May 31st "2024" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 152, known as Web Designer Day, World No Tobacco Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of September 7th in the previous year. Your star sign is Gemini and your birthstone is Emerald.
1859 – The clock in the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament was started, with the bell (Big Ben) sounding for the first time on 11th July.
Todays birthdays
1930 – Clint Eastwood (94), American actor (Dirty Harry, Gran Torino, Escape from Alcatraz) and film director (American Sniper), born in San Francisco, California, United States.
1938 – John Prescott (86), British politician (Deputy Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007) and member of the Labour Party (1970 to 2010), born in Prestatyn, Denbighshire, Wales.
1939 – Terry Waite (85), English humanitarian and author (Taken on Trust), who was held captive in Lebanon from 1987 to 1991, born in Bollington, Cheshire.
1976 – Colin Farrell (48), Irish actor (The Gentlemen, S.W.A.T., Phone Booth, Minority Report), born in Castleknock, Dublin, Ireland.
1977 – June Sarpong (47), British television presenter (T4, The Pledge) who began her media career with the radio station Kiss 100 (around 1997), born in Forest Gate, London.
Famous deaths
2009 – Danny La Rue (b. 1927), born Daniel Patrick Carroll, Irish drag queen performer and singer who did many celebrity impersonations such as Elizabeth Taylor, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Judy Garland, Margot Fonteyn, Marlene Dietrich and Margaret Thatcher.
The day today
1911 – The White Star liner Titanic was launched at Belfast. At the ceremony, a White Star Line employee claimed, ‘Not even God himself could sink this ship.’
1916 – World War 1: The Battle of Jutland in which the Royal Navy lost one battleship, one cruiser and five destroyers. The Germans lost one battleship, one cruiser and one destroyer. At the end of the day, 2,545 men had been killed.
1962 – Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Nazi holocaust, was hanged in Israel for his crimes against humanity.
1985 – The Football Association, supported by Margaret Thatcher, banned English clubs from playing in Europe following the Heysel stadium tragedy.
2004 – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the 3rd film based on the books by J. K. Rowling, was released in UK cinemas.
Today in music
1980 – Lipps Inc went to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Funkytown’. The disco hit was also a No.1 in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Australia and The Netherlands. It reached No. 2 in the UK.
1986 – Peter Gabriel scored his second solo UK No.1 album with ‘So’ featuring the singles ‘Sledgehammer’ and a duet with Kate Bush ‘Don’t Give Up’. The song was inspired by the Depression-era photographs of Dorothea Lange, showing poverty-stricken Americans in Dust Bowl conditions.
1997 – Eternal started a three-week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘I Wanna Be The Only One’ the girl soul trio’s first – and only UK chart-topper.
1998 – Geri Halliwell announced she had quit The Spice Girls saying “This is because of differences between us. I am sure the group will continue to be successful and I wish them all the best.”
2005 – Former East 17 singer Brian Harvey was in a critical condition in a London hospital after he fell under the wheels of his Mercedes convertible. The accident happened outside his home in Walthamstow when Harvey was reversing from an access road into the street. The singer suffered a broken leg, pelvis and a crushed abdomen and ribs.
Today in history
1076 – Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria and the last of the Anglo-Saxon earls, was beheaded at St. Giles’s Hill, near Winchester after rebelling against William the Conqueror. He was the only English aristocrat to be executed during the reign of William I (William the Conqueror).
1578 – English explorer Martin Frobisher sailed from Harwich to Frobisher Bay in Canada. Over time he brought home 1500 tons of ‘gold ore’. After years of smelting, it was realized that the presumed gold was merely worthless iron pyrite (fool’s gold) that was later used to pave streets in London, leading to the myth that the streets of London were paved with gold.
1669 – English civil servant Samuel Pepys recorded his last diary entry. Due to poor eyesight, Pepys finally had to stop working on his famous diary. The diary covered about a decade of his life and is regarded as Britain’s most celebrated diary.
1678 – The Godiva Procession, a commemoration of the legendary ride by Lady Godiva (born 990 AD) was instituted as part of Coventry fair and was celebrated up to the 1960s. According to the popular story, Lady Godiva took pity on the people of Coventry, who were suffering grievously under her husband’s oppressive taxation. Her husband agreed to repeal the taxes if she would strip naked and ride through the streets of the town, clothed only in her long hair. She agreed, conditionally that all persons should stay indoors and shut their windows, but one person, a tailor known ever afterwards as Peeping Tom, disobeyed the proclamation and was struck blind.
1859 – The clock in the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament was started, with the bell (Big Ben) sounding for the first time on 11th July 1859.