On This Day 2026
Hello, … and welcome to day 51 of the year.

Friday, February 20th

Today is National Love Your Pet Day, International Pipe Smoking Day, National Comfy Day, World Care Day and National Caregivers Day. Your star sign is Pisces and your birthstone is Amethyst.
1962 – John Glenn became the first American to orbit planet Earth. Glenn orbited the planet three times during his five-hour trip in his Friendship 7 capsule reaching speeds of 17,500 mph before a safe splashdown, cementing his status as an American hero.
John Glenn became the first American to orbit planet Earth. Glenn orbited the planet three times during his five-hour trip in his Friendship 7 capsule reaching speeds of 17,500 mph before a safe splashdown, cementing his status as an American hero.
Today’s birthdays
1946 – Brenda Blethyn (80), English actress (Vera, A River Runs Through It, Little Voice, Pride & Prejudice, Saving Grace), born in Ramsgate, Kent.
1951 – Gordon Brown (75), British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010, born in Giffnock, Scotland.
1961 – Imogen Stubbs (65), English actress (Sense and Sensibility, Twelfth Night: Or What You Will) and writer, born in Rothbury, Northumberland.
1963 – Ian Brown (63), English musician and lead singer of alternative rock band the Stone Roses (“I Am the Resurrection”, “Sally Cinnamon”, “Fools Gold”), born in Warrington, Cheshire.
1966 – Cindy Crawford (59), American model who was a dominant name in the modelling industry during the 80’s and 90’s, born in DeKalb, Illinois, United States.
1987 – Miles Teller (39), American actor (Top Gun: Maverick, War Dogs, Divergent, Only the Brave), born in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, United States.
1988 – Rihanna (38), Barbadian singer (“Umbrella”, “We Found Love”) and businesswoman ( co-founder and CEO of Fenty, Fenty Beauty), born in Saint Michael, Barbados.
2003 – Olivia Rodrigo (23), American singer-songwriter (“Get Him Back”) and actress (High School Musical: The Musical-The Series), born in Murrieta, California, United States.
2005 – Cruz Beckham (21), British aspiring musician and singer known for playing intimate live gigs, born in Madrid, Spain.
Famous deaths
1993 – Ferruccio Lamborghini (b. 1916), Italian automobile designer and businessman who created Lamborghini Trattori in 1948 and the Automobili Lamborghini in 1963.
The day today
1938 – Anthony Eden resigned as British foreign secretary after the prime minister Neville Chamberlain decided to negotiate with Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
1940 – The birth of Jimmy Greaves, England’s third highest international goalscorer and the highest goalscorer in the history of Tottenham Hotspur football club. He was famed for his trademark catchphrase “It’s a funny old game.”
1947 – Lord Louis Mountbatten, cousin of King George VI and a hero of World War II, was appointed the last Viceroy of India, on the same day that London announced that the British would leave India by June 1948. In the same year he was granted the title of Baron Romsey. The family coat of arms ‘In Honour Bound’ is in Romsey Abbey, where he is also buried.
1952 – “African Queen” film directed by John Huston, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn is released in the US.

1952 – Jeannette Altwegg won Britain’s first Olympic Gold Medal for figure-skating at the Winter Olympics in Oslo. She also won a bronze medal in 1948, was a world champion (1951), and was awarded an OBE in 1953.

1958 – The government announced the closure of Sheerness docks, one of the oldest naval dockyards in the UK.
1962 – John Glenn became the first American to orbit planet Earth. Glenn orbited the planet three times during his five-hour trip in his Friendship 7 capsule reaching speeds of 17,500 mph before a safe splashdown, cementing his status as an American hero.
1979 – 11 ‘loyalists’ known as the “Shankill Butchers” are sentenced to life in prison for 19 murders; the gang was named for its late-night kidnapping, torture and murder (by throat slashing) of random Catholic civilians in Belfast.
1982 – US entrepreneur John de Lorean’s luxury sports car project in Belfast, set up with over £17 million of British taxpayers’ money, went into receivership. On his return to the US he was asked bluntly, ‘Are you a con man?’
1989 – Police hunted two IRA bombers who attacked an army barracks at Tern Hill in Shropshire. Fifty members of the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment escaped injury when two men were seen acting suspiciously in the early hours of the morning.
1998 – Fifteen-year-old Tara Lipinski became the youngest Olympic figure skating gold medalist. Lipinski won gold while competing for the United States of America at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
2010 – On the Portuguese Atlantic island of Madeira, heavy rain causes floods and mudslides, resulting in at least 32 deaths in the worst disaster in the history of the archipelago.
2012 – Russian scientists successfully regenerated the arctic flowering plant Silene stenophylla from a 31,800-year-old fruit tissue found in Siberian permafrost, shattering the previous 2,000-year record for bringing ancient plant life back to life.
2017 – The South Sudanese government and UN agencies declared a famine in parts of Unity State, affecting 100,000 people directly with starvation and placing 4.9 million (over 40% of the population) in urgent need of food assistance. This man-made crisis, driven by civil war and economic collapse, marked the first global famine declaration in six years.
2018 – At age 91, Queen Elizabeth II made her first-ever visit to London Fashion Week. Sitting front-row next to Vogue editor Anna Wintour, she attended the Richard Quinn show to present the inaugural Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design, recognizing exceptional talent and sustainable policies.
2020 – The Bank of England introduced a new polymer £20 note featuring artist J.M.W., replacing the paper note featuring Adam Smith. The paper £20 notes ceased to be legal tender on 30 September 2022. The £20 note was part of the transition to a full polymer series, which included the £5 (2016), £10 (2017), and £50 (2021).
2022 – Norway finished at the top of the medal table for the third successive Winter Olympics, winning a total of 37 medals, of which 16 were gold, setting a new record for the largest number of gold medals won at a single Winter Olympics. Germany finished second with 12 golds and 27 medals overall.
2023 – At 17:40, police confirmed that the body found in the River Wyre at St. Michael’s on Wyre the rpevious morning, was that of Nicola Bulley, who went missing during a riverside walk on 27th January. An extensive search by two diving teams, her friends, police and police helicopters failed to find her, but she was eventually spotted in the water by two walkers.

2023 – The 100th birthday of “The House in the Clouds” at Thorpeness, Suffolk. It is 70 feet high and was originally a water supply storage tank for Thorpeness village. Disguised as a house for aesthetic reasons, it is now available as a Holiday Let.

Today in music
1970 – The single ‘Instant Karma!’ by The Plastic Ono Band was released in the US. John Lennon had written, recorded and mixed the track all in one day on the 27th January 1970.

1972 – Chicory Tip were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Son Of My Father.’ Written by Giorgio Moroder, it was the first UK number one single to prominently feature a synthesizer, in this case a Moog synthesizer.

1977 – Winners at this years Grammy Awards included Stevie Wonder for Best album with ‘Songs In The Key Of Life’, and Best Vocal performance for ‘I Wish.’ Best album went to Chicago for ‘Chicago X’ and Best new artist went to the Starland Vocal Band.
1988 – Kylie Minogue was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘I Should Be So Lucky.’ Minogue had become a household name playing Charlene Ramsey in Australian soap Neighbours. After every major UK record company turned down the track, producer Pete Waterman released the single on his own PWL label. Kylie has gone on to score over 30 hit singles.
1991 – Bob Dylan was awarded a lifetime achievement award at the 33rd annual Grammy’ Awards. A starstruck Jack Nicholson introduced a purple-suited, fedoraed Dylan who said: “You know, it’s possible to become so defiled in this world that your own mother and father will abandon you, and if that happens, God will always believe in your own ability to mend your own ways. Thank you!”
2003 – Winners at this years Brit Awards included Robbie Williams for British male solo artist, Ms Dynamite won British female artist, Best British album went to Coldplay for A Rush Of Blood, Best British group went to Coldplay, Red Hot Chili Peppers won International Group, Blue won Best Pop Act and Liberty X won Best single for ‘Just A Little.’
2008 – A 1976 Rolling Stones album bought for £2 at a car boot sale sold for £4,000 at an auction. The ‘Black and Blue’ LP was signed by John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Paul and Linda McCartney and George Harrison as well as members of the Rolling Stones. The seller obtained the album after haggling the cost down from £3.
2008 – Winners at this year’s Brit Awards in London, included Take That who won the trophies for best British live act and British single, The Arctic Monkeys won best British group and album – both for the second year in a row and Foo Fighters won best international group and album. Kate Nash won best British female and Mark Ronson was named best British male. Kylie Minogue won best international female and Mika was named best British breakthrough act. Sir Paul McCartney performed a medley of hits, including ‘Live and Let Die’, ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘Lady ‘Madonna’ after he was honoured with an outstanding contribution award. The show was presented by Sharon Osbourne.
2010 – An event was staged at The Barbican in London where 40 zebra finches made music by landing on guitars and cymbals. The flock of finches would land on Gibson Les Paul guitars, which were plugged into amplifiers and land on upturned cymbals being used as bird feeders to make random sounds. A video clip of the installation, on YouTube had been watched more than 520,000 times.
2014 – The British Phonographic Industry reported that Digital revenues now accounted for 50% of the total UK record industry income. Digital album sales and a surge in streaming had boosted total digital revenue in 2013 to £365m – up from £326m (a 45.5% share) in 2012. Streaming revenue increased by 41%, bringing total UK revenue to £730.4m – the first growth since 2009.
Today in history
1472 – Orkney and Shetland were pawned by Norway to Scotland in lieu of a dowry for Princess Margaret, daughter of Christian I, the King of Norway and Denmark. As the wife of King James III of Scotland she was the Queen Consort and the mother of the future King James IV of Scotland.
1547 – Edward VI, aged 9 years old, was crowned at Westminster Abbey. Edward, the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England’s first monarch who was raised as a Protestant.
1757 – The birth of John Fuller, better known as ‘Mad Jack’ Fuller, although he himself preferred to be called ‘Honest John’ Fuller. As Squire of the hamlet of Brightling, in Sussex he was well known as a builder of follies, but was also a philanthropist and a patron of the arts and sciences. He was eventually elected as a Member of Parliament but was a noted drunk, which led to a number of ‘incidents’ in the Houses of Parliament. His parliamentary career is probably most noted for his staunch support of slavery and in one such debate he claimed that West Indian slaves lived in better conditions than many people in England. In 1811, a pyramid-shaped building was erected in the churchyard in Brightling, as a future mausoleum for John Fuller. And there he was buried, in 1834.
1856 – The steam packet-ship John Rutledge, en route from Liverpool to New York, hits an iceberg and sinks with the loss of 120 passengers and 19 crew; only one survivor (Thomas Nye of New Bedford).
1873 – British Naval Officer John Moresby is the first European to discover the site of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, claims it for the United Kingdom.
1892 – Comedy “Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Play About a Good Woman” by Oscar Wilde premieres at St James Theatre, London.
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