has gone down in history as one of the turning points of the War of the Spanish Succession.
1784 – Parliament accepts East India Company Act 1784, bringing the East India Company’s rule in India under the control of the British Government.
1809 – The birth, in Much Wenlock (Shropshire) of William Penny Brookes, English surgeon who was especially known for inspiring the modern Olympic Games, the Wenlock Olympian Games and for his promotion of physical education and personal betterment.
1814 – The Cape of Good Hope Province became a British colony when it was given over to the British by the Dutch for £6 million.
1899 – The birth of Alfred Hitchcock, English film director of suspense and psychological thriller films.