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 280 of the year.

Tuesday, October 7th Daily Prep.

Known as Forgiveness & Happiness Day, LED Light Day, You Matter To Me Day. Your star sign is Libra and your birthstone is Pink Tourmaline.
1946 – The BBC presented its first edition of Woman’s Hour, a daily programme of music, advice and entertainment for those in the home. The programme included an item on how to de-slime your flannels!
The BBC presented its first edition of Woman’s Hour, a daily programme of music, advice and entertainment for those in the home. The programme included an item on how to de-slime your flannels!
Today’s birthdays
1957 – Jayne Torvill (68), English professional figure skater and former competitor (Torvill & Dean, Olympic gold 1984), born in Clifton, Nottinghamshire.
1959 – Simon Cowell (66), English entrepreneur (X Factor and Got Talent television franchises), television personality, and record executive, born in Lambeth, London.
1962 – Micky Flanagan (63), English stand up comedian, born in Whitechapel, London.
1967 – Toni Braxton (58), American R&B singer, songwriter (“Un-Break My Heart”, “Breathe Again”), born in Severn, Maryland, United States.
1968 – Thom Yorke (57), English musician, songwriter and lead vocalist of the rock band Radiohead (“Creep”, “Karma Police”), born in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.
1978 – Alesha Dixon (46), English singer (“The Boy Does Nothing”), rapper (Mis-Teeq – “Scandalous”), dancer and television personality, born in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire.
1996 – Lewis Capaldi (29), Scottish singer-songwriter and musician (“Someone You Loved”), born in Glasgow, Scotland.
Famous deaths
1892 – Alfred, Lord Tennyson (b. 1809), English poet (The Charge of the Light Brigade) and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria’s reign.
1980 – Hattie Jacques (b. 1922), English actress and producer. She is best known as a regular of the Carry On films.
2020 – Eddie Van Halen (b. 1955), Dutch-American guitarist, songwriter, and producer (“Jump”).
The day today
1915 – English nurse Edith Cavell is sentenced to death along with 34 others by a German court martial for running an underground network to free Allied soldiers.

1919 – The Netherlands’ flag carrier airline was founded under the name KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. KLM is the oldest airline in the world that operates under its original name. The airline’s first flight carried two journalists and some newspapers from London to Amsterdam on May 17, 1920.

1946 – The BBC presented its first edition of Woman’s Hour, a daily programme of music, advice and entertainment for those in the home. The programme included an item on how to de-slime your flannels!
1959 – Three hundred people were rescued after being cut off by a blaze on Southend’s pier, (the world’s longest pleasure pier on England’s south-east coast).
1959 – The Soviet spacecraft Luna 3 captured the first photographs of the Moon’s far side, a region of the lunar surface never before seen by humans. These images revealed a surface vastly different from the familiar near side, characterized by more impact craters and fewer of the dark volcanic plains, known as maria.

1986 – British Newspaper “The Independent” was first published.

1992 – The first Braille cash dispenser was installed, by the Northern Rock Building Society in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear.
2004 – The death of Kenneth Bigley, an English civil engineer who was kidnapped in Baghdad on 16th September 2004, along with his colleagues Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, both U.S. citizens. All were subsequently beheaded despite the attempted intervention of the Muslim Council of Britain and the indirect intervention of the British government.
2008 – Swedish music streaming service Spotify was launched by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. They founded the company in Stockholm, Sweden, with the goal of creating a legal, convenient alternative to illegal music downloads and to solve the growing music piracy problem.
2013 – Buckingham Palace held its first official football match to mark the Football Association’s 150th anniversary. The competitive fixture was the idea of FA president Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge. London side Civil Service FC, the only surviving team of 11 that formed the FA on 26th October 1863, lost 2-1 against Polytechnic FC, set up in 1875. At half-time, palace footmen and women – wearing waistcoats and tail-coats – carried water, orange slices and chocolate bars on silver-plated platters onto the pitch for the players.
2018 – Jodie Whittaker debuted as the first female Doctor Who in her first full episode, “The Woman Who Fell to Earth,” which aired on BBC One. Whittaker’s first full episode followed her initial regeneration in the 2017 Christmas special, where she succeeded Peter Capaldi.
Today in music
1966 – Johnny Kidd was killed in a car crash while on UK tour in Radcliffe, Manchester, aged 27. Pirates’ bassist Nick Simper, who later became an original member of Deep Purple, was also in the car with Kidd but he suffered only some cuts and a broken arm. Kidd scored the 1960 UK No.1 single ‘Shakin’ All Over’ as Johnny Kidd and the Pirates.
1967 – Cass Elliot of The Mamas & the Papas was detained in London after being accused of stealing bed linen from a hotel. The incident led to the cancellation of The Mamas & the Papas’ scheduled British concerts and TV appearances, although the charges were ultimately dismissed due to a lack of evidence. The arrest was also reportedly a pretext for police to investigate Elliot’s then-boyfriend, Pic Dawson, who was suspected of drug trafficking.
1978 – The film soundtrack to ‘Grease’ featuring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John started a 13 week run at No.1 on the UK chart.
1995 – Alanis Morissette went to No.1 on the US album chart with her third album Jagged Little Pill. The record produced six successful singles, including ‘You Oughta Know’, ‘Ironic’, ‘You Learn’, ‘Hand in My Pocket’, and ‘Head over Feet’ and went on to become the biggest selling album ever by a female artist with sales over 30m.
2013 – Annie Lennox described the sexualised imagery of modern pop videos as “dark” and “pornographic”. “I’m all for freedom of expression,” she told BBC Radio 5 live, “but this is clearly one step beyond, and it’s clearly into the realm of porn.” The singer called for pop videos to be rated in the same way as films.
2022 – Slipknot were at No.1 in the UK with their seventh studio album The End, So Far. The album which peaked at No.2 on the US chart is dedicated to co-founder and former drummer Joey Jordison, who died in his sleep in July 2021.
2022 – Adidas placed its partnership with Kanye West under review after he made several antisemitic remarks and wore a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt at a Paris Fashion Week show days earlier. In response to this behaviour, Balenciaga, Vogue, Creative Artists Agency and MRC cut ties with West. Sales for Yeezy’s Adidas sneakers had generated over $1.3 billion.
Today in history
1714 – People riot due to beer tax in Alkmaar, Netherlands.

1765 – Delegates from nine of the American colonies protested against the British Stamp Act, which raised a direct tax on the colonies.

1780 – American forces defeated British loyalists at the Battle of Kings Mountain during the American Revolution.
1806 – English inventor Ralph Wedgwood (member of the Wedgwood family of potters) received the first patent for carbon paper, which he created as part of a device to help the blind to write.
1886 – Spain officially abolished slavery in Cuba with a royal decree. This marked the culmination of a decades-long process, as Spain had agreed to end the Atlantic slave trade in a treaty with Britain in 1817, though the institution of slavery persisted on the island for many more years, primarily for labor on lucrative sugar plantations.