Friday, August 29th "2025" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 241, known as National Lemon Juice Day, International Cabernet Day, National Chop Suey Day. Your star sign is Virgo and your birthstone is Peridot.
2012 – Paralympian Margaret Maughan lit the cauldron at the Olympic Stadium in London at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics.
Todays birthdays
1945 – Chris Copping (80), English musician and singer-songwriter who was a member of Procol Harum in the 1970s, born in Middleton, Greater Manchester.
1958 – Lenny Henry (67), British-Jamaican comedian, actor (Chef), presenter (Tiswas) and writer (The Lenny Henry Show), born in Dudley, West Midlands.
1959 – Eddi Reader (66), Scottish singer-songwriter and lead vocalist of Fairground Attraction (“Perfect”), born in Glasgow, Scotland.
1969 – Joe Swail (56), Northern Irish former professional snooker player (retired in May 2019 after being relegated from the tour), born in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
1973 – Vincent Cavanagh (52), English singer and guitarist best known as a co-founder of British rock band Anathema (“Fragile Dreams”), born in Liverpool.
Famous deaths
2016 – Gene Wilder (b. 1933), American stage and screen comic actor (Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Blazing Saddles, See No Evil, Hear No Evil).
The day today
1918 – Britain’s first police strike began at midnight, as 6000 policemen campaigned for better pay.
1923 – The birth of Richard Attenborough, English actor and director. He won two Academy Awards for Gandhi in 1982 and has also won four BAFTA Awards. As an actor he is perhaps best known for his roles in The Great Escape, 10 Rillington Place and Jurassic Park. Richard passed away on 24 August 2014 (age 90 years).
1930 – The last 36 remaining inhabitants of St Kilda (40 miles west-northwest of North Uist in the North Atlantic Ocean) were voluntarily evacuated to other parts of Scotland. The entire archipelago is owned by the National Trust for Scotland and it became one of Scotland’s five World Heritage Sites in 1986.
1935 – Rowntree’s introduced the famous Kit Kat featuring three layers of wafer cut into finger slices and surrounded by milk chocolate.
1981 – Vandals slashed the picture of Diana, Princess of Wales hanging at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Police said the assailant, identified as a 20-year-old Belfast man named Paul Salman, was grabbed by two security guards immediately after he began slashing at the portrait.
2011 – Private security firm G4S sacked two members of staff who tagged the false leg of 29 year old Rochdale offender Christopher Lowcock, allowing him to remove it and flout a court-imposed curfew for driving and drug offences, as well as possession of an offensive weapon.
2012 – The opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. It was one of the largest multi-sport events ever held in the United Kingdom after the 2012 Summer Olympics. The mascot was called Mandeville after Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury. In 1948, Stoke Mandeville Hospital organised the first Stoke Mandeville Games, considered to be the precursor to the Paralympics.
2013 – Lorry driver Ethen Roberts was jailed for five years and three months after admitting causing the deaths of two people when his lorry toppled on to their car on the M62 in West Yorkshire as he read a text message. Investigators found that Roberts had sent and received almost 100 messages to and from the same friend in the three days leading up to the crash, all when the lorry’s tachograph showed that the vehicle was being driven.
2020 – Caeden Thomson, aged 7, who was born 12 weeks early and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, climbed to the top of Ben Nevis, Britain’s highest mountain. His parents had previously been told that Caeden would never sit, walk or talk.
Today in music
1987 – Def Leppard scored their first UK No.1 album with Hysteria which also became No.1 on the US chart in July the following year after spending forty-nine weeks working its way to the top.
1987 – Rick Astley’s debut hit ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’, started a five-week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart. It became the biggest selling single of 1987 and the song won Best British Single at the 1988 Brit Awards.
1990 – Elton John checked into a rehab center in Chicago to receive treatment for bulimia, alcoholism and drugs. Whilst he was receiving treatment, he joined Alcoholics Anonymous, a group that he is still a member of today.
1994 – Oasis released their debut album Definitely Maybe which went on to spend 177 weeks on the UK chart. It also became the fastest selling debut album of all time in the UK and the album went on to sell over eight million copies worldwide.
1999 – Lou Bega went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Mambo No 5’, originally recorded and composed by Perez Prado in 1949.
2006 – The Beatles’ ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ was voted the best No.1 album of all time by the British public. The album released in 1967, topped the poll to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the UK album chart.
2018 – Ariana Grande was at No.1 on the UK album chart with her fourth studio album Sweetener. The album which features guest appearances from Pharrell Williams, Nicki Minaj and Missy Elliott also topped the US charts and won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album marking Grande’s first career Grammy win.
2019 – Noel Gallagher said he wanted to start a petition to break the Foo Fighters up. It followed Dave Grohl and co’s headline performance at the UK Reading Festival, at which the frontman and Foos drummer Taylor Hawkins told the crowd they wanted to start a petition to get Oasis to reunite.
Today in history
1782 – The British battleship HMS Royal George sank off Spithead with the loss of more than 900 crew while repairs were being carried out beneath the ship’s waterline.
1831 – Michael Faraday successfully demonstrated the first electrical transformer at the Royal Institute, London.
1833 – Legislation to settle child labour laws was passed in England. The legislation was called the ‘Factory Act’.
1842 – The Treaty of Nanking was signed between the British and the Chinese, ending the Opium War, and leasing the Hong Kong territories to Britain.
1882 – The England cricket team lost to Australia, in England, for the first time. An ‘obituary’ printed in the Sporting Times, talked of ‘the Ashes’ of English Cricket being taken back to Australia. Test Series between the two countries are now played for ‘The Ashes’.
1895 – At the George Hotel, Huddersfield, twenty-one rugby clubs met to form the Northern Union. In 1922 the Union was renamed the Rugby League.