January 17th "2024" daily prep
Welcome to day 17, known as Customer Service Day, Ditch Your New Year’s Resolutions Day and Hot Buttered Rum Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of April 26th. Your star sign is “Capricorn” and your birthstone is Garnet.
1994 – An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale devastates LA. The earthquake was felt as far south as San Diego 200km away and as far north as Las Vegas, 440km to the north east.
Todays birthdays
1931 – James Earl Jones (93), American actor (Coming to America, Field of Dreams and as the voice of Darth Vader, Star Wars), born in Arkabutla, Mississippi, United States.
1956 – Paul Young (68), English musician (“Everytime You Go Away”, “Love of the Common People”), born in Luton.
1962 – Jim Carrey (62), Canadian-American actor and comedian (The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, The Trueman Show), born in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada.
1978 – Ricky Wilson (46), English singer and the frontman of rock band, Kaiser Chiefs (“I Predict a Riot”, “Modern Way”), born in Keighley, West Yorkshire.
1984 – Calvin Harris (40), Scottish DJ, record producer, singer, and songwriter (“One Kiss” – Dua Lipa, “We Found Love” – Rihanna), born in Dumfries, Scotland.
The day today
1983 – The BBC’s new Breakfast Time programme goes on air for the first time with hosts Frank Bough and Selina Scott.
1991 – Operation Desert Storm begins as Gulf War Allies send hundreds of planes on bombing raids into Iraq. Iraq fires eight Scud missiles on Israel. On the same day, Harald V becomes King of Norway on the death of his father, Olav V.
2011 – Liverpool’s Ryan Babel becomes the first footballer to be fined for comments made on Twitter. He was fined £10,000 for posting a doctored picture of referee Howard Webb wearing a Manchester United shirt.
2014 – Cambridge City Council said that apostrophes on new street signs would be abolished, a decision that was condemned by language traditionalists. The naming policy also banned street names which would be “difficult to pronounce or awkward to spell” and any that “could give offence” or would “encourage defacing of nameplates”. After an intervention by cabinet minister Eric Pickles, local people in Cambridge started to edit street signs, adding apostrophes if they were necessary.
2017 – The underwater search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 ended. The plane fell off the radar on March 8, 2014, and was never found despite professionals searching 46,332 square miles for the wreckage. On this day, the passengers’ families were informed that the effort to find the plane had been suspended.
Today in music
1978 – Scottish rock band Simple Minds (“Alive and Kicking”, “Belfast Child”) made their live debut at The Satellite Club, Glasgow. The band went on to achieve five UK chart No.1 albums and have sold more than 60 million albums worldwide.
1987 – Kate Bush started a two-week run at No.1 on the UK album chart with The Whole Story. The compilation album was Bush’s third UK No.1 album as well as her best-selling release.
1996 – David Bowie, Tom Donahue, The Jefferson Airplane, Gladys Knight And The Pips, Little Willie John, Pink Floyd, Pete Seeger, The Shirelles and The Velvet Underground were all inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
1998 – All Saints scored their first UK No.1 single with ‘Never Ever’. The track spent a total of twenty-four weeks on the UK chart and was the first of five No.1 singles for the London based girl group.
2003 – A long-lost recording featuring John Lennon and Mick Jagger was set to spark a biding war at a London auction. The acetate record was recorded in 1974 with Jagger singing the blues song ‘Too Many Cooks’ and Lennon playing guitar. The track had never been released because the two artists were both signed to different record companies.
Today in history
1648 – Parliament broke off negotiations with King Charles I, in response to the news that Charles was entering into an engagement with the Scots, thereby setting the scene for the second phase of the English Civil War.
1746 – ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ and his Highlanders won the battle of Falkirk. It was to be their last victory in the ‘forty-five’ Jacobite uprising, as three months later they were defeated at Culloden.
1773 – Captain Cook’s ship and his crew, aboard ‘Resolution’, became the first Europeans to sail below the Antarctic Circle. Cook also surveyed, mapped and took possession for Britain of South Georgia. He almost encountered the mainland of Antarctica, but turned back north towards Tahiti to resupply his ship, then resumed his southward course in a second fruitless attempt to find the continent.
1820 – The birth in Thornton, West Yorkshire of the poet and novelist Anne Brontë. She was the youngest of six children who moved to Haworth, West Yorkshire on 20th April 1820. Anne wrote two novels. Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. She died from pulmonary tuberculosis when she was just 29 years old.
1863 – The birth, in Chorlton-on-Medlock, near Manchester, of David Lloyd George, Welsh politician. In 1909 he introduced old-age pensions, followed in 1911 by health and unemployment insurance. In 1916 he became Prime Minister of a coalition government. After the First World War he was re-elected with a huge majority, and held office until 1922.
Fact of the day
A potato’s skin is much healthier than its core. To absorb all of the potato’s minerals and vitamins, the skin should also be consumed. It is better to leave the skin on potatoes while cooking because all its vitamins are in the skin.