February 3rd "2025" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 34, known as Golden Retriever Day, National Carrot Cake Day and The Day the Music Died. Your star sign is Aquarius and your birthstone is Amethyst.
2017 – The re-opening of the Tadcaster Bridge, which is believed to date from around 1700. The bridge collapsed on 29th December 2015 after flooding that followed Storm Eva. The loss of the bridge involved a 16 mile detour and loss of businesses in the town.
Todays birthdays
1959 – “Lol” Tolhurst (65), English musician and founding member of The Cure, 1978-89 (“Boys Don’t Cry”, “The Lovecats”), born in Horley, Surrey.
1965 – Dave Benson Phillips (60), British children’s television presenter (Get Your Own Back, The Fun Song Factory, Playdays), born in London.
1970 – Warwick Davis (55), English actor (Harry Potter Films as Professor Flitwick, Willow, Jack the Giant Slayer) and television presenter (Tenable), born in Epsom, Surrey.
1976 – Isla Fisher (49), Australian actress (Home and Away, Now You See Me, Confessions of a Shopaholic) and wife of Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G), born in Muscat, Oman.
1977 – Daddy Yankee (48), Puerto Rican reggaeton singer and rapper (“Despacito”, “Gasolina”), born in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Famous deaths
2017 – Gorden Kaye (b. 1941), English actor best known for his role as René Artois in the British sitcom television series, ‘Allo ‘Allo!
The day today
1935 – The first ‘League of Ovaltineys’ created by the manufacturer of the drink Ovaltine. It became a children’s ‘secret society’, promoting high morals and consideration towards others. At the height of its popularity, there were over five million members and I was one of them! In 1975 the song ‘We Are The Ovaltineys’ came back to a new audience when it was used by Ovaltine in a TV advertisement and also released as a single record.
1945 – World War II: As part of Operation Thunderclap, 1,000 B-17s of the Eighth Air Force bomb Berlin, a raid which kills between 2,500 and 3,000 and dehouses another 120,000.
1989 – BT banned chatlines because of the ‘chatline junkie problem’. The company had been criticised following the widely reported case of a woman whose 12 year old son landed her a chatline bill of £6000.
2012 – England football captain John Terry was stripped of the captaincy for the second time amid growing concern over his pending race abuse trial.
2017 – The re-opening of the Tadcaster Bridge, which is believed to date from around 1700. The bridge collapsed on 29th December 2015 after flooding that followed Storm Eva. The loss of the bridge involved a 16 mile detour and loss of businesses in the town.
Today in music
1959 – Rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson are killed in a plane crash along with the pilot near Clear Lake, Iowa, an event later known as “The Day the Music Died”.
1979 – Blondie had their first of five UK No.1 singles, with ‘Heart Of Glass’, taken from the band’s third studio album, Parallel Lines. ‘Heart of Glass’ was originally recorded in 1975 under the name ‘Once I Had a Love.’
1986 – Dire Straits were at No.1 on the UK album charts with their fifth studio album Brothers in Arms. With ten weeks at No.1, the album is the seventh best-selling album in UK chart history and won two Grammy Awards in 1986, and also won Best British Album at the 1987 Brit Awards. Brothers in Arms also spent nine weeks at No.1 on the Billboard 200 in the US, and thirty-four weeks at No.1 on the Australian Album Chart.
1990 – For the first time ever, the UK Top 3 singles featured non-British and non-American acts. Ireland’s Sinead O’Connor, Australia’s Kylie Minogue and Belgium’s Technotronic. Sinead O’Connor had her first No.1 single with Nothing Compares To U’, a song written by Prince.
2008 – UK singer Adele went to No.1 on the UK album chart with her debut album ’19’. As of December 2011, worldwide sales for the album stood at over 6.5 million copies.
Today in history
1014 – The death of Sweyn Forkbeard, son of Harald Bluetooth and Viking King of Denmark, Norway and England. He was proclaimed King of England on Christmas Day 1013, making him England’s shortest-reigning king, with a reign of just 40 days. The Viking king ruled England from a fortification on the site of what is now Gainsborough’s Old Hall, one of the best preserved medieval manor houses in England.
1583 – Battle of São Vicente takes place off the coast off Colonial Brazil where three English warships led by navigator Edward Fenton fight off three Spanish galleons sinking one in the process.
1807 – A British military force, under Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Auchmuty captures the Spanish Empire city of Montevideo, now the capital of Uruguay.
1821 – The birth, in Bristol, of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor in the United States and the first female on the UK Medical Register.
1830 – The London Protocol of 1830 establishes the full independence and sovereignty of Greece from the Ottoman Empire as the final result of the Greek War of Independence.