Monday, September 15th "2025" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 258, Known as World Afro Day, World Engineers Day, National Cheese Toast Day. Your star sign is Virgo and your birthstone is Sapphire.
1916 – First use of tanks in warfare, “Little Willies” at Battle of Flers-Courcelette, part of the Battle of the Somme. A total of forty-nine tanks were set to be deployed at intervals along the British assaulting line.
Todays birthdays
1946 – Tommy Lee Jones (79), American actor (Men In Black, Double Jeopardy, The Fugitive) and film director, born in San Saba, Texas, United States.
1955 – Brendan O’Carroll (70), Irish actor, comedian, director, producer and writer (Agnes Brown – Mrs Browns Boys), born in Finglas, Dublin, Ireland.
1972 – Jimmy Carr (53), British-Irish comedian, presenter (8 Out of 10 Cats, Big Fat Quiz of the Year) and writer, born in Isleworth, London Borough of Hounslow.
1977 – Tom Hardy (48), English actor (Venom, Legend, Bronson, The Dark Knight Rises), producer and screenwriter, born in Hammersmith, London.
1977 – Sophie Dahl (48), English author (The Man with the Dancing Eyes), former fashion model and granddaughter of author Roald Dahl, born in London.
1984 – Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex (41), member of the British royal family. As the younger son of King Charles III and Diana, Princess of Wales, born in St Mary’s Hospital, London.
Famous deaths
2007 – Colin McRae (b. 1968), Scottish race car driver, 1991 and 1992 British Rally Champion, and the first British driver to win the World Rally Championship Drivers’ title in 1995.
2024 – Tito Jackson (b. 1953), American singer and founding member of the Jackson 5 (later known as the Jacksons).
The day today
1901 – The birth of Sir Donald Bailey, English civil engineer who invented the Bailey bridge, a wood and steel bridge small and light enough to be carried in trucks and lifted into place by hand, yet strong enough to carry tanks. Field Marshal Montgomery is recorded as saying that without the Bailey bridge, we would not have won the war.
1940 – The tide turned in the Battle of Britain as the German air force sustained heavy losses inflicted by the Royal Air Force. The defeat was serious enough to convince Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to abandon his plans for an invasion of Britain. The day was chosen as “Battle of Britain Day”.
1960 – London introduced Traffic Wardens onto the streets of the capital.
1971 – Prince Charles joined the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, under the graduate entry scheme, as Acting Sub-Lieutenant. The Duke of Edinburgh, and his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, had both been at Dartmouth.
1985 – Tony Jacklin’s team of golfers beats the United States in the Ryder Cup for the first time in 28 years after dominating the final day of the competition.
1997 – Google.com is registered as a domain name. While the domain was registered by Google’s founders, the company itself was formally incorporated on September 4, 1998.
2000 – The 2000 Summer Olympic Games opened in Sydney, Australia. During the ceremony, the Games were formally opened by Governor-General Sir William Deane, and the Olympic flame was lit by Australian athlete Cathy Freeman.
2014 – Phones 4u, which had more than over 600 stores throughout the United Kingdom, went into administration after EE, Vodafone, Orange & O2, the company’s final remaining suppliers, ended their contracts.
Today in music
1956 – Elvis Presley started a five-week run at No.1 on the US charts with ‘Don’t Be Cruel’. The track went on to become Presley’s biggest selling single, with sales over six million by 1961. This “double-sided hit” which had ‘Hound Dog’ on the B side, became the most successful on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. One side reached No.1 on the chart, the other No.2. The two titles spent a combined 55 weeks in the Top 100 in 1956-1957.
1962 – The Four Seasons started a five week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Sherry’, it made No.8 in the UK. They became the first American group to have three No.1’s in succession.
1966 – The Small Faces were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘All Or Nothing’, their only No.1 hit. According to Kay Marriott, Steve Marriott’s mother, Steve wrote the song about his split with ex-fiancee Sue Oliver, though first wife Jenny Rylance states that Marriott told her he wrote the song for her as a result of her split with Rod Stewart.
1984 – Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘Relax’ became the longest running chart hit since Engelbert Humperdink’s ‘Release Me’, after spending 43 weeks on the UK singles chart.
1990 – George Michael scored his second UK No.1 solo album with his second release ‘Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1’. The album went on to sell over 8 million copies worldwide.
2006 – The Casbah Coffee Club in Liverpool where The Beatles played their first gig was given a Grade II listed building status after a recommendation from English Heritage. John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison played in the converted coal cellar of the house in West Derby, in August 1959 as The Quarrymen.
2024 – Donald Trump was found liable to pay damages to London singer and songwriter Eddy Grant for using his song ‘Electric Avenue’ without permission. It had taken Grant more than four years to sue the Republican candidate in this year’s presidential election in the US courts, over his 2020 campaign video that used a 40-second clip of the song. A federal judge in Manhattan ruled Mr Trump breached Mr Grant’s copyright for his 1983 hit, and was now liable for damages as well as paying for the singer’s legal fees.
2024 – Tito Jackson, from the American family music group The Jackson 5 died of a heart attack in Gallup, New Mexico at the age of 70. The Jackson 5 were the first group to debut with four consecutive No.1 hits on the Hot 100 with the songs ‘I Want You Back’, ‘ABC’, ‘The Love You Save’, and ‘I’ll Be There’. And with The Jacksons, had the 1979 hit ‘Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)’.
Today in history
1616 – Spanish Catholic priest Joseph Calasanz started the first public and free school in Europe. Calasanz founded the “Pious Schools,” the first free school in Frascati, Italy, which Pope Paul V accepted to help encourage education for the poor.
1830 – George Stephenson’s Manchester and Liverpool railway opened. During the ceremony, William Huskisson, MP, became the first person to be killed by a train when he crossed the track to shake hands with the Duke of Wellington.
1835 – Aboard the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin discovered the Galapagos Islands. The Beagle set off four years prior from Plymouth, England. The first European set foot on the Galapagos Islands, which marked the start of Darwin’s research into the theory of evolution.
1859 – The death of the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He was involved in dock design, railway engineering and marine engineering. He built the SS Great Western in 1837, SS Great Britain in 1843 & SS Great Eastern in 1858, each the largest in the world at launch date.
1871 – The first British-based international mail order business was begun by the Army and Navy Co-operative. They published their first catalogue in February 1872.
1890 – Agatha Christie, English detective novelist was born. Her most notable works being Murder on the Orient Express and The Mousetrap among others.