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 318 of the year.

Friday, November 14th Daily Prep.

Known as World Diabetes Day. Your star sign is Scorpio and your birthstone is Topaz.
1973 – Bobby Moore made his 108th and final appearance for England against Italy which featured 108 caps, 90 of which were as captain, and most importantly included the game which saw England lift the world cup trophy in 1966.
Bobby Moore made his 108th and final appearance for England against Italy which featured 108 caps, 90 of which were as captain, and most importantly included the game which saw England lift the world cup trophy in 1966.
Today’s birthdays
1948 – HRH King Charles III (77), King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms, born in Buckingham Palace, London.
1959 – Paul McGann (66), English actor (Luther, Hornblower, Queen of the Damned) and as the eighth incarnation of the Doctor, in the Doctor Who series, born in Kensington, Liverpool.
1967 – Letitia Dean (58), English actress (The Hello Girls), best known for her role as Sharon Watts in Eastenders, born in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire.
1975 – Faye Tozer (50), English singer and dancer best known as a member of British pop group Steps (“Last Thing on My Mind”, “One for Sorrow”), born in Northampton.

1975 – Travis Barker (50), American drummer (Blink-182 – “All the Small Things”) and husband to Kourtney Kardashian, born in Fontana, California, United States.

Famous deaths
2015 – Warren Mitchell (b. 1926), English actor best known for playing the bigoted cockney Alf Garnett (Till Death Us Do Part, In Sickness and in Health).

2020 – Des O’Connor (b. 1932), English comedian, singer and television presenter (Take Your Pick, Today with Des and Mel).

The day today
1911 – George V and Queen Mary landed at Gibraltar, the first time a reigning British monarch had visited a British Commonwealth country.
1922 – BBC radio was first broadcast from Alexandra Palace. The first programme was broadcast at 6 pm from 2LO London (later the BBC). A news bulletin, repeated again at 9 pm, and a weather report were the entire programme.
1936 – The birth of Freddie Garrity, singer, frontman and the comical element in the 1960s pop band, Freddie and the Dreamers. The group disbanded in the late 1960s but he formed a new version of Freddie and the Dreamers and toured regularly for the next two decades until 2001, when he was diagnosed with emphysema. He died on 19th May 2006.
1940 – 449 German Luftwaffe bombers dropped 503 tons of bombs and 881 incendiaries onto the City of Coventry, killing over 500 civilians and destroying the medieval cathedral. A new cathedral was built adjacent to the old, and the bombed cathedral was left as a memorial.
1973 – Bobby Moore made his 108th and final appearance for England against Italy which featured 108 caps, 90 of which were as captain, and most importantly included the game which saw England lift the world cup trophy in 1966.
2006 – Casino Royale with Daniel Craig as James Bond had its world premiere in London at the Odeon Leicester Square.
2010 – German Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel wins the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at Yas Marina Circuit to claim his first F1 World Drivers Championship by 4 points from Fernando Alonso.

2011 – Coronation Street become the first prime time television show in the UK to feature product placement, when a Nationwide Building Society cash machine was shown in the episode, after ITV signed a deal with the company. The law was changed in February after commercial broadcasters, hit by falling advertising revenues, lobbied the Government.

2013 – A standards of living report by price comparison website Uswitch.com, which examined every aspect of life in different parts of Britain, named Solihull, home to Land Rover’s main production plant and former ‘Good Life’ actress Felicity Kendal as the best place to live in the UK.
2014 – Paedophile Angus Sinclair (aged 69), who says he may have attacked hundreds of victims, was jailed for life (and ordered to spend at least 37 years behind bars) for raping and murdering 17 year-olds Helen Scott and Christine Eadie in 1977. Sinclair had met his victims in Edinburgh’s “World’s End” pub before raping and strangling them. He became the first person north of the border to be tried for the same crime twice after Scotland scrapped its double jeopardy law.

2014 – The 3,000th edition of the BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, which was first broadcast on 29th January 1942. The guest for the 3,000th show was 95 year old Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown, the Navy Fleet Air Arm’s most decorated pilot and the record holder for the most flight deck landings.

Today in music
1987 – T’Pau started a five week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘China In Your Hand’. The song’s title according to singer Carol Decker is the effect you get if you hold a china cup to a light, you can see your hand through it.
1987 – George Michael went to No.1 on the UK album chart with his debut solo album ‘Faith’. The album won several awards including the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1989. To date, the album has sold over 20 million copies worldwide.
1992 – Bon Jovi went to No.1 on the UK album chart with ‘Keep The Faith’ their fifth studio album and second UK No.1. The album produced six UK Top 20 hit singles, ‘Keep The Faith’, ‘Bed Of Roses’, ‘In These Arms’, ‘I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead’, ‘I Believe’ and ‘Dry County’.
1999 – Robbie Williams went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘She’s The One / It’s Only Us’, his second UK No.1. ‘She’s The One’ was written by World Party leader Karl Wallinger.
2004 – U2 went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Vertigo’, the bands fifth UK No.1, taken from ‘How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb’.
2004 – The Rolling Stones were refused permission to pursue a claim against their former record company Decca for unpaid royalties through the courts. A High Court judge in London said the dispute would go to arbitration and not be decided in court. The dispute was over their Forty Licks compilation CD, which was released in 2002 and was the first collection to span their entire career.
2006 – Led Zeppelin were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame by Roger Taylor of Queen. Jimmy Page personally accepted the award in front of a 3,000 strong audience during the 3rd annual induction ceremony which was held at the famed Alexandra Palace in London.
2020 – Kylie Minogue’s fifteenth studio album, Disco, reached number one on the UK album chart in November 2020. This achievement made her the first female artist to have a number one album in five different decades.
2024 – Welsh drummer Dennis Bryon died in Nashville at the age of 75. With Amen Corner he had the 1969 UK No.1 single ‘If Paradise Is Half As Nice’, plus five other UK Top 40 hits. He also worked with The Bee Gees, playing drums on all recordings, television, and tours from 1973 to 1980, including nine No.1 singles.
Today in history
1647 – King Charles I was imprisoned on the Isle of Wight, primarily at Carisbrooke Castle, after a failed attempt to escape from his house arrest at Hampton Court Palace.

1666 – Samuel Pepys described in his diary of a blood transfusion between two dogs (performed by Thomas Croone, an anatomist and physician). This was just the second such attempt on record, and came just months after the discovery of blood circulation mechanisms through the heart.

1687 – The death of Eleanor ‘Nell’ Gwyn, long-time mistress of King Charles II of England and mother of two of his illegitimate children.
1770 – James Bruce, Scottish traveller and travel writer, discovered what he believed to be the source of the Blue Nile. Bruce admitted that the White Nile was the larger stream but that the Blue Nile was the Nile of the ancients and thus he was the discoverer of its source.
1864 – Franz Müller, a German tailor, who had murdered Thomas Briggs in the first murder committed on a British train (on 9th July) was publicly hanged at Newgate prison.
1886 – The speed limit for horseless carriages in Britain was raised from 4 mph (2 mph in towns) to 14 mph. It was marked by the first London to Brighton Car Run, which only became a regular and official event from 1927, when it was sponsored by the Daily Sketch.