Thursday, July 24th "2025" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 205, known as National Tequila Day, National Day of Motoring, Samaritans Awareness Day, Tell An Old Joke Day. Your star sign is Leo and your birthstone is Ruby.
2013 – It was announced that the Pride and Prejudice author Jane Austen would feature on the next £10 note avoiding a long-term absence of women represented on banknotes. The author replaced Charles Darwin when the new notes went into circulation on 14th September 2017.
Todays birthdays
1949 – Graham Lear (76), British born Canadian session and touring rock drummer (Gino Vanneli, 1975-76; Santana, 1976-87, REO Speedwagon, 1988-89), born in Plymouth.
1966 – Martin Keown (58), English football pundit and former professional footballer (1984 to 2005 in the Premier League for Arsenal), born in Oxford, Oxfordshire.
1969 – Jennifer Lopez (56), American actress (Made In Manhattan) and pop singer (“Jenny From The Block”, “Love Don’t Cost a Thing”), born in The Bronx, New York, United States.
1977 – Danny Dyer (48), English actor (Football Factory; Human Traffic; Eastenders) and television presenter, born in Newham, London.
1990 – Jay McGuiness (35), English singer and songwriter with The Wanted (“All Time Low”, “Glad You Came”), born in Newark, Nottinghamshire.
1998 – Bindi Irwin (27), Australian television personality, conservationist, zookeeper, actress and daughter of the late Steve Irwin (d. 2006), born in Buderim, Australia.
Famous deaths
1980 – Peter Sellers (b. 1925), English actor and comedian who rose to fame on the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show and was the bumbling Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series.
The day today
1908 – Fifty six runners began the London Marathon from Windsor Castle as part of the London Olympic Games. American Johnny Hayes wins the Olympic marathon in a Games record 2:55:18.4 after Dorando Pietri of Italy is disqualified for receiving assistance before the finish line.
1926 – The first greyhound racing track in the UK was opened, at Belle Vue, in Manchester.
1936 – The General Post Office introduced TIM – the automated speaking clock using the voice of Miss Ethel Cain, a telephonist at the GPO’s Victoria telephone exchange in London.
1943 – World War II: The start of Operation Gomorrah saw British and Canadian aeroplanes bomb Hamburg by night, and the Americans bombed by day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of explosives had killed more than 30,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings.
1969 – British lecturer Gerald Brooke is returned to London after four years in jail in the USSR for smuggling anti-Soviet leaflets.
1995 – Southampton goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar, Wimbledon keeper Hans Segers and Aston Villa striker John Fashanu were charged with conspiracy to fix matches after an expose in The Sun newspaper. All three are cleared after two trials.
2000 – Loyalist paramilitary hit man Michael Stone was released from the Maze prison in Northern Ireland. He was given a 684 year sentence in 1989 for six murders and five attempted murders, but was set free as part of the Good Friday peace agreement.
2013 – It was announced that the Pride and Prejudice author Jane Austen would feature on the next £10 note avoiding a long-term absence of women represented on banknotes. The author replaced Charles Darwin when the new notes went into circulation on 14th September 2017.
Today in music
1964 – The Rolling Stones are banned from playing in Blackpool (lasting for 44 years) after a riot breaks out at the Empress Ballroom when Keith Richards kicks a yob in the mouth for spitting at the group.
1965 – The Byrds were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with their version of the Bob Dylan song ‘Mr Tambourine Man’. The first Bob Dylan song to reach No.1. The Byrds’ recording of the song was influential in initiating the musical subgenre of folk rock, leading many contemporary bands to mimic its fusion of jangly guitars and intellectual lyrics.
1974 – George McCrae was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Rock Your Baby’. Written and produced by Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch of KC and the Sunshine Band. The song which is one of the Best Selling Singles in the world is regarded by some as the first Disco No.1.
1976 – Elton John scored his first UK number 1 single with ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ a duet with Kiki Dee. It was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin under the pseudonym “Ann Orson” and “Carte Blanche” and was Elton’s first UK No.1 after 16 Top 40 hits.
1982 – Survivor started a six week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Eye Of The Tiger’, taken from the film ‘Rocky III’. Also No.1 in the UK. Survivor won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance for the song.
2002 – A garden centre was sued over claims it killed a collection of the late singer Freddie Mercury’s prized koi fish. Mercury’s former partner, Mary Austin who inherited the Japanese koi collection claimed 84 fish died when the electricity powering a temporary pond was accidentally turned off by a worker from Clifton Nurseries, of Maida Vale, West London. At the time of Mercury’s death he had amassed one of the best collections of the fish in the UK. One koi can be worth £250,000.
2019 – Queen’s iconic ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ video reached one billion views on YouTube, a new record for one of the band’s videos. The milestone made it the first pre-1990s video to reach one billion views on the platform. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was also named as the most Googled song of 2018.
Today in history
1576 – Mary, Queen of Scots, is forced to abdicate and be replaced by her one-year-old son James VI.
1673 – Edmund Halley (English astronomer, mathematician and physicist), enters Queen’s College, Oxford, as an undergraduate.
1847 – American religious leader and politician, Brigham Young and 148 Mormon pioneers entered Salt Lake Valley and founded Salt Lake City.
1851 – United Kingdom were allowed light and air in their homes without having to pay for it. The long-hated Window Tax had finally been scrapped. Imposed in 1696, it was a banded tax, so that the more windows a house boasted, the more its owner would pay in tax. The term “daylight robbery” is thought to have originated from the window tax as it was described by some as a “tax on light” Blocking up windows was literally daylight robbery.
1883 – Captain Matthew Webb (an English seaman, swimmer and stuntman), the first recorded person to swim the English Channel, drowns in the Niagara River.