November 27th"2023" daily prep

Welcome to day 331 of the year! Known as Bavarian Cream Pie Day, National Electric Guitar Day and Pins and Needles Day. If you were born on this day, you were likely conceived the week of March 6th. Your star sign is “Sagittarius” and your birthstone is Topaz.
1976 – The four millionth ‘Mini’ car left the production line. More than ten million Minis have been built and sold worldwide since 1959 and almost as many of the new ones have been built in the last 27 years under BMW.
Todays birthdays
1956 – John McCarthy (67), British journalist, writer and broadcaster, and one of the hostages in the Lebanon hostage crisis. McCarthy was the United Kingdom’s longest-held hostage in Lebanon, where he was a prisoner for more than five years.
1959 – Charlie Burchill (64), Scottish pop guitarist (Simple Minds – “Don’t You, Forget About Me”; “Belfast Child”), born in Glasgow.
1978 – Mike Skinner (45), British singer-songwriter and rapper (The Streets – “Dry Your Eyes”, “Blinded By The Light”), born in Chipping Barnet, London.
1981 – Gary Lucy (42), British actor, television personality and model who is best known for playing Will Fletcher in the ITV police drama The Bill and Luke Morgan in Hollyoaks, orn in Chigwell, Essex.
1983 – Professor Green [Stephen Paul Manderson] (40), British rapper (Lip Sync Battle UK), born in London Borough of Hackney, London.
The day today
1975 – Ross McWhirter, TV presenter and co-editor of The Guinness Book of Records, was assassinated by two Provisional IRA gunmen after he had offered a £50,000 reward for information leading to a conviction for several high-profile bombings.
1987 – A young man in Somerset tried seven times to kill himself following a row with his girlfriend. He threw himself in front of four cars, and jumped under the wheels of a lorry. He tried to strangle himself and jumped from a window. The real victims were a driver of one car who suffered a heart attack, a policeman who injured his back trying to restrain the man, and a doctor who was kicked in the face when the struggling man reached hospital.
1990 – John Major won his second ballot for leadership of the Conservative Party and became Prime Minister. (Mrs. Thatcher had resigned as Prime Minister 5 days previously.)
2008 – The Queen Elizabeth II liner (the QE2) retired from active Cunard service. She is now, the only floating hotel in Dubai located in Port Rashid.
2014 – A new treatment for bladder cancer was shown to completely cure some people, in the first significant breakthrough in the disease for 30 years. Scientists from Queen Mary University of London discovered that an antibody allowed cancer cells to be picked up by the immune system and eradicated before they could spread.
Today in music
1976 – 20 Golden Greats by Glen Campbell started a six-week run at No.1 on the UK album chart. During his 50 years in show business, Campbell released more than 70 albums and has sold over 45 million records.
1981 – The British Phonographic industry placed advertisements in the press claiming that ‘home taping was wiping out music’. The Boomtown Rats, 10cc, Elton John and Cliff Richard all backed the campaign.
1986 – Bon Jovi were at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’, it peaked at No.14 in the UK. Released as the first single from the album Slippery When Wet, in 2009 it was named the 20th-greatest hard rock song of all time by VH1.
1991 – Freddie Mercury’s funeral service was conducted by a Zoroastrian priest, for 35 of his close friends and family, with Elton John and the remaining members of Queen among those in attendance. Mercury was cremated at Kensal Green Cemetery, West London.
2006 – Sir Cliff Richard lost a battle to extend the number of years that musicians could receive royalties for their records. Richard wanted copyright to last 95 years, rather than the present 50 years, but an independent review recommend the terms would not change. Sir Cliff’s earliest big hit ‘Move It’, recorded in 1958 would start to come out of copyright in 2008.
Today in history
1582 – William Shakespeare, aged 18, married Anne Hathaway. They had a daughter in 1583 and a twin boy and girl in 1585. The boy died aged 11.
1826 – British pharmacist John Walker invented the matchstick by accident. Walker was experimenting with flammable pastes to use in guns. He created the match when the wooden tool he used to mix the substances in his paste scraped and caught fire.
1874 – The birth of Chaim (Azriel) Weizmann, first president of Israel, who was a chemistry professor in Geneva where he became active in the World Zionist Movement. After settling in Britain in 1904 he assisted the British munitions industry during the First World War when he devised a way of extracting acetone (needed for cordite) from maize. In return, the British government promised to help his cause and establish a Jewish state in Palestine.
1914 – Miss Mary Allen and Miss E F Harburn became the first two trained policewomen to be granted official status in Britain when they reported for duty at Grantham, Lincolnshire.
1944 – Between 3,500 and 4,000 tons of explosives stored in a cavern beneath Staffordshire detonated, killing 68 people and wiping out an entire farm. The explosion was heard over 100 miles away in London, and recorded as an earthquake in Geneva.
Fact of the day
The Leaning Tower of Pisa is tilted due to the soil at its base. The soft soil it is built on is also the reason why it was able to survive 4 major earthquakes. The construction started in 1172 and the tower was finally completed in 1372.
Related posts