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 311 of the year.

Friday, November 7th Daily Prep.

Known as Hug a Bear Day, National Cancer Awareness Day, Project Management Day. Your star sign is Scorpio and your birthstone is Topaz.

1945 – Captain H J Wilson became the first man to exceed 600 miles per hour (970 km/h), flying a Gloster Meteor jet fighter at Herne Bay in Kent. The aircraft was powered by two 3,500 lb thrust Rolls Royce Derwent V turbojets.
Captain H J Wilson became the first man to exceed 600 miles per hour (970 km/h), flying a Gloster Meteor jet fighter at Herne Bay in Kent. The aircraft was powered by two 3,500 lb thrust Rolls Royce Derwent V turbojets.
Today’s birthdays
1963 – John Barnes (62), British former professional football player (Liverpool FC, Newcastle United, England) and manager (Tranmere Rovers), born in Kingston, Jamaica.
1967 – David Guetta (58), French DJ and music producer (“Titanium”, “When Love Takes Over”, “Where Them Girls At “), born in Paris, France.
1967 – Sharleen Spiteri (58), Scottish singer and guitarist, best known as the lead singer of the rock band Texas (“I Don’t Want a Lover”), born in North Lanarkshire, Scotland.
1970 – Neil Hannon (55), Northern Irish singer-songwriter and co-founder of the Divine Comedy (“Something for the Weekend”), born in Londonderry.
1978 – Rio Ferdinand (46), British former professional footballer (Manchester United, West Ham United, England), born in King’s College Hospital, London.
1988 – Tinie Tempah (38), English rapper and singer (“Written In The Stars”, “Pass Out”), born in Plumstead, London.
1996 – Lorde (29), New Zealand singer-songwriter (“Royals”, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”), born in Takapuna, Auckland, New Zealand.
Famous deaths
2022 – Leslie Phillips (b. 1924), English actor (Carry On Teacher, Carry On Constable, The Navy Lark). He achieved prominence in the 1950s, playing smooth, upper-class comic roles utilising his “Ding dong” and “Hello” catchphrases.
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The day today
1956 – An official ceasefire during the Suez Crisis following the British and French invasion of Egypt after President Nasser had announced the nationalisation of the Suez Canal.
1964 – The country’s first drink-driving advertisement was shown on television, with the message “Drinking and driving are dangerous.” The ad, which differed from later shock tactics, was a more polite public information film set at an office Christmas party.
1974 – Lord Lucan mysteriously disappeared following the murder of his children’s nanny and a serious assault on his wife. His car was found abandoned and bloody, but he was never seen again, leading to a decades-long mystery filled with theories about his whereabouts, from suicide to fleeing to another country. He was officially declared dead in 1999, though some friends and family continued to believe he might have been alive.
1993 – French Williams driver Alain Prost finishes 2nd in season ending Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide to claim his 4th F1 World Drivers Championship by 26 points over Ayrton Senna.
1996 – A team of scientists from the U.S., UK, and Australia reported that life on Earth may have originated around 350 million years earlier than previously thought, based on evidence suggesting that some microbial life began immediately after a period of intense meteor bombardment.

1998 – The families of World War 1 soldiers executed for cowardice or desertion laid a wreath at the Cenotaph in Whitehall in the first ceremony of its kind to pay tribute to the 306 servicemen who died. Those soldiers now have a memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

2014 – Alan Knight, a fraudster from Swansea, who pretended to be quadriplegic for two years in an attempt to evade punishment for conning an elderly and vulnerable neighbour was jailed for four and a half years.
2016 – The death (aged 95) of the veteran broadcaster Sir Jimmy Young. He spent almost three decades at BBC Radio 2 and was one of the original Radio 1 DJs when the station launched in 1967.
2018 – Actress Emma Thompson (Nanny McPhee, Cruella, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Love Actually) is made a Dame of the British Empire by Prince William at Buckingham Palace, London.
Today in music
1951 – Frank Sinatra married his second wife actress Ava Gardner, the couple split up in 1953 and divorced in 1957. Sinatra was married three other times, to his first wife Nancy Barbato, to the actress Mia Farrow and finally to Barbara Marx, to whom he was married at his death.
1958 – Eddie Cochran made his UK chart debut with ‘Summertime Blues’. It reached No.18 in the UK & No.8 in the US. The song has been covered by many artists, including being a No.1 hit for country music artist, Alan Jackson, and a notable hit for the English rock band, The Who.
1967 – Reg Dwight (Elton John) and his song writing partner Bernie Taupin signed to DJM publishing, their signatures had to be witnessed by their parents because they were both under 21 years of age. Taupin answered an advertisement for a lyric writer placed in the New Musical Express, the pair have since collaborated on over 30 albums.
1969 – The Rolling Stones kicked off their 6th North American tour at Fort Collins state University, Colorado. Also on the bill was Ike and Tina Turner, Chuck Berry and B.B. King.
1987 – Tiffany became the youngest act to score a US No.1 since Michael Jackson (‘Ben’, in 1972) with ‘I Think we’re Alone Now’. The song written by Ritchie Cordell was initially a 1967 hit for Tommy James & the Shondells.
1999 – Geri Halliwell went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Lift Me Up’, beating former colleague Emma Bunton’s single which entered the chart at No.2. Sales of Geri’s single were helped by front-page press reports about her dating Chris Evans.
2004 – Elton John turned the air blue live on the Chris Moyles Radio 1 breakfast show using the words; f****ing, w**k, and t**s. The BBC received complaints, but the broadcasting regulator Ofcom later cleared the broadcaster of any wrongdoing.
Today in history
1665 – The London Gazette published its first edition under the name The Oxford Gazette. It is the longest-running and continuously published newspaper in the UK. King Charles II moved his court to Oxford to escape London’s plague in 1666 and established the government paper there. Once the epidemic subsided, he moved himself, his court, the paper, and the paper’s name to London.
1687 – The birth of William Stukeley, English clergyman, friend of Sir Isaac Newton and antiquarian who pioneered the archaeological investigation of the prehistoric monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury.
1775 – Lord Dunmore promised freedom to every slave who enlisted into the British Army.
1783 – John Austin (who was sentenced to death for the attempted murder of a labourer called John Spicer) became the last person to be publicly hanged on London’s Tyburn Gallows. The hanging took place in Tyburn Village, which had been the official site for hangings for nearly 600 years. Future hangings would occur outside Newgate at the “New Drop.”
1805 – The birth of Thomas Brassey, an English civil engineering contractor who was responsible for building much of the world’s railways in the 19th century. By 1847, he had built one-third of the railways in Britain, and by time of his death in 1870 he had built an incredible one in every twenty miles of railway in the world. He also built the structures associated with those railways, including docks, bridges, viaducts, stations, tunnels and drainage works.