Thursday, July 31st "2025" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 212, known as Jump for Jelly Beans Day, National Avocado Day, Shredded Wheat Day. Your star sign is Leo and your birthstone is Ruby.
1969 – The pre-decimal half penny ceased being legal tender. It had been a regular feature of British coinage since the 13th century. While the coin was no longer legal tender after this date, a commemorative issue was still produced in 1970.
Todays birthdays
1957 – Daniel Ash (68), English musician, singer, songwriter and former member of the post-punk band Bauhaus (“Ziggy Stardust”), born in Northamptonshire.
1960 – Pete Tong (65), English DJ (Essential Mix and Essential Selection on BBC Radio 1), born in Dartford, Kent.
1962 – Wesley Snipes (63), American actor and martial artist (Blade, Demolition Man, Passenger 57, White Men Can’t Jump), born in Orlando, Florida, United States.
1963 – Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim (62), English musician and record producer (“Praise You”, “The Rockafeller Skank”), born in Bromley, London.
1965 – J.K. Rowling (60), English author (Harry Potter novels) and philanthropist, born in Yate, Gloucestershire.
1974 – Emilia Fox (51), English actress (The Pianist, Silent Witness, Dorian Gray), born in Hammersmith, London.
Famous deaths
2009 – Bobby Robson
(b. 1933), English football player and coach. His career included periods playing for and later managing the England national team and being a UEFA Cup-winning manager at Ipswich Town.
The day today
1942 – The Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (later called Oxfam) was founded.
1950 – Britain’s first self-service store, (Sainsbury’s) opened in Croydon.
1968 – The first episode (titled The Man and the Hour) of Dad’s Army, a British comedy about the Home Guard in the Second World War. The TV series regularly gained audiences of 18 million viewers during the 1970s.
1969 – The pre-decimal half penny ceased being legal tender. It had been a regular feature of British coinage since the 13th century. While the coin was no longer legal tender after this date, a commemorative issue was still produced in 1970.
1970 – It was the last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy that dated back to 1665. It was poured as usual at 6 bells in the forenoon watch (11am) after the pipe of ‘up spirits’. Some sailors wore black armbands, tots were ‘buried at sea’ and in one navy training camp there was a mock funeral procession complete with black coffin and accompanying drummers and piper.
1990 – In the England v India Test Match at Lords, a total of 1603 runs were scored, in exactly 1603 minutes.
1998 – The British Government announced a total ban on landmines, a month before the first anniversary of the death of Princess Diana.
1999 – NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector into the Moon, ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon’s surface.
2022 – England’s women’s football team won their first ever championship with a 2-1 Euro 2022 victory over Germany during extra time, at Wembley Stadium. The total of 87,192 spectators became the highest total recorded in both men’s and women’s editions of the tournament. The record was previously held by a men’s game in 1964, when an audience of 79,115 watched the final between Spain and the Soviet Union at the Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid.
Today in music
1957 – Richard Starkey (later known as Ringo Starr) is thought to have made his debut at the The Cavern playing drums with the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group. John Lennon made his first appearance at the club a week later with The Quarry Men Skiffle Group. Paul McCartney made his first appearance in January 1958 with The Quarry Men.
1959 – Cliff Richard was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Living Doll.’ The singers first of 14 UK No.1’s. The song was one of three from the film, Serious Charge.
1968 – Tommy James and The Shondells were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Mony Mony’. Also a hit for Billy Idol in 1987.
1982 – Survivor’s ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ was at No.1 on the US chart. The song, which was commissioned by actor Sylvester Stallone for the theme for the movie Rocky III, received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song and go on to sell over five million copies.
1992 – Michael Jackson made an unscheduled appearance on his hotel balcony in London after a man had threatened to jump from an apartment building across the street. 28 year-old Eric Herminie told police he would leap to his death if he didn’t see Jackson, who was in Britain for a series of concerts.
1999 – Christina Aguilera scored her first US No.1 single with ‘Genie In A Bottle’, also No.1 in the UK. The song spent 5 weeks at No.1 on the US chart and won Aguilera the Best New Artist Grammy for the year.
2006 – Former Culture Club singer Boy George (O’Dowd) was ordered to do community service by picking up trash on New York City streets after pleading guilty in March to false reporting of an incident. He called police with a bogus report of a burglary at his lower Manhattan apartment in October and the responding officers found cocaine inside.
Today in history
1423 – The Battle of Cravant, during the Hundred Years War between English and French forces. The French army contained a large number of Scots under Sir John Stewart. When the French began to withdraw, the Scots refused to flee. Over 3,000 of them fell and over 2,000 were taken prisoners, including John Stewart, leading to a victory for the English and their Burgundian allies.
1498 – Christopher Columbus discovered Trinidad on his third voyage. He entered the Gulf of Paria in Venezuela and planted the Spanish flag in South America on August 1.
1703 – English novelist Daniel Defoe was made to stand in the pillory as punishment for offending the government and church with his satire ‘The Shortest Way With Dissenters’. Bystanders pelted him with flowers instead of the customary harmful and noxious objects and drank to his health.
1786 – The satirical book “Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish dialect” by Robert Burns is published.
1856 – Christchurch became a City by Royal Charter making it officially the oldest established city in New Zealand.
1879 – The first cable connection between South Africa and Europe is laid by the British electrical engineer Charles Tilston Bright as part of his project to link the British Empire with growing telecommunications technologies.