June 25th "2024" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 177, known as Global Beatles (The Band) Day, Goats Cheese Day, World Vitiligo Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of October 2nd in the previous year. Your star sign is Cancer and your birthstone is Pearl.
2011 – 8,734 people in fancy dress assembled on Penzance promenade at 13:00 BST. The Guinness World Records later confirmed that Penzance now held the title for the largest gathering of pirates in one place.
Todays birthdays
1961 – Ricky Gervais (63), English comedian, actor, writer and producer (The Office, After Life, Derek, An Idiot Abroad), born in Whitley, Reading, Berkshire.
1962 – Phil Jupitus (62), English stand-up and improv comedian (It’s Only TV…but I Like It, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, QI), born in Newport, Isle of Wight.
1970 – Lucy Benjamin (54), English actress (Jupiter Moon), best known for her role as Lisa Fowler in Eastenders since 1998, born in Reading, Berkshire.
1973 – Jamie Redknapp (51), English football pundit (Sky Sports) and former professional footballer (Liverpool, Southampton, England), born in Barton on Sea, Hampshire.
1981 – Sheridan Smith (43), English actress, singer, and television personality (Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Cilla, The Teacher), born in Epworth, North Lincolnshire.
Famous deaths
2009 – Michael Jackson (b. 1958), American singer-songwriter, producer, dancer, and actor (Thriller, Moonwalker).
2015 – Patrick Macnee (b. 1922), English actor (best known as John Steed in The Avengers).
The day today
1900 – Lord Louis Mountbatten of Burma was born. He was Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy in South East Asia during the Second World War, and later Viceroy of India during the transfer of power from Britain to India. Mountbatten was assassinated in 1979 by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), who planted a bomb in his fishing boat, the Shadow V, at Mullaghmore, County Sligo, in the Republic of Ireland.
1953 – John Christie was sentenced to hang for murdering his wife and then hiding her body under the floorboards of their Notting Hill home in London. Christie, 54, had admitted murder but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. It took the jury an hour and 22 minutes to reject his defence and declare him guilty.
2011 – 8,734 people in fancy dress assembled on Penzance promenade at 13:00 BST. The Guinness World Records later confirmed that Penzance now held the title for the largest gathering of pirates in one place, officially breaking the previous record set by 6,166 pirates in Hastings in 2010.
1991 – The breakup of Yugoslavia begins when Slovenia and Croatia declare their independence from Yugoslavia.
2014 – Britain’s best-known payday lender, ‘Wonga’, was ordered to pay more than £2.6m compensation after it was found to have sent threatening letters to customers from non-existent law firms.
Today in music
1967 – 400 million people saw The Beatles perform ‘All You Need Is Love’, live via satellite as part of the TV global link- up, ‘Our World’. Mick Jagger Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Graham Nash, Keith Moon and Gary Leeds provided backing vocals.
1969 – The Hollies recorded ‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother’. The ballad was written by Bobby Scott and Bob Russell (who was dying of cancer of the lymph nodes). The pair met in person only three times, but managed to collaborate on the song. The track which features Elton John on piano was re-released in late 1988 in the UK following its use in a television advertisement for Miller Lite beer, where it reached No.1.
1984 – Prince released his sixth studio album Purple Rain the first to feature his band the Revolution, and the soundtrack to the 1984 film of the same name. The first two singles from the album, ‘When Doves Cry’ and ‘Let’s Go Crazy’, topped the US singles charts, and were hits around the world, while the title track went to No.2 on the Billboard Hot 100.
2009 – Michael Jackson died at the age of 50, after suffering heart failure at his home in Beverly Hills. The eighth child of the Jackson family, he debuted with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1964. Jackson is credited for transforming the music video into an art form and a promotional tool, four of his solo albums are among the world’s best-selling records: Off the Wall (1979), Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991) and HIStory (1995), while his 1982 Thriller is the world’s best-selling record of all time with sales of over 50 million.
2021 – Elton John played the final UK concert of the UK leg of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road farewell tour at Glastonbury headlining the Pyramid Stage on the festival’s final day. During this years festival Foo Fighters made a surprise appearance and The Arctic Monkeys headlined the Pyramid Stage, their third appearance at the festival.
25 Jun 2021
Rock group Måneskin, winners of the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest, became the first act from Italy to have two singles in the top-ten of the UK Singles Chart simultaneously with ‘I Wanna Be Your Slave’ at No.6 and ‘Beggin” (a cover of the 1967 song by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons) at No. 10.
Today in history
1348 – Records indicate that the Black Death plague, which is thought to have originated in Asia, arrived on a ship from Calais and was moored at Melcombe Regis, Weymouth in Dorset. It was one of the most fatal pandemics in human history; as many as 50 million people perished and perhaps 50% of Europe’s 14th century population.
1533 – The death, at the age of 37, of Mary Tudor, the younger sister of King Henry VIII and queen consort of France through her marriage to Louis XII. She was first buried at the abbey at Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, but her body was moved to nearby St. Mary’s Church, Bury St Edmunds, when the abbey was destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
1646 – The surrender of Oxford to the Roundheads virtually signified the end of the English Civil War.
1891 – The first episode of an Arthur Conan Doyle novel involving the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes was printed in the Strand Magazine in London.
1870 – The birth of Robert Erskine Childers, Irish author and nationalist who resigned as a clerk in the House of Commons to promote Irish Home Rule. He was elected as a Sinn Fein member to the Irish assembly and joined the IRA which eventually led to his arrest and execution for being in possession of unauthorized weapons.