Friday, August 1st "2025" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 213, known as Yorkshire Day, World Wide Web Day, Woman Astronomers Day, Spider-Man Day. Your star sign is Leo and your birthstone is Peridot.
2017 – The reopening, after a £19 million restoration, of the Piece Hall in Halifax, one of Britain’s most outstanding Georgian buildings. Originally built in 1779 to support the trading of cloth, it has been a meeting point of Halifax’s commercial, civic and cultural life for almost 250 years.
Todays birthdays
1959 – Joe Elliott (66), English singer-songwriter, one of the founder members of the hard rock band Def Leppard (“Pour Some Sugar on Me”), born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.
1965 – Sam Mendes (60), English stage and film director (1917, American Beauty, Skyfall, Jarhead), born in Reading, Berkshire.
1969 – Graham Thorpe (56), English former cricketer (England, Surrey) who represented his country in 100 Test matches, born in Farnham, Surrey.
1970 – David James (55), English former professional goalkeeper (England, Manchester City, Liverpool), born in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire.
1979 – Jason Momoa (46), American actor (Game of Thrones, Aquaman, Justice League), born in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Famous deaths
2015 – Cilla Black, born Priscilla Maria Veronica White (b. 1943), English singer (“Anyone Who Had a Heart”, “You’re My World”) and television presenter (Blind Date).
The day today
1944 – Anne Frank wrote her last diary entry.
She was arrested three days later, and placed in a concentration camp. Anne Frank died in February 1945 aged 15.
1966 – The British Empire officially came to an end as the Colonial Office closed its doors and lowered its flag, giving way to the Commonwealth.
1984 – Commercial peat-cutters discovered the preserved body of a man they called Lindow Man, at Lindow Moss in Cheshire. It is thought that he was deposited some time between 2 BC and 119 AD.
1992 – Linford Christie won the 100m gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics.
1994 – Thousands of historic documents and more than 100,000 books are destroyed in a blaze at Norwich Central Library.
2007 – The worldwide centenary of Scouting took place at Brownsea Island, the largest of the islands in Poole Harbour in the county of Dorset. The first camp in 1907 is regarded as the real origin of the worldwide Scout movement.
2008 – Barry George was found not guilty of the murder of BBC television presenter Jill Dando outside her London home. He was first convicted in 2001 but an Old Bailey retrial was ordered after doubt was cast on the reliability of gunshot residue evidence.
2012 – Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins and the women’s rowing duo (Helen Glover and Heather Stanning) scooped Britain’s first gold medals of the Olympic Games.
2016 – The Yorkshire Dales National Park was extended by nearly a quarter (161 square miles were added), covering new areas in Cumbria and into Lancashire.
Today in music
1980 – Def Leppard made their US live debut when they appeared at the New York City concert opening for AC/DC. It was also Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott’s 21st birthday.
1981 – Welsh singer Shakin’ Stevens had his second UK No.1 single with his version of ‘Green Door’, which had been a hit in the US for Jim Lowe in 1956.
1981 – MTV launched, broadcasting its first music video at 12:01 am.
The first music video played on the iconic channel was the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star.”
1987 – MTV Europe was launched, the first video played being ‘Money For Nothing’ by Dire Straits which contained the appropriate line ‘I Want My MTV’.
1987 – Bob Seger scored his first US No.1 single with the Harold Faltermeyer penned ‘Shakedown’, which was taken from the film ‘Beverly Hills Cop II’. The song was nominated for both the Academy Award for Best Original Song and Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, but it lost both awards to Dirty Dancing’s ‘(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life’.
1998 – The Spice Girls scored their seventh UK No.1 single with ‘Viva Forever’. The song was originally set to be released alongside the track ‘Never Give Up on the Good Times’ as a double A-Side which was pulled as member Geri Halliwell left the group in May the same year.
2013 – The British government was trying to stop American Idol singer Kelly Clarkson from taking a rare turquoise and gold ring once owned by Jane Austen out of the country. The 2002 winner of the Idol TV show bought the jewellery at auction the previous year for more than £150,000, but Culture minister Ed Vaizey had put a temporary export bar on it saying he wanted the national treasure to be “saved for the nation”.
2020 – Taylor Swift was at No.1 on the UK album chart with her eighth studio album Folklore. It was a surprise album, after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, Swift cancelled the concert tour for her seventh studio album Lover (2019) and conceived Folklore during quarantine.
Today in history
1740 – Rule Britannia was sung for the first time, for the then Prince of Wales’s daughter’s third birthday.
1774 – British scientist Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen by removing it from the air. This experiment was groundbreaking for understanding what oxygen is and how it works. Priestley isolated oxygen in its gaseous state not only to discover the element oxygen but to understand what it does. Priestley was not the first to experiment with oxygen, as Carl Wilhelm had similar findings the year before. However, his discovery was not published until 1777, making Priestley officially the first person to discover oxygen.
1798 – The English, under Nelson, destroyed the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile, in Aboukir Bay, stopping Napoleon Bonaparte’s plans to invade the Middle East.
1800 – The Act of Union 1800 was passed which merged the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1831 – New London Bridge was opened by King William IV. It lasted for 140 years before being sold and rebuilt in Arizona.
1834 – The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 came into force throughout the British Empire and an estimated 770,000 slaves were freed. The foundation stone of the Wilberforce monument in Hull was laid On This Day, in recognition of Hull born abolitionist William Wilberforce.