September 2nd "2024" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 246 of the year! Known as Pierce Your Ears Day, VJ DAY – Victory Over Japan Day. If you were born today you were likely conceived the week of December 10th in the previous year. Your star sign is Virgo and your birthstone is Sapphire.
1945 – World War II officially ended when Japanese officials, aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, surrendered on behalf of their country.
Todays birthdays
1962 – Keir Starmer (62), British politician and barrister who has served as Leader of the Labour Party since 2020, born in Southwark, London.
1964 – Keanu Reeves (60), Canadian actor (John Wick film franchise, The Matrix, Constantine, Speed), born in Beirut, Lebanon.
1965 – Lennox Lewis (59), English former professional boxer who competed from 1989 to 2003 (three-time world heavyweight champion), born in West Ham, London.
1966 – Salma Hayek (58), Mexican and American actress and film producer (From Dusk Till Dawn, Desperado, Magic Mike’s Last Dance), born in Coatzacoalcos, Mexico.
1982 – Joey Barton (42), English professional football manager (Bristol Rovers) and former player (Manchester City), born in Huyton, Merseyside.
Famous deaths
1973 – J. R. R. Tolkien (b. 1892), English novelist, short story writer, poet, and philologist (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings).
The day today
1979 – Police discovered the body of a young woman – thought to be the twelfth victim of the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ – in an alleyway near the centre of Bradford.
1996 – British boxer Frank Bruno achieved his dream of becoming world heavyweight champion when he outpointed Oliver McCall to win the WBC title at Wembley Stadium in London
1997 – Six freelance photographers and a dispatch rider were jointly charged with manslaughter following the car crash in Paris in which Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed were killed.
1999 – Sir Bobby Robson, veteran ex-England manager and self-confessed Geordie, became manager of Newcastle United. Appointed at the age of 66 he was the oldest manager in the league. His first home game in charge was particularly memorable and impressive: an 8–0 victory over Sheffield Wednesday. The result remains the club’s record Premier League home win.
2008 – Google launched Google Chrome, its own cross-platform web browser.
By 2011 Chrome was the preferred browser over Mozilla Firefox, and in 2013 it overtook Internet Explorer in the US. As of September 2022, it was the most commonly used browser in the world.
Today in music
1972 – Rod Stewart was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘You Wear It Well’, the singers second UK No.1 was taken from his album Never A Dull Moment.
1995 – Michael Jackson went to No.1 on the US singles chart with a song written by R. Kelly ‘You Are Not Alone’. It holds a Guinness World Record as the first song in the 37 year history of the Billboard Hot 100 to debut at No.1.
2000 – Madonna was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Music’, her 10th UK No.1 single, from her album of the same title. The video stars Madonna as well as comedian Sacha Baron Cohen as his famous character Ali G.
2007 – 17 year-old Jamaican-American singer Sean Kingston went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Beautiful Girls’, also a US No.1. The song samples the bassline from Ben E. King’s classic ‘Stand by Me’.
2013 – Sir Elton John won the first ever Brits Icon award in a gala concert which marked his stage return after surgery for appendicitis. Elton was presented with the prize by his friend, singer Rod Stewart, who described him as “the second-best rock singer ever”. The Icon prize had been created by the BPI, the music industry’s trade body, which also runs the Brit Awards.
Today in history
1666 – The Great Fire of London began in a baker’s shop in Pudding Lane, and rapidly spread throughout the city, destroying most of London’s buildings and houses. Although 13,000 buildings were destroyed in the four-day blaze only six people died.
1685 – The beheading of Lady Alice Lisle, the last woman to have been executed by a judicial sentence of beheading in England. She was tried by Judge Jeffreys at the opening of the Bloody Assizes at Winchester and was executed for harbouring fugitives after the defeat of the Monmouth Rebellion at the Battle of Sedgemoor.
1752 – The Julian calendar was used in Britain and the Colonies ‘officially’ for the last time, almost two centuries after most of Western Europe had adopted the Gregorian calendar.
1807 – The Royal Navy bombarded Copenhagen with fire bombs and phosphorus rockets to prevent Denmark from surrendering its fleet to Napoleon.
1898 – The Battle of Omdurman. Lord Kitchener retook Sudan for Britain in an act of revenge for the 1885 death of General Gordon. It was a demonstration of the superiority of a highly disciplined army equipped with modern rifles, machine guns, and artillery over a force twice their size armed with older weapons. Around 10,000 Mahdists were killed and 13,000 were wounded. Kitchener’s force lost 47 men, with 382 wounded.