Famous deaths
2018 – Chas Hodges (b. 1943), English musician and singer. He was the lead vocalist, pianist and guitarist of the musical duo Chas & Dave.
On This Day 2025
Hello, … Welcome to day 343 of the year.

Tuesday, December 9th Daily Prep.

Today is National Pastry Day, Christmas Card Day plus Lost and Found Day. Your star sign is Sagittarius and your birthstone is Blue Topaz.
2021 – More than 40 camels are disqualified from the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival beauty contest after Botox injections and other cosmetic enhancements are discovered.
More than 40 camels are disqualified from the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival beauty contest after Botox injections and other cosmetic enhancements are discovered.
Today’s birthdays
1935 – Judi Dench (91), English actress (The Chronicles of Riddick, Skyfall, GoldenEye), widely considered one of Britain’s greatest actresses, born in York, North Yorkshire.
1950 – Joan Armatrading (75), English singer-songwriter and guitarist (“The Weakness in Me”), born in Basseterre, Saint Kitts and Nevis.
1953 – John Malkovich (72), American actor (Con Air, In the Line of Fire, Johnny English), born in Christopher, Illinois, United States.
1957 – Donny Osmond (68), American singer (“Puppy Love”), dancer, actor, television host and former teen idol, born in Ogden, Utah, United States.
1971 – Geoff Barrow (54), English music producer, composer, and DJ with Portishead (“Glory Box”, “Pedestal”, “Roads”), born in Walton in Gordano, Somerset.
1974 – Fiona MacDonald (51), Scottish curler and Olympic champion (gold medalist 2002 winter Olympics), born in Paisley, Scotland.
1977 – Imogen Heap (48), English musician, singer, songwriter and record producer (“Speeding Cars”, “The Happy Song”), born in Harold Wood, Romford, East London.
Famous deaths
2012 – Patrick Moore (b. 1923), English lieutenant, astronomer, and educator known for The Sky at Night from its first monthly broadcast on 24 April 1957 until 7 January 2013.
The day today
1905 – The French parliament passed a law that fully separated all activities of the church and the state. There were three main principles behind the new law: it allowed greater freedom of religion, it forced the state to remain more neutral, and it took less power away from the church.

1960 – The first episode of Coronation Street was screened on ITV. It is the world’s longest-running television soap opera.

1979 – Some 10 years after the World Health Organization began a global vaccination program against smallpox, the disease was officially declared eradicated.
1987 – England’s cricket tour in Pakistan hung in the balance as a row erupted between captain Mike Gatting and the umpire Shakoor Rana who accused Gatting of cheating.
1992 – The separation was announced of the Prince and Princess of Wales (Prince Charles and Princess Diana). They married in 1981.
1996 – Horrett Campbell, 33, a paranoid schizophrenic who attacked three children and four women with a machete at an infant school teddy bears’ picnic in July was found guilty of seven counts of attempted murder. The court was told that Campbell had imagined he heard the children at St Luke’s infants school, in Blakenhall, Wolverhampton, taunting him when he walked past the playground.
1997 – There were problems for Richard Branson in his attempt to fly around the world in a hot-air balloon when the envelope ( the balloon section) of his Virgin Global Challenger broke loose from the gondola and flew off on its own from Marrakech, Morocco.
1998 – The United Nations General Assembly declared anti-Semitism a form of racism.
2010 – A car containing Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall was attacked amid violence after MPs voted to raise university tuition fees in England. A window was cracked and their car hit by paint, but the couple were unharmed. In angry scenes, protesters battled with police in Parliament Square and were contained on Westminster Bridge for a time by officers.
2012 – The death of the British astronomer and broadcaster Sir Patrick Moore, aged 89. He was the presenter of the BBC’s Sky At Night for over 50 years, from its first airing on 24th April 1957, making him the longest-running host ever of the same television show.
2017 – “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” directed by Rian Johnson, starring Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Adam Driver premieres in Los Angeles.
2021 – More than 40 camels are disqualified from the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival beauty contest after Botox injections and other cosmetic enhancements are discovered.
2024 – Google unveils a new quantum computer, capable of performing a mathematical calculation in 5 minutes that the most powerful supercomputers could not complete in 10 septillion years.
Today in music
1978 – Boney M had their second UK No.1 single with their version of the Harry Belafonte 1957 hit ‘Mary’s Boy Child’. On the list of the all-time best selling singles in the UK, Boney M. appear in fifth place (with ‘Rivers of Babylon’) and tenth place (with ‘Mary’s Boy Child/Oh My Lord’). The single sold almost 1.8 million copies.
1978 – Chic started a seven week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Le Freak.’ Nile Rodgers later stated that the song was devised during New Years Eve of 1977, as a result of him and bassist Bernard Edwards being refused entrance to Studio 54, in New York City, where they had been invited by Grace Jones.
1995 – Michael Jackson scored his 6th solo UK No.1 single when ‘Earth Song’ started a 6-week run at the top of the charts. It gave Jackson the UK Christmas No.1 of 1995 and his best-selling UK single ever. The song kept the first single released by The Beatles in 25 years, ‘Free as a Bird’, off the No.1 position.
2000 – Sharon Corr of The Corrs called for the legalisation of cannabis, claiming that the drug has medicinal properties. Sharon said, ‘Some people with certain conditions can get a brief reprieve from their symptoms through cannabis’.
2003 – Ozzy Osbourne was admitted to Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, Berkshire after being injured in a quad bike accident at his UK home. The singer broke his collarbone, eight ribs and a vertebra in his neck.
2001 – Channel 4 TV apologised to viewers after Madonna said ‘motherfucker’ during live UK TV coverage at The Tate Gallery, London. Madonna was presenting a prize to artist Martin Creed. A TV spokesman said that they did have a bleeper system but they missed the offending word.
2005 – Joss Stone, Lemar and Ms. Dynamite backed by the African Children’s Choir and 1,200 school children set a new world record for the most children singing simultaneously. The ‘Big Sing’ was held at The Royal Albert Hall, London. The singers led a performance of ‘Lean On Me’ which was broadcast to more than half a million people.
2001 – Winners at The Smash Hits awards included Atomic Kitten, Best single for ‘Whole Again’, Westlife won Best band and Best album for ‘World Of Our Own’, and Blue won Best newcomer, Steps won Best live act, Shaggy won Best male act, Britney Spears won Best Female Act, Destiny’s Child won Best R&B act, S Club 7’s Rachel Stevens won Most Fanciable Female and Best Video went to Gorillaz, ‘Clint Eastwood.’
2016 – The Rolling Stones topped the UK chart with their latest album Blue & Lonesome, the bands first original studio album to reach No.1 for 22 years and the 12th album by The Rolling Stones to reach the top of the charts.Sir Mick Jagger became a father again at the age of 73, after his 29-year-old girlfriend, American ballerina Melanie Hamrick, gave birth to a boy in New York City. The singer already had seven children, whose ages range from 17 to 45 and he became a great-grandfather in 2014.
2019 – Roxette singer Marie Fredriksson died aged 61 following a 17-year long battle with cancer. The Swedish duo achieved their biggest success when their 1987 single ‘It Must Have Been Love’ was featured on the Pretty Woman soundtrack in 1990. It topped the charts in more than 10 countries, and gave the band their biggest UK hit, reaching No.3.
Today in history
1608 – The birth of John Milton, English poet, in Cheapside, London. His works included Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: British troops and Loyalists, misinformed about Patriot militia strength, lose the Battle of Great Bridge, ending British rule in Virginia.
1783 – The first executions took place at Newgate Prison. Prior to this, public executions were carried out at Tyburn gallows, which involved carting the prisoners from Newgate Prison through the crowded streets.
1854 – Lord Alfred Tennyson’s poem, Charge of the Light Brigade was published. The Charge of the Light Brigade had been led by Lord Cardigan against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava on 25th October 1854 in the Crimean War. The poem emphasized the valour of the cavalry in carrying out their orders, even though they knew that blunders had been made by those in command. Quote from the poem – ‘Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.’
1868 – The first traffic lights are installed outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.