March 1st "2025" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 60, known as The National Day of Wales and the Feast Day of St. David. Your star sign is Pisces and your birthstone is Aquamarine.
1998 – James Cameron’s Titanic starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, became the first film to gross more than $1 billion worldwide. It was the highest-grossing film of all time until Avatar (2009) surpassed it.
Todays birthdays
1944 – Roger Daltrey (81), English singer, musician and actor (The Who – “Who Are You”, “Behind Blue Eyes”, “My Generation”), born in London.
1944 – Mike d’Abo (81), English songwriter and lead singer with Manfred Mann (“Do Wah Diddy Diddy”, “Mighty Quinn”), born in Betchworth, Surrey.
1954 – Ron Howard (71), American director (The Da Vinci Code, A Beautiful Mind), producer and actor (Richie Cunningham in Happy Days), born in Oklahoma, United States.
1966 – Paul Hollywood (59), English celebrity chef and television personality widely known as a judge on The Great British Bake Off since 2010, born in Wallasey, Merseyside.
1994 – Justin Bieber (31), Canadian singer (“Beauty And A Beat”, “What Do You Mean”), born in St. Joseph’s Hospital, London, Canada.
Famous deaths
1998 – Dermot Morgan (b. 1952), Irish comedian and actor, best known for his role as Father Ted Crilly on the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted.
The day today
1946 – The British Government took control of the Bank of England, after 252 years. Originally, The Bank of England was founded as a private bank in 1694 to act as banker to the Government.
1966 – James Callaghan, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, confirmed that Britain would change over to decimal currency in 1971.
1978 – Sometime in the middle of the night, two men had stolen the corpse of the revered film actor Sir Charles Chaplin from a cemetery in the Swiss village of Corsier-sur-Vevey, located in the hills above Lake Geneva. News outlets started reporting one of history’s most famous cases of body-snatching the next day.
1994 – Fred West was charged with two further murders following more human remains found at his home. He had previously admitted murdering his 16 old daughter Heather.
2002 – Spanish peseta lost its legal tender after fully adopting the Euro.
2006 – The Senedd, home of the Welsh Parliament in Cardiff Bay was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II. It is the main public building of the National Assembly plus the main centre for democracy and devolution in Wales.
2020 – The meteorological office announced that February had been the wettest in over 150 years. On a fourth consecutive weekend of terrible weather, Storm Jorge prompted weather warnings stretching from Cornwall to the north of Scotland and across to Northern Ireland.
Today in music
1958 – Buddy Holly played the first of 25 dates on his only UK tour at the Trocadero, Elephant & Castle, London. Also on the bill was Gary Miller, The Tanner Sisters, Des O’Connor, The Montanas, Ronnie Keene & His Orchestra.
1968 – Elton John’s first single ‘I’ve Been Loving You’ was released on the Phillips label, with lyrics credited to Bernie Taupin (although John later admitted that he wrote the song by himself, giving Taupin credit as an effort to earn Taupin his first publishing royalties). The song didn’t chart.
1980 – Blondie were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Atomic’ the group’s third UK No.1 single from their album ‘Eat To The Beat’.
1995 – Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ won three Grammys for Song of the Year, Best Male Vocal Performance and Best Rock Song. The track was featured in the film Philadelphia (1993), an early mainstream film dealing with HIV/AIDS which stars Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington.
2009 – Kelly Clarkson went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘My Life Would Suck Without You’. US singer Clarkson won American Idol in 2000 and became the only American Idol contestant to have topped the UK charts.
Today in history
1628 – Writs issued in February by Charles I of England mandate that every county in England (not just seaport towns) pay ship tax by this date.
1692 – Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba are brought before local magistrates in Salem Village, Massachusetts, beginning what would become known as the Salem witch trials.
1711 – The first edition of London’s – ‘The Spectator’, founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele.
1812 – The birth of the architect Augustus Pugin. He is best remembered for the Palace of Westminster and his churches such as St Giles’ Catholic Church in Cheadle, Staffordshire. It is known as Pugin’s Gem and is considered to be the finest of all his churches.
1872 – The Yellowstone National Park (2.2 million acres) Protection Act went into law, making it the first National Park in the world.