On This Day 2026
Hello, … and welcome to day 33 of the year.

Monday, February 2nd

Today is National Hedgehog Day, World Wetlands Day and Groundhog Day. Your star sign is Aquarius and your birthstone is Amethyst.
2021 – The death was announced of Captain Sir Tom Moore. He raised more than £32m for the NHS by walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday and was knighted for his fundraising efforts by the Queen at Windsor Castle in July 2020.
The death was announced of Captain Sir Tom Moore. He raised more than £32m for the NHS by walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday and was knighted for his fundraising efforts by the Queen at Windsor Castle in July 2020.
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.
Today’s birthdays
1940 – David Jason (86), English actor (Only Fools and Horses, Open All Hours, A Touch of Frost, The Darling Buds of May), born in Edmonton, London.
1949 – Duncan Bannatyne (77), Scottish entrepreneur (Bannatyne Health Club & Spa), born in Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire, Scotland.
1963 – Stephen McGann (63), English actor (Doctor Who, Call the Midwife, Game Day), born in Kensington, Liverpool.
1971 – Michelle Gayle (55), English singer-songwriter (“Sweetness”) and actress (Easternders, Wolf Blood), born in London.
1977 – Shakira (49), Colombian singer and songwriter (“Hips Don’t Lie”, “Whenever, Wherever”), born in Barranquilla, Colombia.
1986 – Gemma Arterton (40), English actress (Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, Quantum of Solace, St. Trinian’s), born in Gravesend, Kent.
Famous deaths
1995 – Fred Perry (b. 1909), English tennis and table tennis player and former world No. 1. He won 10 Majors, including eight Grand Slam tournaments and two Pro Slams single titles, as well as six Major doubles titles.

1995 – Donald Pleasence (b. 1919), English actor (Halloween, You Only Live Twice, The Great Escape, All Quiet on the Western Front).

2013 – Chris Kyle (b. 1974), United States Navy SEAL sniper and author of the American Sniper. A film adaptation of Kyle’s book, directed by Clint Eastwood, and starring Bradley Cooper as Kyle, was posthumously released in 2014

2021 – Captain Tom Moore (b. 1920), English Army officer and fundraiser. He made international headlines in April 2020 when he raised money for charity in the run-up to his 100th birthday during the COVID-19 pandemic.

2025 – Brian Murphy (b. 1932), English comic actor best known for his role as George Roper in the sitcom Man About the House and its spin-off series George and Mildred.
The day today
1901 – Queen Victoria State Funeral in St. George’s Chapel. After the funeral her coffin lay-in-state in The Albert Memorial Chapel for two days and was then taken to The Mausoleum by The Royal Horse Artillery.

1935 – A polygraph test was conducted by its inventor, Leonarde Keeler, for the first time. While Keeler had already tested his invention out, this was the first time he used it to aid a criminal investigation. The two suspects who were tested later declared themselves guilty based on the evidence from the lie detector test.

1952 – The high-end fashion label Givenchy was presented for the first time in Paris, with the first model being Bettina Graziani.
1962 – A significant alignment of 8 out of 9 planets (including Pluto, based on older definitions) occurred marking a rare “planetary parade” not seen for 400 years. This event involved a 17-degree cluster of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
1969 – Yoko Ono divorces Tony Cox and is granted custody of their daughter Kyoko, although Cox disappears abroad with the child. On the same day, horror legend Boris Karloff (William Pratt) dies aged 81.
1972 – Angry demonstrators burn the British Embassy in Dublin to the ground in protest at the shooting dead of 13 people on ‘bloody sunday’.
1974 – Playmobil, the iconic 7.5 cm tall posable figures designed by Hans Beck for the Brandstätter Group, officially debuted at the Nuremberg International Toy Fair. Beck’s goal was to create toys with “no horror, no superficial violence, no short-lived trends” that encouraged open-ended play. Following the 1974 debut, worldwide sales began in 1975, expanding to include themes like pirates, fairy tales, and city life.
1976 – The Queen opened the National Exhibition Centre near Birmingham. It is the largest and busiest exhibition centre in the UK and the seventh largest in Europe.
1979 – Sid Vicious died of a heroin overdose in New York City while on $50,000 bail awaiting trial for the murder of his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen.
1993 – The Queen’s solicitors began proceedings against the Sun newspaper for publishing the text of her 1992 Christmas Day broadcast two days before its transmission.
1999 – Glenn Hoddle was sacked as England’s football coach after his comments that disabled people were reaping the punishment for something done in a previous life.
2015 – Bristol became the first city in the UK to ban smoking in some outdoor public places and Millennium Square and Anchor Square became no smoking zones. The project, by Smokefree South West, was inspired by 33-year-old mother Kirsty Vass, who was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease a year previously.
2019 – Forty mummies were discovered and unearthed in Tuna el-Gebel, South Cairo, Egypt. The mummies are believed to be from 323-30 BC.
2021 – The death was announced of Captain Sir Tom Moore. He raised more than £32m for the NHS by walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday and was knighted for his fundraising efforts by the Queen at Windsor Castle in July 2020. In December 2020, he took a family holiday to Barbados after British Airways paid for his flight and before the UK government’s strict rules on travel came into place. On 31st January 2021, Sir Tom was admitted to Bedford Hospital after testing positive with COVID-19 and being treated for pneumonia. His family said that due to other medication he was receiving for pneumonia, he was unable to be vaccinated.
2022 – Tesla recalled 54,000 of their Model S Sedans, Model 3 Sedans, Model Y SUVs, and X SUVs due to a software malfunction on their “Full Self Driving” feature.
Today in music
1959 – Buddy Holly, Richard Valens and The Big Bopper all appeared at the Surf Ballroom, Clear Lake, Iowa. This was all three acts last ever gig before being killed in a plane crash the following day.
1969 – Yoko Ono divorced her husband Tony Cox, Yoko was granted custody of their daughter Kyoko. John Lennon married Yoko the following month on 30th March.

1976 – Genesis released ‘A Trick Of The Tail’, their seventh studio album and the first to feature drummer Phil Collins as full-time lead vocalist following the departure of original vocalist Peter Gabriel. After auditioning over 400 vocalists, which saw Collins teaching the potential lead singers the songs, the band decided that Collins should be the new vocalist.

1980 – The Specials were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘The Special A.K.A. Live E.P’. The lead track ‘Too Much Too Young’ was the shortest song to reach No.1 on the UK singles chart in the 1980s at 2m 04s.
2003 – Russian girl duo t.A.T.u. started a four-week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘All The Things She Said’. The song had been a hit on the Russian charts three years earlier. t.A.T.u. were the first Russian act to score a UK No 1.
2008 – The Spice Girls cut short their reunion world tour, blaming “family and personal commitments”. The band said they would end their tour in Toronto on 26 February, with planned shows in Beijing, Sydney, Cape Town and Buenos Aires being axed. A spokesman for the group said: “Sadly, the tour needs to come to an end by the end of February due to family and personal commitments.”
2019 – R&B singer R. Kelly surrendered to Chicago police after being indicted on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. The charges involved four female victims, at least three of whom were between the ages of 13 and 16 at the time of the alleged incidents. R. Kelly is currently serving a combined 31-year prison sentence following multiple federal convictions.
2021 – Marilyn Manson was dropped by his record label following claims by actress Evan Rachel Wood that she was “horrifically abused” by the musician. Loma Vista Recordings said it would no longer be working with Manson and would cease promoting his latest album “effective immediately”. Manson denied the allegations, saying they are “horrible distortions of reality”.
2024 – Bassist Derrick McIntyre, who was part of the band Jamiroquai and lent his strings to songs by Emeli Sandé, Will Young and Beverly Knight died in a car crash aged 66.
2025 – Beyoncé wins Album of the Year and Best Country Album for “Cowboy Carter” at the 67th Grammy Awards. Kendrick Lamar wins Song and Record of the Year for “Not Like Us” and Chappell Roan wins Best New Artist.
Today in history
1141 – The First Battle of Lincoln, during a 19 year period of conflict for the throne, between King Stephen and his cousin Empress Matilda. Prior to the battle, Stephen attended mass at the cathedral carrying a lighted candle, but the flame went out and the candle broke, which was considered a bad omen. After fierce fighting in the city’s streets, the King was defeated, captured and imprisoned. After his release (1st November) he was restored to the throne and the fighting continued as before.
1349 – By this date, at least 200 people a day were being buried in London as a result of the Black Death, with massive casualties lasting between Candlemass and Easter (Feb 2–April 12, 1349). These victims were buried in new, quickly established mass plague pits, notably at West Smithfield (Charterhouse Square), separate from regular parish graveyards.
1461 – The Battle of Mortimer’s Cross, near Wigmore in Herefordshire. It was part of the Wars of the Roses, with the Yorkists being the victors. The victory paved the way for Edward’s crowning later in the year.
1650 – The birth of Nell (Eleanor) Gwynne, former orange seller at Drury Lane Theatre, who became a comedy actress and later mistress of Charles II, by whom she had two sons.
1653 – New Amsterdam, chartered as a Dutch city, was seized by the English in 1664 and renamed New York in honor of the Duke of York. The surrender, led by Peter Stuyvesant, occurred on September 8, 1664, marking the transition from Dutch colonial control to British rule of the Manhattan settlement. The settlement was named New Amsterdam (Nieuw Amsterdam) in 1626, acting as the capital of the Dutch colony of New Netherland. The Dutch chartered the settlement as a city in 1653.
1665 – British forces captured New Amsterdam, the centre of the Dutch colony in North America. The trading settlement on the island of Manhattan was renamed New York in honour of the Duke of York, its new governor.
1852 – The first British public flushing toilet for men opened at 95 Fleet Street, London. Designed by plumber George Jennings following his successful “Monkey Closets” at the 1851 Great Exhibition, these “Public Waiting Rooms” charged 2 pence for entry.