Welcome to day 327 of the year! Known as Espresso Day, National Cashew Day and Fibonacci Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of March 2nd. Your star sign is “Sagittarius” and your birthstone is Topaz.
2014 – Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton wins the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Circuit to clinch his second Formula 1 World Drivers Championship.
Todays birthdays
1968 – Kirsty Young (55), Scottish television and radio presenter. From 2006 to 2018 she was the main presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs and she presented Crimewatch on BBC One from 2008 to 2015, born in East Kilbride.
1970 – Zoë Ball (53), British radio and television presenter. She was the first female host of the Radio 1 and Radio 2 breakfast shows for the BBC, and presented the 1990s children’s show Live & Kicking, alongside Jamie Theakston from 1996–1999, born in Blackpool, Lancashire.
1959 – Maxwell Caulfield (64), British-American actor (Grease 2, Dynasty, The Boys Next Door), born in Duffield, Derbyshire.
1979 – Kelly Brook (44), British model, actress (The Italian Job – 2003), and media personality, born in Rochester, Kent.
1992 – Miley Cyrus (31), American singer (Wrecking Ball), songwriter, and actress (Hannah Montana), born in Franklin, Tennessee, United States.
The day today
1979 – Keith Richards’ girlfriend Anita Pallenburg was cleared by a court of shooting a man found dead at her home. 17-year-old, Scott Cantrell, a part-time groundsman at the house, had shot himself in the head with a gun owned by Keith while in Pallenberg’s bed.
1984 – Almost 1,000 passengers are trapped in smoke-filled tunnels for three hours after a fire at Oxford Circus underground station.
1991 – Freddie Mercury confirms he has AIDS. On the same day, Evander Holyfield TKOs Bert Cooper in Round 7 for the heavyweight boxing title.
2014 – Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton wins the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Circuit to clinch his second Formula 1 World Drivers Championship.
2019 – The Sumatran rhino is officially declared extinct in Malaysia after the last known specimen dies of cancer in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.
Today in music
1975 – Queen started a nine-week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart with Bohemian Rhapsody. The promotional video that accompanied the song is generally acknowledged as being the first pop video and only cost £5,000 to produce. When the band wanted to release the single various record executives suggested to them that, at 5 minutes and 55 seconds, it was too long and would never be a hit.
1979 – Pink Floyd released ‘Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)’ in the UK. The song rapidly topped the charts in the UK, followed by the US and a further 9 countries. Featuring children from Islington Green School in North London, close to Floyd’s Britannia Row Studios, it was the group’s first UK single since Point Me At The Sky in 1968, and their first chart hit since See Emily Play in 1967.
1991 – Genesis scored their 5th UK No.1 album with ‘We Can’t Dance’, featuring the singles ‘Jesus He Knows Me’ and ‘I Can’t Dance’.
2008 – Leona Lewis was at No.1 on the UK album chart with her debut album ‘Spirit’. The album held the record for the biggest digital album sales in a week ever for a new artist and was the 6th biggest selling of 2008 in the world. It has gone on to sell over seven million copies worldwide.
2015 – Taylor Swift dominated the American Music Awards, winning three prizes, including album of the year and song of the year. One Direction were named favourite group and artist of the year, for the second year in a row and Ariana Grande was the surprise winner of best female, beating Taylor Swift.
Today in history
1499 – The Pretender to the throne, Flemish impostor Perkin Warbeck, was hanged for reportedly attempting to escape from the Tower of London. He had invaded England in 1497, claiming to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, the younger son of King Edward IV.
1852 – Britain’s first four pillar boxes came into service on the Channel Island of Jersey. The idea came from English novelist Anthony Trollope who worked for the General Post Office in London before becoming a writer.
1867 – The Manchester Martyrs (William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin, and Michael O’Brien) of the IRA were hung in front of 10,000 people at Salford Gaol, Manchester, UK. The three men were responsible for the shooting and death of a police officer who was transporting two leaders of the group they belonged to, the “Irish Republican Brotherhood.”
1890 – King William III of the Netherlands dies without a male heir and a special law is passed to allow his daughter Princess Wilhelmina to succeed him.
1896 – The first Royal Command Performance for the British Sovereign. The event was in the Red Drawing Room at Windsor Castle, before H.M. Queen Victoria.
Fact of the day
‘OMG’ was first used in a letter to Winston Churchill in 1917.
A retired British admiral of the Royal Navy one day became excited due to headlines regarding the mobilizing forces of Britain. Excited to share this news with a college, the admiral quickly wrote a small acronym for ‘Oh My God!’ in his letter. Little did he know that he had just invented one of the most popular acronyms of today’s society.