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 266 of the year.

Tuesday, September 23rd Daily Prep.

Known as Restless Legs Awareness Day, International Day of Sign Languages and Go With Your Gut Day. Your star sign is Libra and your birthstone is Sapphire.

2000 – British rower Sir Steve Redgrave won his fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the men’s coxless fours, making history as the only British athlete to achieve this feat.

British rower Sir Steve Redgrave won his fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the men's coxless fours, making history as the only British athlete to achieve this feat.
Today’s birthdays
1943 – Julio Iglesias (82), Spanish singer and songwriter who has sold more than 300 million records worldwide, born in Madrid, Spain.
1949 – Bruce Springsteen (76), American singer-songwriter and rock musician (“Dancing in the Dark”, “Born in the USA”), born in Long Branch, New Jersey.
1949 – Floella Benjamin (76), Trinidadian-British childrens TV presenter (Play School, Playdays) and author, born in Pointe-A-Pierre, Trinidad and Tobago.
1958 – Danielle Dax (67), English rock musician (“Tomorrow Never Knows”), most active from the late-1970s to the mid-1990s, born in Southend-on-Sea.
1968 – Yvette Fielding (57), English TV presenter (Blue Peter 1987-1992) and paranormal investigator (Most Haunted, Ghost Hunters), born in Stockport, Greater Manchester.
1972 – Karl Pilkington (53), English TV presenter (An Idiot Abroad, The Moaning of Life), comedian and actor, (Derek, Sick of It), born in Manchester.
1975 – Chris Hawkins (50), English radio presenter, DJ and music pundit (BBC Radio 6 Music), born in Loppington, Shropshire.
1981 – Natalie Horler (44), German born English singer and lead singer of the Eurodance group Cascada (“Everytime We Touch”), born in Bonn, Germany.
Famous deaths
1939 – Sigmund Freud (b. 1856), Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis.
The day today
1951 – Crowds gathered outside Buckingham Palace for news of King George VI following an operation to remove part of his lung.
1955 – Quizmaster Michael Miles first invited contestants to ‘Open the box’ in the long running show Take Your Pick.
1974 – The BBC launched the world’s first teletext service, Ceefax. It ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BST (11:32 PM BST) on the 23rd of October 2012, in line with the digital switchover being completed in Northern Ireland.
1986 – England and Yorkshire batsman Geoff Boycott was controversially sacked from Yorkshire Cricket Club after playing for the county side for 24 years. When dropped from the Yorkshire team he was the leading run scorer in first-class cricket.
2000 – British rower Sir Steve Redgrave won his fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the men’s coxless fours, making history as the only British athlete to achieve this feat. He won this medal alongside teammates Matthew Pinsent, Tim Foster, and James Cracknell in a thrilling race where they beat Italy by less than half a second, confirming his status as one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
2002 – First version of the web browser Mozilla Firefox dubbed Phoenix 0.1 is released to the public.
2007 – After three years in development, Bungie finally released Halo 3 for the Xbox 360. Microsoft marketed Halo 3 like crazy and even had Bill Gates at the launch event at a Best Buy in Bellevue, Washington, to hand out the first official copy. All that hard work paid off, as Halo 3 broke the record for the highest gross sales of a video game within 24 hours of release.
2019 – Travel company Thomas Cook goes into liquidation, stranding 600,000 travellers worldwide with 150,000 of them being British.
Today in music
1957 – The Crickets went to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘That’ll Be The Day.’ The title being taken from a phrase used by John Wayne in the film ‘The Searchers.’
1965 – The Walker Brothers were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with the Burt Bacharach song, “Make It Easy On Yourself”, the trio’s first of two UK No.1’s.
1977 – David Bowie released ‘Heroes’ as a single. Co-written by Bowie and Brian Eno, the track features King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp and has gone on to become one of Bowie’s signature songs.
1978 – 10cc had their third and final UK No.1 single with ‘Dreadlock Holiday.’ The lyrics, about a white man lost in Jamaica, were based on a true event that happened to Moody Blues vocalist Justin Hayward and Eric Stewart from 10cc in Barbados.
1980 – Bob Marley collapsed on stage during a concert at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Marley had collapsed in New York’s Central Park while jogging, two days before and was told to immediately cancel the US leg, but flew to Pittsburgh to perform one final performance. This was the last time Marley ever appeared on stage performing, Marley died of cancer on in May 1981.
1989 – Milli Vanilli started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Girl I’m Gonna Miss You’, the duo’s second US No.1 a No.2 hit in the UK. Also today the duo went to No.1 on the US album chart with ‘Girl You Know It’s True’.
1995 – Jamaican Reggae singer Shaggy scored his second No.1 UK single when ‘Boombastic’ went to the top of the charts for one week.
2001 – Kylie Minogue started a five-week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head.’ The Australian singers 6th No.1 was written and produced by Cathy Dennis and former Mud guitarist Rob Davis, for which the pair won an Ivor Novello Award for the most performed song of the year.
Today in history
1338 – The first naval battle of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France took place On This Day. It was the first naval battle using artillery, as the English ship Christofer had three cannons and one hand gun.
1387 – One of the most extravagant of the early Medieval English feasts was recorded. It was held in honour of King Richard II and the Duke of Lancaster (John of Gaunt). The feast included 14 salted oxen, 2 fresh oxen, 120 sheep, 12 boar, 14 calves, 140 pigs, 144 poultry, 1200 pigeons, 144 partridge, 96 rabbits, 120 gallons of milk, 11,000 eggs and much more!
1459 – In the first major ‘Wars of the Roses’ battle, the Yorkists, in spite of being heavily outnumbered by 2 to 1, defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Blore Heath, Staffordshire.
1641 – The Merchant Royal, a 17th century English merchant ship was lost at sea off Land’s End. On board were at least 100,000 pounds of gold (nearly one billion pounds in today’s money), 400 bars of Mexican silver and nearly 500,000 pieces of eight and other coins, making it one of the most valuable wrecks of all times. The wreck remains undiscovered.
1779 – During the American Revolution, John Paul Jones on board the USS Bonhomme Richard beat British forces at the Battle of Flamborough Head (Yorkshire). It became one of the most celebrated naval actions of the American War of Independence.
1817 – Spain signed a treaty with Great Britain. However, enforcement of the treaty was weak, and slave trade persisted in Spanish colonies, especially in Cuba, until the late 1800s.