February 28th "2025" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 59, known Global Scouse Day, Tooth Fairy Day, National Chocolate Soufflé Day. Your star sign is Pisces and your birthstone is Amethyst.
1975 – In London, an underground train fails to stop at Moorgate terminus station and crashes into the end of the tunnel, killing 43 people.
Todays birthdays
1957 – Ian Stanley (68), English musician, songwriter, record producer and member of Tears for Fears (“Everybody Wants to Rule the World”), born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
1957 – Ainsley Harriott (68), English chef and television presenter (Ready Steady Cook), born in Paddington, London.
1961 – Barry McGuigan (64), Irish boxing promoter and former professional boxer (WBA and lineal featherweight titles from 1985 to 1986), born in Clones, Ireland.
1972 – Amanda Abbington (53), English actress (Doc Martin, Sherlock, Mr Selfridge), born in North London.
1994 – Jake Bugg (31), English singer-songwriter (“Lightning Bolt”), born in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire.
Famous deaths
1998 – Dermot Morgan (b. 1952), Irish comedian and actor, best known for his role as Father Ted Crilly on the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted.
The day today
1925 – The birth of the actor Harry H. Corbett. In the early 1950s, he added the initial “H” to avoid confusion with the television entertainer Harry Corbett, who was known for his act with the glove-puppet Sooty. A chance meeting with writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, who had been successful with Hancock’s Half Hour, changed Corbett’s life. He is best known for his starring role in the popular and long-running BBC Television sitcom Steptoe and Son. Early in his career he was dubbed ‘the English Marlon Brando’ by some sections of the British press.
1931 – Having left the Labour Party, Sir Oswald Mosley formed the “New Party” which he said was dedicated to turning parliament “from a talk-shop into a workshop”. The party later evolved into the British Union of Fascists.
1974 – The British election ended in a hung parliament after the Jeremy Thorpe-led Liberal Party achieved their biggest vote.
1975 – At 8.37 am in the London rush hour, a Northern Line underground train crashed through the buffers at Moorgate station and hit a solid dead-end wall, killing 41 people and seriously injuring 50. The rescue operation took three days to complete.
1983 – The final episode of M*A*S*H airs, with almost 110 million viewers.
2001 – A GNER train from York to London King’s Cross crashed at Great Heck between Goole and Selby, North Yorkshire, on the East Coast main line. Gary Hart fell asleep at the wheel of his Land Rover and plunged 40ft down the railway embankment from the M62 into the path of an express train. The 4.45am Great North Eastern Intercity service from Newcastle to London King’s Cross ploughed into the Land Rover before colliding with a coal train travelling north. 10 people, including both train drivers, died and more than 70 were injured.
2012 – The largest prehistoric penguin was discovered. The penguin species Kairuku grebneffi was discovered from a 27 million-year-old fossil, which showed the penguin to weigh around 132 lbs (60 kg) and stood at nearly 5ft tall (1.5 meters).
Today in music
1970 – Simon and Garfunkel started a six week run at the top of the US singles chart with ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, also No.1 in the UK in March the same year. It became one of the most performed songs of the twentieth century, with over 50 artists, among them Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin, covering the song.
1970 – In an interview with the New Musical Express, Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green talked about his plans to give all his money away. The following year Green confronted his accountant with a gun after he sent him an unwanted royalty check. The guitarist went to jail briefly before being transferred to an asylum and was committed to a mental hospital in 1973. He re-launched his career in the 90s.
1984 – Michael Jackson won a record eight Grammy awards including: Album of the year for Thriller; Record of the year and Best rock vocal performance for ‘Beat It’; Best pop vocal performance, Best R&B performance and Best R&B song for ‘Billie Jean’, and Best Recording For Children for E.T The Extra Terrestrial.
1986 – George Michael announced that Wham! would officially split during the summer. Wham became one of the most successful pop acts of the 1980s, selling more than 30 million records worldwide from 1982 to 1986. The singles ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’, ‘Everything She Wants’ and ‘Careless Whisper’, all topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the US.
2008 – Arctic Monkeys won three prizes, including best British band at this year’s NME Awards held at the O2 in London. The band’s single ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’ won them best track and they won best video for ‘Teddy Picker’. Best album went to Klaxons for Myths of the Near Future while Kate Nash won best solo artist. Muse were presented with the best live band award and US group The Killers took best international act. The Manic Street Preachers, who performed at the ceremony, were awarded the NME’s Godlike Genius honour and Babyshambles frontman Pete Doherty was voted hero of the year. Britney Spears’s Blackout was voted worst album and The Hoosiers were named worst band.
Today in history
1155 – The birth of “Henry the Young King”, the eldest surviving son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was the only English king since the Norman Conquest to be crowned (aged 15) during his father’s reign. Henry was a titular ruler, meaning that he had an official position of leadership but few, if any, actual powers. He died, aged just 28, six years before his father, leaving his brother Richard I to become the next king.
1638 – The Scottish National Covenant is signed in Edinburgh. The Covenant opposed changes to the Church of Scotland, and committed its signatories to stand together in the defence of the nation’s religion.
1667 – English colony Suriname comes under Dutch control. Suriname, which bordered Berbice to the east, was seized by Dutch forces from England during the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-67). It remained in Dutch possession until 1975, when it became an independent country.
1784 – John Wesley signed the deed of declaration which established the Wesleyan faith. It has been called the Magna Carta of Methodism.
1874 – Arthur Orton, who claimed to be the long lost heir to the wealthy Tichborne estate in Hampshire, was found guilty of perjury after a trial of 260 days, the longest trial in England. He was sentenced to 14 years’ hard labour, as the real Sir Roger Tichborne had perished at sea in 1853.
1888 – In a Belfast street, a small boy named Johnny Dunlop was riding his tricycle under the supervision of his father. The two rear wheels of the tricycle were the world’s first pneumatic tyres and he was testing them. The test was so successful that his father was granted patent number 10607 on 23rd July.