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 284 of the year.

Saturday, October 11th Daily Prep.

Known as World Hospice and Palliative Care Day, National Chess Day, National Coming Out Day. Your star sign is Libra and your birthstone is Pink Tourmaline.
2023 – Wild beavers are reintroduced to Ealing, London, from Scotland after being absent from the city for 400 years.
Wild beavers are reintroduced to Ealing, London, from Scotland after being absent from the city for 400 years.
Today’s birthdays
1943 – John Nettles (82), English actor (The Liver Birds, Bergerac, Midsomer Murders), born in St Austell, Cornwall.
1956 – Neil Buchanan (69), English artist best known for presenting on British children’s television shows Art Attack and Finders Keepers, born in Aintree, Liverpool.
1957 – Dawn French (68), British actress (The Vicar of Dibley), comedian, presenter and writer (French and Saunders), born in Holyhead, Isle of Anglesey, Wales.
1960 – Nicola Bryant (65), English actress best known for her role as Peri Brown (Doctor Who, from 1984 to 1986), born in Guildford, Surrey.
1973 – Brendan Brown (52), American musician and lead singer with rock band, Wheatus (“Teenage Dirtbag”), born in Northport, New York, United States.
1992 – Cardi B (33), American rapper (“Bodak Yellow”, “I Like It”), born in Washington Heights, New York, United States.
Famous deaths
2022 – Angela Lansbury (b. 1925), British-American actress (Bedknobs and Broomsticks) best known for her role as Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote.
The day today
1919 – The first airline meals were served on a Handley-Page flight from London to Paris. They were pre-packed lunch boxes at 3 shillings each (15p). Passengers served themselves picnic-style, as there were no flight attendants, trolleys, or seat trays on the converted bomber.
1956 – Great Britain conducted nuclear tests in Maralinga, Australia, as part of the Operation Buffalo (1956) and Operation Antler (1957) test series. These tests, which involved both major atomic explosions and smaller radiological “minor trials”, led to significant radioactive contamination of the site, affecting Indigenous communities and military personnel and requiring extensive cleanup efforts into the 2000s.

1957 – The largest radio telescope in the world (at that time) was switched on at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire. Originally called the “250 ft telescope”, it was renamed the Lovell Telescope in 1987 after Sir Bernard Lovell, who designed it and was the director of Jodrell Bank.

1982 – The Mary Rose, which had been the pride of Henry VIII’s English fleet until it sank in the Solent in 1545, was raised, by the Mary Rose Trust. It was one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology.
1987 – A huge sonar exploration known as Operation Deepscan, searched for the Loch Ness Monster but found no definitive evidence, though it did detect three unexplained sonar “contacts” that could have been large seals or groups of salmon.
1988 – Magdalene College, Cambridge, the last college to admit female students, began to welcome its first female students, leading to a protest by some male undergraduates who wore black armbands and flew the college flag at half-mast. This act symbolized their mourning for the perceived “death” of the single-sex college environment, though the protests were not extensive and didn’t last long.
2014 – A would-be thief tried to saw through the standing leg of the monument to Eric Morecambe, in the legendary comedian’s home town of Morecambe.
2016 – Samsung permanently discontinued the Galaxy Note 7 after a months-long crisis involving devices overheating, catching fire, and exploding due to battery design and manufacturing defects from two different suppliers. Following an initial recall and replacement with phones from a different battery supplier, further incidents with the replacement devices led to the final decision to halt all production and sales to ensure customer safety.
2020 – Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes matched Michael Schumacher’s record of 91 Formula 1 victories by winning the Eifel Grand Prix at Germany’s Nürburgring.
2023 – Wild beavers are reintroduced to Ealing, London, from Scotland after being absent from the city for 400 years. This project, part of the Mayor of London’s Rewild London Fund, aims to restore lost ecosystems, boost biodiversity, and create natural flood defenses.
2024 – England beats Pakistan by an innings & 47 runs in 1st cricket Test in Multan; first time in Test history a side conceding 500 in 1st innings has gone on to win by an innings; 7-823 England’s highest score since WWII.
Today in music
1962 – The Beatles made their first appearance on the UK singles chart with ‘Love Me Do’ which peaked at No. 4 on the chart.
1974 – John Denver was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Annie’s Song.’ The song was a tribute to his wife and was written in 10 minutes while he was on a ski lift.
1980 – The Police scored their second UK No.1 album with their third studio release ‘Zenyatta Mondatta’, which featured, ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’, ‘Canary in a Coalmine and ‘De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da.’

1986 – Madonna was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with the title track from her album. ‘True Blue’ her third UK No.1. The title came from a favorite expression of her then husband Sean Penn and was a direct tribute to him.

1986 – Janet Jackson started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘When I Think Of You’, her first US No.1, a No.10 hit in the UK.
1997 – The Verve started a four-week run at No.1 on the UK album chart with their third album Urban Hymns. The band’s best-selling release features ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’, and ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’.
1997 – Elton John went to No.1 on the singles chart with ‘Candle In The Wind 97’ A re-write of his 1974 hit about Marilyn Monroe. This version was raising funds for the Diana, Princess of Wales charity, following her death in Paris. It went on to become the biggest selling single in the world ever.
2005 – Freddie Mercury’s 1974 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow was offered for auction on eBay by his sister, Kashmira Cooke, who had inherited the car from him. The luxury vehicle had not appeared in public since 2002, when it had been used to transport the Bulsara family to the premiere of the Queen stage musical We Will Rock You. It came with a box of Kleenex Mansize tissues left in the car by Freddie.
2009 – 54-year-old Jo Wood, wife of The Rolling Stones Ronnie Wood was granted a divorce after 24 years of marriage on the grounds of adultery. The couple split in 2008 after the guitarist, 64, began a relationship with a 20-year-old woman.
2016 – Rod Stewart said he was “on cloud nine” after being knighted by the Duke of Cambridge at Buckingham Palace. The singer was honoured in the Queen’s birthday honours list in recognition of his services to music and charity.
Today in history
1216 – King John infamously lost the Crown Jewels while trying to cross The Wash estuary (East Anglia).
1521 – Pope Leo X conferred the title of ‘Defender of the Faith’ (Fidei Defensor) on England’s Henry VIII for his book supporting Catholic principles.
1649 – After a ten-day siege, English New Model Army troops, under the command of Oliver Cromwell, stormed the town of Wexford, Ireland, killing over 2,000 Irish Confederate troops and 1,500 civilians.
1727 – King George II and his wife Caroline were crowned as king and queen of Great Britain and Ireland at Westminster Abbey in London.
1738 – The birth of Arthur Phillip, English admiral and first governor of New South Wales, who founded the first penal colony at Sydney.
1899 – The start of the Boer War between the British Empire and the Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal in southern Africa.