July 28th "2024" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 210 of the year! Known as World Hepatitis Day and Milk Chocolate Day. If you were born today you were likely conceived the week of November 4th in the previous year. Your star sign is Leo and your birthstone is Ruby.
2008 – Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier burns down for the second time in 80 years. Following the 2008 fire, which completely destroyed the pavilion, the pier was rebuilt at a cost of £39 million and reopened on 23rd October 2010.
Todays birthdays
1963 – Beverley Craven (61), British singer-songwriter best known for her 1991 UK hit single “Promise Me”, born in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
1974 – Elizabeth Berkley (50), American actress (Saved by the Bell, Showgirls, The First Wives Club), born in Farmington Hills, Michigan, United States.
1974 – Justin Lee Collins (50), former actor, radio and television presenter (The Friday Night Project alongside Alan Carr), born in Southmead, Bristol.
1981 – Michael Carrick (43), English professional football coach, former player and current head coach of EFL Championship club Middlesbrough, born in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear.
1993 – Cher Lloyd (31), English singer (“Swagger Jagger”). She finished fourth place in the seventh series of The X Factor in 2010, born in Malvern, Worcestershire.
Famous deaths
2022 – Bernard Cribbins (b. 1928), British actor (The Railway Children, Carry On Jack) and television presenter (Old Jack’s Boat).
The day today
1914 – Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, exactly one month after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie had been shot dead by a Bosnian Serb nationalist. Europe went from peaceful prosperity to the start of a world war that would bring down four empires and cost millions of lives, ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history.
1959 – The first postcodes were introduced on a trial basis in Norwich with the first three characters of the code (‘NOR’) representing the name of the city, and the last three characters a particular street. Larger firms and businesses received their own individual codes.
2005 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) called for an end to 36 years of bloody conflict with the UK.
2008 – Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier burns down for the second time in 80 years. Following the 2008 fire, which completely destroyed the pavilion, the pier was rebuilt at a cost of £39 million and reopened on 23rd October 2010.
2019 – Meghan Markle became the first-ever guest editor for UK Vogue. Working on the September 2019 issue, Markle created a cover for Vogue that included the faces of fifteen women she admired. Some of the people included Jane Fonda and Greta Thunberg.
Today in music
1960 – Roy Orbison entered the UK chart with ‘Only The Lonely’, which went on to give Roy his first of three UK chart toppers. As an operatic rock ballad, it was a sound unheard of at the time, and is seen as a seminal event in the evolution of Rock and Roll.
1979 – ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ gave The Boomtown Rats their second UK No.1 single. Bob Geldof wrote the song after reading a report on the shooting spree of 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer, who fired at children playing in a school playground across the street from her home in San Diego, California. She killed two adults and injured eight children and one police officer. Spencer showed no remorse for her crime, and her full explanation for her actions was “I don’t like Mondays, this livens up the day.”
1987 – Kylie Minogue released a cover version of the Gerry Goffin and Carole King penned song ‘The Loco-Motion’ in Australia, as her debut single. Minogue had first performed the song at an impromptu performance at an Australian rules football charity event with the cast of the Australian soap opera Neighbours.
2008 – Amy Winehouse was rushed to hospital after she started to have fits at her home in Camden North London. A spokesman said it appeared the singer had suffered a reaction to medication she was taking to help her off hard drugs.
2011 – 63-year-old singer Meat Loaf, passed out onstage at Pittsburgh’s Trib Amphitheater during an apparent asthma attack. After about ten minutes he regained his composure and finished the show.
Today in history
1540 – Henry VIII of England marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, on the same day his former Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, is executed on charges of treason.
1586 – Thomas Harriot was credited with bringing the first potato to Britain, (from Colombia) ahead of Sir Walter Raleigh.
1857 – The birth of Ballington Booth, an Officer in The Salvation Army and a co-founder of Volunteers of America. He was born in Brighouse, Yorkshire and was the second child of William and Catherine Booth, founders of The Salvation Army.
1858 – Fingerprints were first used as a means of identification by William Herschel, who later established a fingerprint register.
1865 – A crowd of 100,000 watched the last public execution in Scotland when Dr. Edward Pritchard was hanged for poisoning his wife and mother-in-law.