On This Day 2026
Hello, … and welcome to day 34 of the year.

Tuesday, February 3rd

Today is Elmo’s Birthday, 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.
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.
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
1947 – Dave Davies (79), English musician, lead guitarist and backing vocalist with the rock band The Kinks (“You Really Got Me”, “Sunny Afternoon”), born in Fortis Green, London.

1959 – Laurence “Lol” Tolhurst (67), English musician and founding member of The Cure, 1978-89 (“Boys Don’t Cry”, “The Lovecats”), born in Horley, Surrey.

1965 – Dave Benson Phillips (61), English children’s television presenter (Get Your Own Back, The Fun Song Factory, Playdays), born in London.
1970 – Warwick Davis (56), English actor (Harry Potter Films as Professor Flitwick, Willow, Jack the Giant Slayer) and television presenter (Tenable), born in Epsom, Surrey.
1976 – Isla Fisher (50), 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.
Famous deaths

1468 – Johannes Gutenberg (b. circa 1400), German inventor and craftsman who invented the movable-type printing press. The Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed in Europe using this press.

1959 – The Day the Music Died.
  • The Big Bopper (b. 1930), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (“Chantilly Lace”, “White Lightning”).
  • Buddy Holly (b. 1936), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (“That’ll Be the Day “, “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore”).
  • Ritchie Valens (b. 1941), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (“La Bamba”, “Boney Moronie”).
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.
1960 – Prime Minister Harold Macmillan made his ‘wind of change’ speech to the South African parliament in Capetown. He talked of increasing national consciousness blowing through colonial Africa, signalling that his Government was likely to support decolonisation.
1969 – Ibuprofen, developed by Dr. Stewart Adams at Boots in the 1960s, was launched in the UK as a prescription-only medicine (under the brand name Brufen). It became available over-the-counter (OTC) in 1983, later becoming one of the world’s most popular anti-inflammatory painkillers.
1972 – The XI Olympic Winter Games opened in Sapporo, Japan, marking the first time the Winter Olympics were held in Asia and outside Europe or the United States. Held from February 3–13, the event featured 1,006 athletes from 35 nations.
1986 – Pixar was established as an independent company, spun off from Lucasfilm’s Graphics Group with an investment from Steve Jobs (Apple), who became majority shareholder and chairman. Following the spin-off, Pixar produced shorts like Luxo Jr. (1986) before achieving mainstream success with Toy Story (1995), the first feature-length computer-animated film.
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.
1998 – Royal Mail issued a special set of five 26p stamps to commemorate the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, with all profits benefiting the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. Featuring both formal and informal photographs with a purple border, the stamps became one of the biggest-selling collections in history.
2005 – Nelson Mandela addresses a mass rally in London, urging world leaders to cancel Third World debt.
2012 – England football captain John Terry was stripped of the captaincy for the second time amid growing concern over his pending race abuse trial.
2015 – The unauthorised biography ‘Charles: Heart of a King’ revealed that both Prince Charles and Princess Diana contemplated calling off their wedding, because each knew that their relationship was deeply flawed.
2016 – A High Court judge in London granted a death certificate for Lord Lucan (John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan), 42 years after he vanished following the 1974 murder of nanny Sandra Rivett. His son, George Bingham, applied for the certificate under the 2014 Presumption of Death Act to inherit the title.
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.
2019 – Wreckage from a plane carrying Cardiff City footballer Emiliano Sala has been discovered in the English Channel. The Piper Malibu N264DB was lost on 21 January on its way from Nantes, France, to Cardiff, with the Argentine striker and pilot David Ibbotson on board.
2021 – The UK hit a milestone after giving 10 million people a COVID-19 vaccination. This is equivalent to vaccinating the total capacity of 111 Wembley stadiums.
2023 – A Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, United States. The train was carrying hazardous materials when 38 cars derailed. Several railcars burned for more than two days and emergency crews also conducted controlled burns of several railcars, which released hydrogen chloride and phosgene into the air.
Today in music
1959 – Rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly (22), Ritchie Valens (17), and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson (28) are killed in a plane crash along with the pilot near Clear Lake, Iowa, an event later known as “The Day the Music Died”. They all appeared at the Surf Ballroom the previous day.
1973 – Elton John started a three-week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Crocodile Rock’. Elton’s first of five US No.1 singles was inspired by John’s discovery of leading Australian band Daddy Cool and their hit single ‘Eagle Rock’.

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 (“Nothing Compares 2 U”), Australia’s Kylie Minogue (“Never Too Late”) and Belgium’s Technotronic (“Get Up! (Before the Night Is Over)”).
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.
2008 – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performed during the halftime-show of Super Bowl XLII at the University of Phoenix Stadium. They played ‘American Girl’, ‘I Won’t Back Down’, ‘Free Fallin” and ‘Runnin’ Down a Dream’.
2010 – AC/DC singer Brian Johnson, joined a growing group of critics of Bob Geldof and U2 singer Bono over their very public charity work, saying they should stop lecturing audiences about charity work and instead do their good deeds in private. Johnson said “When I was a working man I didn’t want to go to a concert for some bastard to talk down to me that I should be thinking of some kid in Africa. I’m sorry mate, do it yourself, spend some of your own money and get it done. It just makes me angry.”
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.
1815 – The world’s first commercial cheese factory was established in Switzerland, marking the start of industrial-scale, standardized dairy production.
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.