Famous deaths
2018 – Chas Hodges (b. 1943), English musician and singer. He was the lead vocalist, pianist and guitarist of the musical duo Chas & Dave.
On This Day 2025
Hello, … Welcome to day 319 of the year.

Saturday, November 15th Daily Prep.

Known as Children in Need, National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day, Steve Irwin Day, National Drummer Day. Your star sign is Scorpio and your birthstone is Topaz.
2022 – The presale for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour crashed the Ticketmaster site, leading to frustrated fans and a federal investigation. Despite the problems, 2.4 million tickets were sold, the most for one artist ever in a single day.
The presale for Taylor Swift's Eras tour crashed the Ticketmaster site, leading to frustrated fans and a federal investigation.
Today’s birthdays
1932 – Petula Clark (93), English singer-songwriter (“Downtown”, “My Love”, “Don’t Sleep in the Subway”) and actress, born in Ewell, Epsom, Surrey.
1945 – Anni-Frid Lyngstad (80), Norwegian-born Swedish singer and founding member of the pop band ABBA (“Waterloo”), born in Bjørkåsen, Norway.
1953 – Alexander O’Neal (72), American R&B singer, songwriter (“Criticize”), born in Natchez, Mississippi, United States.
1963 – Andrew Castle (62), English broadcaster (Wimbledon) and former tennis player (Great Britain’s number 1 in singles tennis in 1986), born in Epsom, Surrey.
1965 – Nigel Bond (60), English retired professional snooker player (1989 to 2022), born in Darley Dale, Derbyshire.
1967 – Dom Joly (58), English comedian and writer of Trigger Happy TV, a hidden camera prank show that was broadcast in over 70 countries. born in Beirut, Lebanon.
1974 – Chad Kroeger (51), Canadian singer-songwriter, musician and lead vocalist with Nickelback (“How You Remind Me”), born in Hanna, Alberta, Canada.
Famous deaths
1983 – John Le Mesurier (b. 1912), English actor, best remembered for his comedic role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the BBC television situation comedy Dad’s Army (1968–1977)
The day today
1922 – Children’s Hour was first broadcast on the radio. It established a tradition of drama and story-telling and built up a devoted audience of over three million at its peak.
1928 – The RNLI Lifeboat Mary Stanford capsized in the English Channel, a few miles off Rye Harbour with the loss of the entire 17 man crew, practically the whole male fishing population of the small town of Rye.
1968 – The liner Queen Elizabeth completed her final passenger voyage when she landed at Southampton. She was sold to a US group who planned to moor her in Florida as a tourist attraction. She was replaced by the new liner the QE2.
1969 – ATV (Midland) screened the first colour TV commercial in Britain; for Birds Eye Peas. It cost £23 for the off peak 30 second slot. The advert, which featured a young Patsy Kensit, was shown at 10:05 AM during the children’s show Thunderbirds.
1979 – Sir Anthony Blunt, art advisor to the Queen, is exposed in Parliament as the fourth man in a Soviet spy ring. He is then stripped of his knighthood and fellowship of Trinity College, Cambridge.
1998 – The United States and Britain called back their fighter planes just before an authorized strike after Iraq agreed to allow UN weapons inspectors back into the country. This averted an immediate air war, though President Bill Clinton warned that military action would still occur if Iraq did not fully comply with its obligations.
2001 – Microsoft entered the video game market with the launch of its first game console, the Xbox. Much of the first Xbox’s success came down to the game it was launched alongside, Halo. The Xbox sold more than 1.5 million units in the US alone by the end of the year.
2014 – Pensioner Kelvin Sibthorpe got his hopes up when he discovered he’d been the victim of pension mis-selling, which meant he could be entitled to a ‘windfall’. The windfall entitled him to only an extra 18p a month in pension payments. It would consist of seven years of back payments, coming to a grand total of £10.08.
2020 – British Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton clinches his 4th straight and record-equalling 7th F1 World Drivers’ Championship by winning the Turkish GP at Intercity Istanbul Park.
2023 – The UK Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Conservative government’s policy to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful. The court determined there were substantial grounds for believing that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would face a real risk of serious human rights breaches, specifically a process known as refoulement, where they could be returned to their country of origin and face persecution or inhuman treatment.
Today in music
1956 – Elvis Presley’s first movie, Love Me Tender, premiered at the Paramount Theater in New York City. The film a Civil War drama was going to be called The Reno Brothers, but when Elvis became a major star during the shoot, it was re-titled after his hit song, with Elvis given top billing.

1980 – Blondie had their fifth UK No.1 single and third No.1 of this year with ‘The Tide Is High’ a song written by reggae star John Holt, also a No.1 in the US.

1986 – Pop history was made on November 15, 1986, when the top five singles on the UK chart were all by female vocalists. The vocalists featured were Corinne Drewery of Swing Out Sister, Mel and Kim, Susannah Hoffs of The Bangles, Kim Wilde, and Terri Nunn from Berlin, who was at number one with “Take My Breath Away”.

1987 – Dire Straits became the first act to sell over three million copies of an album in the UK. Brothers in Arms contained five, top 40 singles: ‘Money for Nothing,’ ‘So Far Away,’ ‘Walk of Life,’ ‘Brothers in Arms’ and ‘Your Latest Trick.’ The album is the eighth-best-selling album in UK chart history.

1990 – Milli Vanilli producer Frank Farian held a press conference to confirm the rumours that the two members of the group Rob and Fab had not sung on any of their hit records.
2000 – Winners at The MTV Europe Awards included All Saints for best pop act, Ricky Martin won best male artist, Madonna won best female artist, Red Hot Chili Peppers won best rock band, Blink 182 won best new act & Jennifer Lopez won best R&B act.
2005 – Robbie Williams snubbed a Take That reunion when he decided to stay at his Los Angeles home. A behind the scenes TV documentary had arranged for all five members to reunite to coincide with the release of a greatest hits CD and DVD.
2007 – Kenneth Donnell, from Glasgow, paid £83,000 for two tickets to see Led Zeppelin rehearse and perform at the O2 arena in London on the 10th December. Donnell bid for the tickets as part of an auction for the BBC’s Children in Need.
2015 – Trumpeter Miles Davis was voted the greatest jazz artist of all time by listeners of UK stations BBC Radio and Jazz FM. Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday also all made the top 10.
2022 – The presale for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour crashed the Ticketmaster site, leading to frustrated fans and a federal investigation. Despite the problems, 2.4 million tickets were sold, the most for one artist ever in a single day. The Eras tour became the highest-grossing tour of all time and the first-ever tour to surpass US$1 billion in revenue.
Today in history
655 AD – The death (at the Battle of the Winwaed) of Penda, 7th-century King of Mercia, one of the most powerful kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England. Mercia originally comprised the border areas of modern Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, the northern West Midlands and Warwickshire.
1492 – Christopher Columbus first encounters dried tobacco leaves. They were given to him as a gift by the American Indians.
1532 – Pope Clement VII ordered King Henry VIII to put away Anne Boleyn and take back his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, under threat of excommunication. This occurred after Henry had already secretly married Anne. Henry VIII sought an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon from Pope Clement VII to marry Anne Boleyn in hopes of having a male heir. The Pope refused to grant the annulment, primarily because he was effectively a prisoner of Catherine’s nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who insisted the marriage stand.
1577 – English explorer and navigator Sir Francis Drake began his voyage to sail around the world.
1720 – Pirates Anne Bonny, Mary Read and Calico Jack (John Rackham) are captured by Capt Jonathan Barnet and brought to Spanish Town, Jamaica, for trial.Franz Müller, a German tailor, who had murdered Thomas Briggs in the first murder committed on a British train (on 9th July) was publicly hanged at Newgate prison.
1899 – Winston Churchill was captured by the Boers while covering the war as a reporter for the Morning Post. He escaped a few weeks later.