Friday, March 28th "2025" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 87, known as National Black Forest Cake Day, Respect Your Cat Day. Your star sign is Aries and your birthstone is Aquamarine.
1917 – The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) was founded. They were Britain’s first official service women. It was the first time women had served in the British Army other than as nurses. The corps was eventually disbanded in 1921.
Todays birthdays
1960 – Chris Barrie (65), British actor (Tomb Raider, Red Dwarf, The Brittas Empire) and comedian, born in Hanover, Germany.
1968 – Tim Lovejoy (57), English television presenter (Soccer AM, Sunday Brunch), born in Hillingdon, London.
1969 – James Atkin (56), English musician and singer with dance band EMF (“Unbelievable”), born in Birmingham.
1973 – Scott Mills (52), English radio DJ (Scott Mills Show BBC Radio 1 from 2004 to 2022 and since then, on BBC Radio 2), born in Eastleigh, Hampshire.
1986 – Lady Gaga (39), American singer, songwriter (“Bad Romance”, “Paparazzi”) and actress (A Star Is Born), born in Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, United States.
1988 – Lacey Turner (37), English actress (Bedlam), best known for her role as Stacey Slater in Eastenders, born in Edgware, London.
Famous deaths
2004 – Peter Ustinov (b. 1921), English-Swiss actor (Spartacus, Hercule Poirot in Death on the Nile), director, producer, and screenwriter.
2013 – Richard Griffiths (b. 1947), English actor (Harry Potter, Pie in the Sky, Sleepy Hollow).
2023 – Paul O’Grady (b. 1955), English comedian, actor and drag queen (Lily Savage).
The day today
1917 – The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) was founded. They were Britain’s first official service women. It was the first time women had served in the British Army other than as nurses. The corps was eventually disbanded in 1921.
1945 – Germany dropped its last V2 bomb in Britain on Hughes Mansions on Vallance Road, in Whitechapel. The V-weapons inflicted immense suffering in Britain, causing over 30,000 civilian casualties and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
1964 – Pirate radio station, Radio Caroline, began transmitting from a ship in the North Sea. Simon Dee, who later became the first ‘pirate DJ’ to join the BBC was the first voice to be heard on Radio Caroline.
1991 – A jury returned a verdict of accidental death at the end of the inquest into the Sheffield Hillsborough disaster in which 96 football fans died. The 90-day inquest was the longest in British history and recommended extra security measures at football stadiums. On 19th December 2012 the original accidental death verdict was overturned, paving the way for a new investigation. On 27th March 2014 the police watchdog identified 13 ‘suspects’ (a mixture of retired and serving officers) at the centre of the probe into the Hillsborough investigation, with a fresh inquest into the 96 deaths, which began in Warrington on Monday, 31st March 2014.
2014 – Beryl Walker, 88, was named as the oldest paper girl in the world by Guinness World Records. “Beryl has been doing the round for 35 years, gets up at 6am every morning and hops on her bike ‘Hercules’ to deliver papers to homes in Gloucester. She works six days a week and cycles over eight miles a day.
2017 – The 12-sided £1 coin went into circulation. The new coins feature a string of security features including a hologram that changes from a ‘£’ symbol to the number ‘1’ when the coin is seen from different angles.
Today in music
1964 – Madame Tussauds, London unveiled the wax works images of The Beatles, the first pop stars to be honoured.
1968 – Pink Floyd recorded a performance for the BBC 2 TV Omnibus – The Sound of Change show from Barnes Common, London, England. The special, which was produced by Tony Palmer, also featured performances by The Who, Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience. The show was later broadcast in September of that year.
1970 – Simon and Garfunkel were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, the duo’s only UK No.1. Only Art Garfunkel sang on the track.
1976 – Genesis began their first North American tour since Peter Gabriel left the band, appearing in Buffalo, New York, with Phil Collins taking over as lead singer.
2014 – Tickets for Kate Bush’s first live shows in 35 years sold out in less than 15 minutes. The “Before the Dawn” concerts, which were booked to take place that August and September, marked the singer’s first return to the stage since “The Tour Of Life” in 1979. Demand was so high that the singer’s own website, as well as some ticket-selling sites, crashed as people tried to log on.
2018 – George Ezra was at No.1 on the UK album chart with his second studio album Staying at Tamara’s. It became the UK’s best selling artist album of the year in 2018 and was nominated for British Album of the Year at the 2019 Brit Awards.
Today in history
1760 – The birth of Thomas Clarkson, a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade and helped achieve passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which ended British trade in slaves. In his later years Clarkson campaigned for the abolition of slavery worldwide.
1800 – The Irish Parliament passed the Act of Union with England. The Act included joining Ireland to Great Britain to form a single kingdom, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1819 – The birth, at Crimble Hall – Rochdale of Roger Fenton, noted as one of the first war photographers (Crimean War) and co-founder of the Royal Photographic Society.
1819 – The birth of Sir Joseph William Bazalgette, English civil engineer. As chief engineer of London’s Metropolitan Board of Works he created a sewer network for central London which was instrumental in relieving the city from cholera epidemics, whilst also beginning the cleansing of the River Thames.
1891 – The world’s first weightlifting championship took place in London. There were only seven athletes who took part in the event, and the winner was Edward Lawrence.