January 6th "2024" daily prep

Welcome to day 6 of 2024! Known as Apple Tree Day, Bean Day, Cuddle Up Day, Epiphany, National Shortbread Day, National Smith Day, Take a Poet To Lunch Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of April 15th. Your star sign is “Capricorn” and your birthstone is Garnet.
1977 – The music publisher EMI ended its contract with the notorious punk rock group, Sex Pistols, after reports the band had vomited and spat their way on to a flight from London’s Heathrow Airport bound for the Netherlands.
Todays birthdays
1955 – Rowan Atkinson (69), English actor (Johnny English, Mr Bean, Blackadder), comedian and writer, born in Consett, County Durham.
1960 – Nigella Lawson (64), English food writer and television cook (Nigella Bites), born in Wandsworth, London
1975 – Jason King (49), English radio DJ (Heart FM) best known for hosting the official UK chart on BBC Radio 1 between 2005 and 2007 with Joel Ross (JK and Joel), born in Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire.
1982 – Eddie Redmayne (42), English actor (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Les Misérables), born in Westminster, London.
1986 – Alex Turner (38), English singer and musician. He is best known as the frontman and principal songwriter of the rock band Arctic Monkeys (“I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor”), born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.
The day today
1916 – World War I – The British Government introduced conscription, to replace the many thousands killed in the trenches in France.
1928 – Four people were drowned, and many paintings in the basement of the Tate Gallery were severely damaged, when the Thames flooded. The water was deep enough to fill the moat of the Tower of London.
1983 – The Royal Navy arrested a Danish trawler captain (Kent Kirk) for illegally entering British waters in the first confrontation of the ‘ fish war’. The move followed Denmark’s refusal to agree to proposals for a new EEC fishing regime.
2013 – Jessops, the High Street camera retailer founded in Leicester in 1935 by Frank Jessop, went into administration. On 11th January it was announced that Jessops was to shut all of its stores at the end of the day’s trading, resulting in the loss of 1,370 jobs.
2014 – 54 year old Stephen Gough, the so-called ‘Naked Rambler’ was jailed for 16 months after a jury took just two minutes to find him guilty of breaching an antisocial behaviour order designed to prevent him from appearing nude in public. Gough has been convicted for dozens of offences, mainly in Scotland, where he was repeatedly arrested during attempts to walk from Land’s End to John o’Groats without clothes.
Today in music
1964 – The first night of a 14 date UK tour ‘Group Scene 1964’, featuring The Rolling Stones, The Ronettes, Marty Wilde, The Swinging Blue Jeans and Dave Berry and The Cruisers, played at the Granada Theatre, Harrow on The Hill, Middlesex.
1973 – Carly Simon’s ‘You’re So Vain’, (with Mick Jagger on backing vocals), started a three week run at No.1 on the US singles chart. In 2015, after keeping quiet for more than 40 years, Carly Simon admitted that ‘You’re So Vain’ was about Warren Beatty, but only one verse of it. Simon said the other verses were about two other men.
1979 – The Village People scored their only UK No.1 single with ‘Y.M.C.A.’ At its peak the single was selling over 150,000 copies a day. In the gay culture from which the group sprang, the song was understood as celebrating the YMCA’s reputation as a popular cruising and hookup spot.
2001 – Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour won the right to his dot com name. Dave took legal action in his battle to reclaim davidgilmour.com from Andrew Herman who had registered the URL and was selling Pink Floyd merchandise through the site.
2017 – Norway announced that it would become the first country in the world to gradually stop using the FM radio network. The move, which aimed to ditch the analogue platform in favour of a digital one called Digital Audio Broadcasting, would bring a clearer sound to the nation’s five million people.
Today in history
1066 – The coronation of Harold II, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, succeeding Edward the Confessor. He reigned for ten months before he died at the Battle of Hastings, fighting the Norman invaders led by William the Conqueror. Harold was the first of only three Kings of England to have died in battle; the other two being Richard I and Richard III.
1367 – Birth in Bordeaux of King Richard II, the last of the Plantagenet kings of England. He was the son of Edward the Black Prince.
1412 – The birth of St Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans. She was a great heroine of French history and believed that she had a divine mission to drive the British from France. She died at the stake after being captured by the Burgundians and sold to the British.
1540 – King Henry VIII married ‘the Flanders Mare’, Anne of Cleves, his fourth wife. The King found her so different from her picture that he swore they had brought him a Flanders mare. She was Queen of England from 6th January 1540 to 9th July 1540. The marriage was never consummated, and, following the annulment of their marriage, Anne was given a generous settlement by the King and was referred to thereafter as the King’s Beloved Sister. She lived to see the coronation of Henry’s daughter, (Mary I) and outlasted all of Henry’s wives.
1839 – The most damaging storm in 300 years swept across Ireland, damaging or destroying more than 20% of the houses in Dublin.
Fact of the day
The inventor of the tricycle personally delivered two to Queen Victoria In 1881, Queen Victoria was on a tour on the Isle of Wight when her horse and carriage could not keep up with a woman riding a tricycle. Intrigued by the bike, the queen proceeded to order two. She also asked that the inventor, James Starley, arrive with the delivery. Though you might associate tricycles with toddlers, Queen Victoria made them cool among the elite at the time.