Tuesday, September 2nd "2025" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 245, known as Pierce Your Ears Day, VJ DAY – Victory Over Japan Day, World Coconut Day. Your star sign is Virgo and your birthstone is Sapphire.
1945 – World War II officially ended when Japanese officials, including Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and General Yoshijiro Umezu, signed the Instrument of Surrender aboard the U.S. battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, formally ending the conflict.
Todays birthdays
1949 – Moira Stuart (76), English TV presenter and broadcaster. She was the first female newsreader of Caribbean heritage to appear on British national television, having worked on BBC News since 1981 until her retirement in 2007, born in London.
1962 – Keir Starmer (63), British politician, barrister and current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, born in Southwark, London.
1964 – Keanu Reeves (61), Canadian actor (John Wick film franchise, The Matrix, Constantine, Speed), born in Beirut, Lebanon.
1965 – Lennox Lewis (60), English former professional boxer who competed from 1989 to 2003 (three-time world heavyweight champion), born in West Ham, London.
1966 – Salma Hayek (59), Mexican and American actress and film producer (From Dusk Till Dawn, Desperado, Magic Mike’s Last Dance), born in Coatzacoalcos, Mexico.
1982 – Joey Barton (43), English professional football manager (Bristol Rovers) and former player (Manchester City), born in Huyton, Merseyside.
Famous deaths
1973 – J. R. R. Tolkien (b. 1892), John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
The day today
1945 – World War II officially ended when Japanese officials, aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, surrendered on behalf of their country.
1949 – The birth of Moira Stuart, British journalist and the first African-Caribbean female newsreader on British television. Her 26-year career with BBC Television News was brought to a close on 3rd October 2007, when the BBC announced her departure. The BBC initially declined to comment on why she was no longer being used, although rumours circulated within the BBC and commercial newsrooms that Stuart had been removed because she was considered ‘too old’ at 57.
1979 – Police discovered the body of a young woman, thought to be the twelfth victim of the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ in an alleyway near the centre of Bradford.
1994 – Entertainer and television presenter Roy Castle died from lung cancer at his Buckinghamshire home, just two days after his sixty second birthday. He was a lifelong non-smoker and blamed his illness on years of playing the trumpet in smoky jazz clubs. His widow, Fiona, worked with the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation for many years after her husband’s death. She was a key figure in campaigning for the British smoking ban which came into effect during 2007 and has seen smoking banned in virtually all enclosed public places.
1996 – British boxer Frank Bruno achieved his dream of becoming world heavyweight champion when he outpointed Oliver McCall to win the WBC title at Wembley Stadium in London
1997 – Six freelance photographers and a dispatch rider were jointly charged with manslaughter following the car crash in Paris in which Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed were killed.
1999 – Sir Bobby Robson, veteran ex-England manager and self-confessed Geordie, became manager of Newcastle United. Appointed at the age of 66 he was the oldest manager in the league. His first home game in charge was particularly memorable and impressive: an 8–0 victory over Sheffield Wednesday. The result remains the club’s record Premier League home win.
2008 – Google launched Google Chrome, its own cross-platform web browser. By 2011 Chrome was the preferred browser over Mozilla Firefox, and in 2013 it overtook Internet Explorer in the US. As of September 2022, it was the most commonly used browser in the world.
Today in music
1964 – On tour in the USA The Beatles appeared at The Convention Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Days before the concert, Philadelphia had experienced race-riots, The Beatles, who were Civil Rights supporters, were shocked to see that their audience of 13,000 was completely white.
1972 – Rod Stewart was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘You Wear It Well’, the singers second UK No.1 was taken from his album Never A Dull Moment.
1995 – Michael Jackson went to No.1 on the US singles chart with a song written by R. Kelly ‘You Are Not Alone’. It holds a Guinness World Record as the first song in the 37 year history of the Billboard Hot 100 to debut at No.1.
2000 – Madonna was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Music’, her 10th UK No.1 single, from her album of the same title. The video stars Madonna as well as comedian Sacha Baron Cohen as his famous character Ali G.
2007 – 17 year-old Jamaican-American singer Sean Kingston went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Beautiful Girls’, also a US No.1. The song samples the bassline from Ben E. King’s classic ‘Stand by Me’.
2012 – Mark Abrahamian, the lead guitarist with Starship died of a heart attack aged 46. He collapsed following a concert in the US state of Nebraska where Starship had opened for fellow bands Survivor and Boston.
2013 – Sir Elton John won the first ever Brits Icon award in a gala concert which marked his stage return after surgery for appendicitis. Elton was presented with the prize by his friend, singer Rod Stewart, who described him as “the second-best rock singer ever”. The Icon prize had been created by the BPI, the music industry’s trade body, which also runs the Brit Awards.
Today in history
1666 – The Great Fire of London began in a baker’s shop in Pudding Lane, and rapidly spread throughout the city, destroying most of London’s buildings and houses. Although 13,000 buildings were destroyed in the four-day blaze only six people died.
1685 – The beheading of Lady Alice Lisle, the last woman to have been executed by a judicial sentence of beheading in England. She was tried by Judge Jeffreys at the opening of the Bloody Assizes at Winchester and was executed for harbouring fugitives after the defeat of the Monmouth Rebellion at the Battle of Sedgemoor.
1752 – The Julian calendar was used in Britain and the Colonies ‘officially’ for the last time, almost two centuries after most of Western Europe had adopted the Gregorian calendar.
1807 – The Royal Navy bombarded Copenhagen with fire bombs and phosphorus rockets to prevent Denmark from surrendering its fleet to Napoleon.
1898 – The Battle of Omdurman. Lord Kitchener retook Sudan for Britain in an act of revenge for the 1885 death of General Gordon. It was a demonstration of the superiority of a highly disciplined army equipped with modern rifles, machine guns, and artillery over a force twice their size armed with older weapons. Around 10,000 Mahdists were killed and 13,000 were wounded. Kitchener’s force lost 47 men, with 382 wounded.