January 12th "2024" daily prep
Welcome to day 12, known as Curried Chicken Day, National Kiss a Ginger Day, National Marzipan Day, Pharmacist Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of April 21st. Your star sign is “Capricorn” and your birthstone is Garnet.
2001 – Sven Goran Eriksson becomes the first non-British manager to be appointed coach of the England national football team. Eriksson had initially agreed to take over after the expiration of his contract in June 2001, but decided to resign his post early at Lazio.
Todays birthdays
1964 – Jeff Bezos (60), American entrepreneur and founder of Amazon, born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States.
1965 – Rob Zombie (59), American singer, songwriter, record producer, filmmaker (The Devil’s Rejects), and actor (Airheads). His music and lyrics are notable for their horror and sci-fi themes, born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, United States.
1974 – Mel C (50), English singer (Spice Girls “Wannabe” and “I Turn to You” as a solo artisit), songwriter and DJ, born in Whiston, Merseyside.
1991 – Pixie Lott (33), English singer (“Cry Me Out”), songwriter, actress (Fred: The Movie), born in Bromley.
1993 – Zayn Malik (31), British singer (One Direction – “Story of My Life”, “What Makes You Beautiful”), born in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
The day today
1950 – The British submarine Truculent collided with a Swedish oil tanker Divina, in the Thames. The two vessels remained locked together for a few seconds before the submarine sank, resulting in the deaths of 64 people. An inquiry attributed 75% of the blame to Truculent and 25% to Divina. Truculent was sold and broken up for scrap in May 1950.
1959 – Henry Cooper defeated Brian London on points over 15 rounds, becoming British and European heavyweight boxing champion. Cooper was the first to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award twice (in 1967 and 1970). He is the only British boxer to win three Lonsdale Belts outright and he was knighted in 2000.
1970 – The Boeing 747 completed its first transatlantic flight, from New York to Heathrow. It is still often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. The 747 was the first ‘wide-body’ ever produced. It held the passenger capacity record of 660 (in single class layout) for 37 years until October 2007 when the Airbus A380 took to the skies, with a maximum passenger capacity of 850.
1976 – Crime writer Dame Agatha Christie died, leaving a final book waiting to be published. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Christie is the best selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly four billion copies, and her estate claims that her works rank third, after those of William Shakespeare and the Bible, as the most widely published books.
1982 – Mark Thatcher, son of the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, went missing in the Sahara while taking part in the Paris-Dakar Rally. He was rescued two days later, and it turned out that he had lost his way. The incident provoked a tidal wave of jokes and cartoons making fun of his sense of direction.
Today in music
1969 – Led Zeppelin’s debut album “Led Zeppelin I” was released in the UK. Recorded at Olympic Studios in Barnes, London, the album took only about 36 hours of studio time to complete at a cost of just £1,782, most of the tracks being recorded ‘live’ in the studio with very few overdubs. The album spent a total of 71 weeks on the UK chart.
2001 – British Airways staff complained about Oasis singer Liam Gallagher after he had grabbed a stewardess’ bottom, refused to stop smoking and threw objects around the cabin during a flight from London to Rio De Janeiro.
2002 – Aaliyah had the posthumous UK No.1 single with ‘More Than A Woman’. Aaliyah was killed in Aug 2001 in a plane crash in the Bahamas aged 22. The Cessna plane crashed a few minutes after take off killing everyone on board. Aaliyah had been filming a video on the island for her latest release ‘Rock The Boat’.
2003 – Singer-songwriter Maurice Gibb from The Bee Gees died aged 53 in Miami Hospital, Florida following a heart attack during abdominal surgery. The Bee Gees released over 20 albums and had the 1979 world-wide No.1 album ‘Spirits Having Flown’, and ‘How Deep Is Your Love, ‘Stayin’ Alive’, and ‘Night Fever’ from the soundtrack ‘Saturday Night Fever’ were all US No.1 singles. Gibb was married to the Scottish singer Lulu from 1969 to 1973. In 2002, Maurice was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE), along with his brothers.
2023 – Miley Cyrus released ‘Flowers’ as the lead single from her eighth studio album, Endless Summer Vacation. The song was a massive commercial success, setting several records and becoming Cyrus’ biggest hit. It broke the record as the most streamed song in a week on Spotify during both its first and second week, and broke the record as the fastest song in Spotify history to surpass one billion streams, doing so in 112 days. It debuted atop the Billboard Global 200 chart and reached number one in 43 countries.
Today in history
1510 – Henry VIII, then just 18 years old, appeared incognito in a jousting tournament at Richmond Park, and was applauded for his jousting before he revealed his true identity.
1808 – John Rennie’s scheme to defend St Mary’s Church, Reculver, founded in 669, from coastal erosion is abandoned in favour of demolition, despite the church being an exemplar of Anglo-Saxon architecture and sculpture.
1866 – The Aeronautical Society of Great Britain was formed in London, thirty seven years before the Wright Brothers achieved the first successful powered flight.
1895 – The National Trust was founded by three Victorian philanthropists – Miss Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley. Octavia Hill was concerned about the poor availability of open spaces for poor people. She campaigned against development on existing suburban woodlands, and helped to save London’s Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill Fields from being built on. The National Trust is now the largest membership organisation in the United Kingdom, and one of the largest UK charities by both income and assets.
1899 – Unable to launch their lifeboat at Lynmouth because of heavy storms, the crew, horses and helpers dragged their 10 ton lifeboat Louisa and carriage, in the dark, the 15 miles overland to Porlock Weir. The 11 hour journey across Exmoor included a haul over Countisbury Hill followed by descending another hill down into Porlock where the corner of a house had to be demolished to gain access. Their rescue of the 18 crew from Forrest Hall was successful. The journey was re-enacted in daylight on 12th January 1999.
Fact of the day
The farthest point on the planet you can be from civilization in any direction is a blip in the Pacific Ocean called Point Nemo.
If you were stranded there, you’d be thousands of miles away from help and it would be very unlikely you’d be seen or rescued as cargo ship routes don’t go near it. To put the distance into perspective, the closest people to you would be the crew on the ISS.