Wednesday, March 26th "2025" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 85, known as National Nougat Day, Solitude Day and Live Long and Prosper Day. Your star sign is Aries and your birthstone is Aquamarine.
2015 – Richard III (1452 – 1485), the only English monarch without a marked grave, was reinterred at Leicester Cathedral after much wrangling, including High Court action over his final resting place.
Todays birthdays
1944 – Diana Ross (81), American singer (“Chain Reaction”, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”) and actress, born in Detroit, Michigan, United States.
1948 – Steven Tyler (77), American singer and musician in the rock band Aerosmith (“Love In An Elevator”, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”), born in New York, United States.
1961 – William Hague (64), English politician who served as Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1997 to 2001, born in Wentworth, South Yorkshire.
1962 – Richard Coles (63), English radio presenter, Church of England priest and former multi-instrumentalist with the Communards (“Don’t Leave Me This Way”), born in Northampton.
1971 – John Hendy (54), English singer and former member of boy band East 17 (“Stay Another Day”), born in Barking, East London.
1985 – Keira Knightley (40), English actress (Pirates of the Caribbean, Pride & Prejudice, Bend It Like Beckham), born in Teddington, Richmond upon Thames, London.
Famous deaths
1999 – Ernie Wise (b. 1925), English comedian and actor best known as one half of the comedy duo Morecambe and Wise.
The day today
1920 – The British special constables, known as the Black and Tans, arrived in Ireland. Their nickname came from the colours of their uniform.
1945 – David Lloyd George, British statesman and Liberal Prime Minister, died. He was Prime Minister of a wartime coalition government between the years 1916–22, Leader of the Liberal Party from 1926–31 and a key figure in the introduction of many reforms which laid the foundations of the modern welfare state.
1973 – Female stockbrokers were allowed on the floor of the London Stock Exchange for the first time in its 200 year history.
1976 – Queen Elizabeth II sent the first royal e-mail, from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment in Worcestershire.
1981 – Four Labour defectors, known as the Gang of Four, launched the Social Democrats party. The four were Roy Jenkins, (former Labour cabinet minister), David Owen, William Rodgers and Shirley Williams. Their aim was to ‘reconcile the nation’ and ‘heal divisions between classes’.
1999 – Ex-miners suffering from lung diseases won a compensation deal worth £2 billion. It was the biggest industrial injuries case in British legal history.
2006 – From 6 a.m. the prohibition of smoking in all substantially enclosed public places came into force in Scotland.
2012 – New record temperatures for Scotland were set at Cromdale in Moray, which reached a temperature of 23.3C. making it the hottest 26th March since records began. The unseasonable warm weather made the UK hotter than southerly parts of Europe, including Barcelona, Nice, Majorca and Faro.
2015 – Richard III, the only English monarch without a marked grave, was reinterred at Leicester Cathedral after much wrangling, including High Court action over his final resting place. Richard III’s body was buried in the now demolished Franciscan Friary in Leicester and was discovered in September 2012 under what had become a car park.
Today in music
1965 – Mick Jagger, Brian Jones and Bill Wyman all received electric shocks from a faulty microphone on stage during a Rolling Stones show in Denmark. Bill Wyman was knocked unconscious for several minutes.
1969 – Marvin Gaye was at No.1 on the UK singles chart, with ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’. The song was first recorded by The Miracles and had also been a million seller in 1967 for Gladys Knight and the Pips.
1980 – The Police became the first Western pop group to play in Bombay, India for over ten years when they played a one off gig in the city.
1983 – Duran Duran went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Is There Something I Should Know’. Their first No.1 and their eighth single release. The group were on a US promotional trip on this day, where they were greeted by 5,000 screaming fans at an in-store appearance in New York City.
1985 – Radio stations in South Africa banned all of Stevie Wonder’s records after he dedicated the Oscar he had won the night before at The Academy Awards to Nelson Mandela.
2001 – The toy figure of Eminem was facing a ban from UK shops. Woolworth’s and Hamleys were refusing to stock the dolls. Psychologists warned parents who buy the dolls for children will be inadvertently giving their approval to bad language.
Today in history
1344 – The Siege of Algeciras, one of the first European military engagements where gunpowder was used, comes to an end.
1484 – William Caxton printed his translation of Aesop’s Fables. As far as is known, Caxton was the first English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England. He was also the first English retailer of printed books.
1651 – Silver-loaded Spanish ship San José is pushed south by strong winds, subsequently it wrecks in the coast of southern Chile and its surviving crew is killed by indigenous Cuncos.
1752 – The Murder Act passes into law in Great Britain allows corpses of executed murderers to be given to the Company of Surgeons for dissection.
1839 – The Henley Regatta was born, at a public meeting held in Henley Town Hall. The regatta lasts for 5 days (Wednesday to Sunday) over the first weekend in July.
1885 – Sir Henry Thompson conducted the UK’s first cremation on the corpse of Mrs. Jeannette C. Pickersgill. The Times described her as “a well-known figure in literary and scientific circles.”