Sunday, June 8th "2025" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 159, known as National Best Friends Day, World Oceans Day, Whit Sunday, World Brain Tumor Day. Your star sign is Gemini and your birthstone is Pearl (Alexandrite and Moonstone is also recognised).
1982 – Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram were anchored at Bluff Cove when they were hit by missiles in a surprise raid by five Argentine Skyhawks. The attack resulted in the deaths of 48 crew members including 32 Welsh Guards.
Todays birthdays
1940 – Nancy Sinatra (85), American singer (“These Boots Are Made for Walkin’”) and daughter of Frank Sinatra, born in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States.
1943 – Colin Baker (82), English actor best known for his role as the 6th Doctor in the science fiction television series Doctor Who from 1984 to 1986, born in Waterloo, London.
1951 – Bonnie Tyler (74), Welsh singer (“Total Eclipse of the Heart”, “Holding Out for a Hero”), born in Skewen, Port Talbot, Wales.
1955 – Tim Berners-Lee (70), English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the HTML markup language, the URL system, and HTTP, born in London.
1960 – Mick Hucknall (65), English singer and songwriter (“Holding Back the Years”, “Money’s Too Tight to Mention”), born in Manchester.
1962 – Nick Rhodes (63), English keyboardist, producer and a founding member of Duran Duran (“Hungry Like the Wolf”), born in Moseley, Birmingham.
1977 – Kanye West (48), American rapper and singer (“Gold Digger”, “Stronger”), born in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
Famous deaths
2015 – Christopher Lee (b. 1922), English actor. He often portrayed vilains and appeared as Count Dracula in seven Hammer Horror films. His other major roles included Count Dooku in several Star Wars films and Saruman in both the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit.
The day today
1924 – The last sighting of English climbers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine; 800 feet from the summit of Mount Everest during the third attempt to become the first men to conquer the world’s highest mountain. Their fate was unknown for 75 years, until Mallory’s body was discovered in 1999 by an expedition that had set out to search for the climbers’ remains. Whether or not Mallory and Irvine reached the summit before they died remains a subject of speculation and continuing research.
1929 – Margaret Bondfield became the first female cabinet minister in the UK. Born into a working-class family, Bondfield became a prominent women’s rights activist and trade unionist before being appointed Minister of Labour.
1968 – James Earl Ray, wanted for the murder of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, was arrested in London, travelling under an assumed name.
1982 – Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram were anchored at Bluff Cove when they were hit by missiles in a surprise raid by five Argentine Skyhawks. The attack resulted in the deaths of 48 crew members including 32 Welsh Guards.
1985 – Irish boxer, Barry McGuigan won the WBA world featherweight title by defeating Eusebio Pedroza at Loftus Road Stadium in London. McGuigan won the fight by unanimous decision after 15 rounds, becoming the new WBA champion. The fight took place in front of a crowd of 27,000 fans.
1992 – World Oceans Day was celebrated for the first time. Canada’s International Center for Ocean Development proposed the idea of World Oceans Day at the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil, suggesting it could bring much-needed attention to the better caretaking of our oceans. Since then, countless people worldwide have celebrated World Oceans Day by doing whatever they can to help protect our planet’s most precious resource.
2009 – Labour suffered its worst post-war election result after it was beaten into third place by UKIP and saw the BNP gain its first seats in the European elections.
Today in music
1967 – Procol Harum were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’ the group’s only UK No.1. In 2004 the song was named the most played record of the past 70 years. More than 900 recorded versions by other artists are known.
1974 – David Bowie started a four-week run at the top of the UK charts with his third No.1 album ‘Diamond Dogs’. The cover art features Bowie as a striking half-man, half-dog grotesque painted by Belgian artist Guy Peellaert. It was controversial as the full painting clearly showed the hybrid’s genitalia. Very few copies of this original cover made their way into circulation at the time of the album’s release.
1974 – Dolly Parton was at No.1 on the US country chart with ‘I Will Always Love You’. Elvis Presley indicated that he wanted to cover the song. Parton was interested until Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, told her that it was standard procedure for the songwriter to sign over half of the publishing rights to any song Elvis recorded. Parton refused. ‘I Will Always Love You’ later became a worldwide No.1 hit for Whitney Houston in 1992 when featured in The Bodyguard.
1985 – Tears For Fears started a two-week run at No.1 on the US singles chart (the song peaked at number two in the UK) with ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’, the group’s first US No.1. In 1986, the song won Best Single at the Brit Awards.
1991 – Color Me Badd had their only UK No.1 single with ‘I Wanna Sex You Up’. The song was a No.2 hit in the US where some radio stations edited out the word “sex” with disc jockeys announcing the song ‘I Wanna Love You Up’.
1996 – The Fugees scored their first UK No.1 single with their version of the Roberta Flack 1973 hit ‘Killing Me Softly’. The song composed by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel in 1971 was inspired by Lori Lieberman’s poem ‘Killing Me Softly with His Blues’, written having seen a performance by US singer, songwriter Don McLean.
2024 – Taylor Swift played the first night on the UK leg of her Eras tour with the first of three nights at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh Scotland. Swift was set to perform for more than a million people over 15 UK shows this summer. The Eras tour had made the most money of any tour in music history and was on track to make £1.5 billion. Around 11 million tickets had been sold for the 152 shows in 22 countries.
Today in history
793 AD – Vikings raided the abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria. The event is commonly accepted as the beginning of the Scandinavian invasion of England.
1042 – Harthacnut, King of England and Denmark, died. He was succeeded in England by his adopted heir, Edward the Confessor, and in Denmark by Magnus, King of Norway.
1405 – Richard le Scrope (Archbishop of York) and Thomas Mowbray (Earl of Norfolk) were executed in York on Henry IV’s orders, accused of treason.
1536 – The English Parliament met and settled the succession on the future children of Henry VIII by Jane Seymour. The Princesses Mary and Elizabeth were declared illegitimate.
1652 – The birth of William Dampier, English explorer who turned to piracy. His exploits netted him £200,000 worth of treasure in only two voyages.
1724 – The birth of John Smeaton, considered the founder of English civil engineering. He built the Eddystone lighthouse (south of Rame Head in Cornwall), at the same time developing cement that could be used underwater.