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 292 of the year.

Sunday, October 19th Daily Prep.

Known as Evaluate Your Life Day, World Humanitarian Action Day, National New Friends Day. Your star sign is Libra and your birthstone is Pink Tourmaline.
2013 – The violin that was apparently played to calm passengers on the Titanic as it sank was sold for £900,000 in just 10 minutes at auction in Wiltshire.
The violin that was apparently played to calm passengers on the Titanic as it sank was sold for £900,000 in just 10 minutes at auction in Wiltshire.
Today’s birthdays
1945 – John Lithgow (80), American actor (3rd Rock From the Sun, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Shrek), born in Rochester, New York, United States.
1954 – Sam Allardyce (71), English football manager and former professional player, born in Old Park Farm, Dudley, West Midlands.
1960 – Dan “Woody” Woodgate (65), English musician and rock drummer with Madness (“Our House”, “Baggy Trousers”), born in Kensington, West London.
1962 – Evander Holyfield (63), American former professional boxer who competed between 1984 and 2011, born in Atmore, Alabama, United States.
1963 – Sinitta (62), American-British singer (“So Macho”, “Toy Boy”, “Right Back Where We Started From”), born in Seattle, Washington, United States.
1968 – Kacey Ainsworth (57), English actress, known for her role as Little Mo Mitchell in the BBC soap opera EastEnders, born in Ware, Hertfordshire.
Famous deaths
2014 – Lynda Bellingham (b. 1948), English actress (At Home with the Braithwaites, All Creatures Great and Small) and broadcaster (Loose Women), best known for her long-running role as a mother in the 1980s Oxo TV adverts.
The day today
1954 – The first day of the public inquiry into the crashes of two Comet airliners within months of each other heard that metal fatigue was the most likely cause. The Comet’s certificate of airworthiness was withdrawn after the second crash.
1958 – Stirling Moss wins the season ending Moroccan Grand Prix at Ain-Diab but fellow Brit Mike Hawthorn takes the World Drivers Championship from Moss by just 1 point by finishing second becoming the first British world champion.

1970 – British Petroleum (BP) announced the first major discovery of oil under the British sector of the North Sea.

1978 – For the first time in Britain, the International Motor Show was held outside London, its new home being the newly-completed National Exhibition Centre (NEC) near Birmingham.
1987 – Black Monday (also known as Black Tuesday in some parts of the world due to time zone differences). Millions of pounds were wiped off the value of shares and other financial markets around the world. Wall Street ended the day down 22%, a greater fall than the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
1991 – London’s Royal Opera House had to cancel its performance, as orchestra members, pursuing an industrial dispute, refused to wear dinner jackets and turned up in jeans.
2001 – It was announced that a ‘serious error’ was made by researchers who wasted five years testing the wrong animal brains for BSE!
2001 – Dennis Yates (aged 58), a Second World War memorabilia dealer, was jailed for 10 months for handling a wartime Enigma encoding machine. It was stolen from a display cabinet at Bletchley Park (codenamed Station X) on 1st April 2000 during an open day at the former top secret site. A separate charge, of blackmailing Christine Large, the director of Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, where the Abwehr Enigma G312 machine was kept, was ordered to lie on file. Following months of ransom demands, the machine, one of only three left in the world, was returned via BBC Two’s Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman.
2011 – After a 10 year legal battle, police and bailiffs began clearing the illegal part of the UK’s largest travellers’ site, at Dale Farm, Basildon, Essex.
2013 – The violin that was apparently played to calm passengers on the Titanic as it sank was sold for £900,000 in just 10 minutes at auction in Wiltshire. Bidding started at £50 and the violin had a guide price of £300,000. The bandleader Wallace Hartley aged 33, was from Colne in Lancashire and is buried in Colne cemetery. The words ‘Nearer My God To Thee’, the alleged last song that the band played on RMS Titanic, are engraved on the plinth.
Today in music
1961 – Helen Shapiro was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Walkin’ Back To Happiness.’ The singers second and final UK No.1.
1985 – A-Ha went to No.2 on the UK singles chart with ‘Take On Me’. The video for the song featured the band in a pencil-sketch animation method called rotoscoping, combined with live action which won six awards and was nominated for two others at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards.
1998 – Cher’s “Believe” was released and became the Billboard 1999 Song of the Year. The album featured some of her most famous singles, such as “Believe” and “Strong Enough.”
2000 – A judge ruled that Robbie Williams had substantially copied lyrics on his song ‘Jesus In A Camper Van’ from the 1961 Woody Guthrie song ‘I Am The Way’ and also used parts of a parody by Loudon Wainwright III. EMI Records had offered 25% royalties but the publishers Ludlow Music were demanding 50%.
2010 – Elton John described today’s songwriters as “pretty awful”, Pop music as “uninspiring” and talent shows like American Idol as “boring” in an interview with UK Radio Times magazine.
2011 – Adele appeared on Saturday Night Live along with then US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The show earned its highest ratings in 14 years with a total of 17 million viewers. Adele who performed ‘Chasing Pavements’ and ‘Cold Shoulder’, topped the iTunes charts the following day and the singer’s debut album jumped thirty-five places to No.11 on the US chart the following week.
2014 – Raphael Ravenscroft who played the sax riff on the Gerry Rafferty hit ‘Baker Street’ died aged 60 of a suspected heart attack. He was only paid £27.50 for the ‘Baker Street’ session, and it has been reported that the cheque bounced and that it was kept on the wall of Ravenscroft’s solicitors; by contrast the song is said to have earned Rafferty £80,000 a year in royalties.
Today in history
1216 – King John died of dysentery at Newark-on-Trent , during a Civil War which was the result of his refusal to recognize the Magna Carta signed the previous year. He was known as John Lackland for losing so much territory to France and was succeeded by his nine-year-old son Henry.
1596 – Spanish galleon San Felipe is shipwrecked in Urado on the Japanese island of Shikoku en route from Manila to Acapulco. Incident leads to the crucifixion of 26 Christians who become known as the Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan.
1649 – New Ross town, in County Wexford, Ireland, surrendered to Oliver Cromwell during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.
1688 – The birth of William Cheselden who was influential in establishing surgery as a scientific medical profession.
1745 – Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels, died aged 77.
1781 – The American War of Independence came to an end when British commander Lord Cornwallis surrendered his 8,000 troops to George Washington at Yorktown, in Virginia, after a three week siege.
1847 – Charlotte Brontë’s novel “Jane Eyre” is published by Smith, Elder & Co. of London under her pen name “Currer Bell”.