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 346 of the year.

Friday, December 12th Daily Prep.

Today is Gingerbread House Day, Gingerbread Decorating Day and National Poinsettia Day. Your star sign is Sagittarius and your birthstone is Blue Topaz.
1988 – Britain’s worst rail crash for 20 years killed 35 and injured 113 people when a packed express train ran into the back of a stationary commuter train near Clapham Junction.
Britain’s worst rail crash for 20 years killed 35 and injured 113 people when a packed express train ran into the back of a stationary commuter train near Clapham Junction.
Today’s birthdays
1940 – Dionne Warwick (85), American singer (“Walk On By”) and actress, born in East Orange, New Jersey, United States.

1949 – Bill Nighy (76), English actor (Love Actually, Underworld, Shaun of the Dead, Valkyrie), born in Caterham, Surrey.

1961 – Daniel O’Donnell (64), Irish singer (“Pretty Little Girl From Omagh”), television presenter and philanthropist, born in Kincasslagh, County Donegal, Ireland.
1968 – Kate Humble (57), English television presenter and narrator, mainly working for the BBC (Kate Humble’s Coastal Britain, Wild Things), born in Wimbledon, London.
1970 – Jennifer Connelly (55), American actress (Labyrinth, Top Gun, Top Gun: Maverick, Alita: Battle Angel), born in Cairo, New York, United States.
1976 – Dan Hawkins (49), English musician and vocalist with the Darkness (“I Believe in a Thing Called Love”), founded and fronted by his older brother Justin Hawkins, born in Surrey.
Famous deaths
2017 – Keith Chegwin (b. 1957), English TV presenter also known by the nickname Cheggers (Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, It’s a Knockout, Cheggers Plays Pop).
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The day today
1911 – Delhi became the new capital of India on December 12, 1911, when King George V announced the decision to move it from Calcutta. The move was due to the need for a more centrally located capital and to distance the British government from the growing anti-British sentiment in Calcutta. Construction for the new capital, New Delhi, began in 1912 and the buildings were formally inaugurated in 1931.

1955 – Christopher Cockerell patented his prototype of the hovercraft. He had tested his theories using a hair-dryer and tin cans and found his work to have potential, but the idea took some years to develop, and he was forced to sell personal possessions in order to finance his research.

1961 – Adolf Eichmann, a former Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lt-colonel) and one of the major organisers of the Holocaust, was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity in a landmark trial held in Jerusalem, Israel. His conviction was a pivotal moment in bringing Nazi perpetrators to justice and ensuring the victims’ stories were heard globally. After being captured by Israeli Mossad agents in Argentina in 1960 and covertly brought to Israel, he faced a highly publicised trial that began on April 11, 1961, and captivated the world.

1966 – English sailor Francis Chichester arrived at Sydney in his ketch Gipsy Moth IV – half way in his bid to become the first man to sail solo around the world. On 28 May 1967, after 226 days, he arrived back in Plymouth and became the first person to achieve a true, solo, circumnavigation of the world from West to East via the great capes.

1982 – 30,000 women formed a 9 mile human chain that encircled Greenham Common air base in Berkshire, in protest against the proposed siting of US Cruise missiles there.
1988 – Britain’s worst rail crash for 20 years killed 35 and injured 113 people when a packed express train ran into the back of a stationary commuter train near Clapham Junction.
1988 – The first satellite pictures were beamed to London’s betting shops to allow them to watch the races live from many race courses.
1992 – Princess Anne remarried and became Mrs. Timothy Laurence after a small family wedding in Scotland. She was previously married to Mark Phillips (1973).
2001 – Roy Whiting was found guilty of the abduction and murder of eight year old Sarah Payne, and sentenced to life in prison. The high profile case led to ‘Sarah’s Law’, by allowing controlled access to the Sex Offenders’ Register, so that parents with young children could know if a child sex-offender was living in their area.
2006 – Peugeot’s Ryton Plant in Coventry produced its final car, which was a Peugeot 206. This marked the end of 110 years of volume car production in the city and resulted in the loss of 2,300 jobs as the plant officially closed in January 2007.
2012 – Ofcom announced that Internet shopping was more popular in the UK than in any other major country, with an annual average spend of £1,083 a year, compared with the second highest (Australia) at £842.
2013 – Doctors in Derby and Nottingham analysing the Ian Fleming novels showed that James Bond drank the equivalent of one and a half bottles of wine every day. They said that he was not the man to trust to deactivate a nuclear bomb and that his love of the bottle would have left him impotent and at death’s door. Excluding the 36 days that Bond was in prison, hospital or rehab, the spy downed 1,150 units of alcohol in 88 days, four times the recommended maximum intake for men in the UK.
2014 – A study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) found that 88.7% of the verified Darwin Award winners over a 20-year period (1995-2014) were male. This supports the tongue-in-cheek “Male Idiot Theory” (MIT) proposed by the researchers.
Today in music
1963 – The Beatles were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with I Want to Hold Your Hand the group’s third No.1 (and first American No.1) and this year’s UK Christmas No.1.

1968 – The Beatles sixth album Rubber Soul started a 42-week run on the UK albums chart. It was the second Beatles LP to contain only original material. For the first time in their career, the band were able to record the album over a continuous period, uninterrupted by touring commitments.

1970 – Smokey Robinson and the Miracles started a run at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Tears Of A Clown’. It was the group’s 26th Top 40 hit and first No.1, also No.1 in the US.
1981 – The Human League had their only UK No.1 single with ‘Don’t You Want Me.’ The Christmas hit of 81, the biggest seller of 1981 and Virgin Records first No.1 UK single. The group’s singer Phil Oakey disliked the song so much that it was relegated to the last track on their latest album Dare.
1985 – Scottish keyboard player Ian Stewart died of a heart attack in his doctor’s Harley Street waiting room. Co-founder of The Rolling Stones (Stewart was the first to respond to Brian Jones’s advertisement in Jazz News seeking musicians to form a rhythm & blues group). Stewart was dismissed from the line-up by the band’s manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, in May 1963 but remained as road manager and piano player. He played on all The Rolling Stones albums between 1964 and 1983.
1987 – George Michael started a four week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Faith’ after reaching No.1 in the UK in November.

1992 – Whitney Houston started a twenty-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with ‘The Bodyguard’. It has sold over 44 million copies worldwide, becoming the best-selling soundtrack album of all time, as well as one of the best selling albums of all time.

1998 – A seven inch single by the Quarry Men featuring John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison was named as the rarest record of all time, only 50 copies were made with each copy being valued at £10,000.
2008 – The town where Mick Jagger and Keith Richards grew up announced it was to name streets in a new estate after Rolling Stones hits. The 13 streets in Dartford, Kent, were to be given names such as Angie Mews, Babylon Close, Sympathy Street, Little Red Walk and Satisfaction Street. Leader of the council, Jeremy Kite, said he thought Ruby Tuesday Drive sounded a “fantastic” place to live, but police were concerned the street signs might be stolen by fans.
Today in history
1724 – The birth of Admiral Samuel Hood, first Viscount, British naval commander and a skilful tactician. He was known particularly for his service in the American War of Independence and French Revolutionary Wars and he acted as a mentor to Horatio Nelson.
1866 – The Oaks explosion remains the worst mining disaster in England. A series of explosions caused by firedamp ripped through the underground workings at the Oaks Colliery at Hoyle Mill near Stairfoot in Barnsley killing 361 miners and rescuers. It was the worst mining disaster in the United Kingdom until the 1913 Senghenydd explosion in Wales.
1889 – Robert Browning, English poet, died. He was buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey. His grave now lies immediately adjacent to that of Alfred Tennyson.
1896 – Marconi gave the first public demonstration of radio at Toynbee Hall, London. On the same day, in 1901, Marconi carried out the first transatlantic radio transmission from Poldhu, Cornwall, to St John’s, Newfoundland, a distance of 1800 miles.
1899 – The first case of the bubonic plague was announced in Honolulu when You Chong, a bookkeeper in Honolulu’s Chinatown, fell ill on December 9, 1899, and developed telltale buboes before dying three days later. Four neighbors succumbed quickly thereafter.