Sunday, May 4th "2025" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 124, known as Star Wars Day, National Lemonade Day, International Firefighters Day, Bereaved Mother’s Day. Your star sign is Taurus and your birthstone is Emerald.
1471 – Edward IV defeated a Lancastrian Army and killed Edward, Prince of Wales. Many of the Lancastrian nobles and knights sought sanctuary in Tewkesbury Abbey although the Abbey was not officially a sanctuary.
Todays birthdays
1961 – Jay Aston (64), British singer and member of the British pop group Bucks Fizz from 1981 to 1985, born in Purley, London Borough of Croydon.
1967 – Kate Garraway (58), English broadcaster and journalist (GMTV, Good Morning Britain), born in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.
1968 – Julian Barratt (57), English comedian and actor (Mighty Boosh, Mindhorn), born in Leeds, West Yorkshire.
1974 – Tony McCoy (51), Northern Irish former jockey (riding a record 4,358 winners, and was Champion Jockey a record 20 consecutive times), born in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
1979 – Lance Bass (46), American singer, dancer and member of *NSYNC (“Bye Bye Bye”, “It’s Gonna Be Me”), born in Laurel, Mississippi, United States.
1989 – Rory McIlroy (36), Northern Irish professional golfer (PGA and European Tour) and a former world number one, born in Belfast, County Down, Northern Ireland.
Famous deaths
1984 – Diana Dors (b. 1931), English actress (Lady Godiva Rides Again).
Star Wars Day: May the Fourth be with you!
May 4th has become commonly known as Star Wars Day, or National Star Wars Day and who could be surprised? The words, “May the 4th” seem to beg for the rest of the catchphrase to be uttered. In late 2012, Disney purchased Lucasfilm and has officially observed the holiday at Disneyland and Walt Disney World ever since.
The day today
1923 – The birth of Eric Sykes, radio, television and film writer, actor and director whose performing career spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and / or performed with Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers.
1932 – Al Capone went to prison. After being convicted of income tax evasion, Al Capone entered the US Penitentiary in Atlanta. There, he smuggled in cash and received special treatment, including decorations for his cell, cigars, and use of a typewriter.
1966 – Harold Wilson’s government agreed to increase doctors’ and dentists’ salaries by up to 30% after fears that thousands of GP’s would leave the Health Service for private practice.
1979 – The Conservative Party won the general election, making Margaret Thatcher Britain’s first woman prime minister.
1982 – Twenty sailors were killed when the destroyer HMS Sheffield was hit by an Argentinian Exocet missile during the Falklands War. The Falklands National Monument in Cardiff bears the names of the 255 sailors, soldiers and airmen who died on the UK side.
1984 – The death of Diana Dors, the English equivalent of the blonde bombshells of Hollywood. She described herself as, ‘The only sex symbol Britain has produced since Lady Godiva.’
2014 – Science students at the University of Leicester concluded that the wooden puppet Pinocchio (who was prone to telling tales and whose nose would double in length for each lie) could only have told a maximum of 13 lies. After 13 lies it was concluded that the nose would be 140 metres long and the force exerted downwards would cause his neck to snap.
2017 – Buckingham Palce announced that the 95 year old Duke of Edinburgh would be retiring from royal duties in the autumn. At the time of the announcement the Duke was Patron, President or a member of over 780 organisations, with which he would continue to be associated, although he would no longer play an active role by attending engagements.
Today in music
1956 – Gene Vincent recorded the classic rock ‘n roll song ‘Be Bop-A-Lula’, at Owen Bradley’s studio in Nashville, Tennessee. The song went on to be a US & UK Top 20 hit in that year. Vincent has said that he wrote the words to the song after being inspired by a comic strip called “Little Lulu”.
1974 – ABBA were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Waterloo’, the group’s first of nine UK No.1 singles was the 1974 Eurovision song contest winner for Sweden. The song was first called ‘Honey Pie’
1978 – ‘Night Fever’ by The Bee Gees was at No.1 on the UK singles chart. The group’s third No.1 and the theme from the film ‘Saturday Night Fever.’ The song was a US No.1 for over two months.
1985 – Phyllis Nelson was at No.1 on the UK singles with ‘Move Closer’, her only UK hit making the American singer a One Hit Wonder.
1991 – Cher scored her first solo UK No.1 single with ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’ from the film ‘Mermaids’. The song had been a hit for Betty Everett on 1964, and gave Cher her first No.1 in the UK since 1965’s ‘I Got You Babe’.
1996 – George Michael scored his seventh UK No.1 single as a solo artist when ‘Fastlove’ started a three-week run at the top of the chart. The second of six singles to be taken from George’s comeback album Older.
1996 – Alanis Morissette started a six-week run at No.1 on the UK album chart with Jagged Little Pill. The record produced six successful singles, including ‘You Oughta Know’, ‘Ironic’, ‘You Learn’, ‘Hand in My Pocket’, and ‘Head over Feet’.
2008 – Madonna’s latest album Hard Candy went straight to No.1 in the UK, giving the singer a chart double, with her song 4 Minutes, featuring Justin Timberlake, on top of the singles chart for a third week. Hard Candy was Madonna’s 10th number one album.
Today in history
1471 – The Battle of Tewkesbury, a significant battle in the Wars of the Roses. Edward IV defeated a Lancastrian Army and killed Edward, Prince of Wales. Many of the Lancastrian nobles and knights sought sanctuary in Tewkesbury Abbey although the Abbey was not officially a sanctuary.
1675 – King Charles II ordered the construction of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. It played a major role in the history of astronomy and navigation and is best known as the location of 0 degrees longitude, which has determined mapping co-ordinates since that time.
1780 – The first Derby was run at Epsom. The winner was Diomed. The idea of the race was first discussed in 1778 at a house party given by the 12th Earl of Derby and a toss of a coin settled the name. The other founder was Sir Charles Bunbury.
1859 – The Cornwall Railway opened across the Royal Albert Bridge and linked the counties of Devon and Cornwall. The bridge spans the River Tamar between Plymouth, on the Devon bank, and Saltash on the Cornish bank.
1896 – The first British halfpenny newspaper, the Daily Mail, was published. It was the first paper to sell more than one million copies and was heralded as the birth date of modern journalism.