On This Day

[Altobelli]

He was a goodun alf, very versatile

[Altobelli]

03 FEBRUARY

1903 The birth of Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, pioneering Scottish aviator. He was the eldest of four brothers who were to make military history by all being at the rank of Squadron Leader or above simultaneously at the outbreak of World War II. He was also the youngest Squadron Leader of his day and was chief pilot on the first flight over Mount Everest in 1933, making it the first detailed and scientific survey of the Himalaya region.

1928 The birth, in Liverpool of the singer Frankie Vaughan. He had than 80 recordings in his lifetime and was known as 'Mr. Moonlight' after one of his early hits.

1935 The first 'League of Ovaltineys' created by the manufacturer of the drink Ovaltine. It became a children's 'secret society', promoting high morals and consideration towards others. At the height of its popularity, there were over five million members and I was one of them! In 1975 the song 'We Are The Ovaltineys' came back to a new audience when it was used by Ovaltine in a TV advertisement and also released as a single record.

1937 Don Bradman scores 212 (in 441 minutes!) in 5th cricket test v England

1943 4 chaplains drown after giving up their life jackets to others

1947 Bradman bowled by Alec Bedser for a duck in 4th Test Cricket

1949 In Britain, 23 year old Margaret Roberts (Thatcher) was adopted as Tory candidate in Deptford, but she later failed to win the seat at the General Election.

1954 The Queen visited Australia, the first reigning monarch to do so.

1957 The Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory, Cheshire, moved for the first time. The distance moved was an inch (2.5cm)!

1959 "The Day the Music Died" plane crash kills musicians Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, J. P. Richardson and pilot near Clear Lake Iowa.

1960 Prime Minister Harold Macmillan made his 'wind of change' speech to the South African parliament in Capetown. He talked of increasing national consciousness blowing through colonial Africa, signalling that his Government was likely to support decolonisation.

1963 Britain's worst learner driver, Margaret Hunter, was fined for continuing to drive on after her instructor jumped out of the car shouting 'This is suicide.'

1988 Nurses across the UK took part in a day of industrial action to secure more money for themselves and the NHS.

1989 BT banned chatlines because of the 'chatline junkie problem'. The company had been criticised following the widely reported case of a woman whose 12 year old son landed her a chatline bill of £6000.

2012 The Energy Secretary Chris Huhne resigned after being charged over allegations that he handed penalty points for a speeding offence to his then wife, economist Vicky Pryce.

2012 England football captain John Terry was stripped of the captaincy for the second time amid growing concern over his pending race abuse trial.

2013 The cost of cleaning up the Sellafield nuclear waste site reached £67.5bn with no sign of when the cost would stop rising, according to a report. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said that it was facing up to the challenges.

2015 The unauthorised biography 'Charles: Heart of a King' revealed that both Prince Charles and Princess Diana contemplated calling off their wedding, because each knew that their relationship was deeply flawed.

2017 The re-opening of the Tadcaster Bridge, which is believed to date from around 1700. The bridge collapsed on 29th December 2015 after flooding that followed Storm Eva. The loss of the bridge involved a 16 mile detour and loss of businesses in the town.

Famous Birthday's



Ferdinand Magellan
(1480 - 1521)

Elizabeth Blackwell
(1821 - 1910)

1899 Doris Speed, British actress dubbed 'The Queen Mother of Soap' (Coronation Street), born in Manchester, England (d. 1994)



Pretty Boy Floyd
(1904 - 1934)

1910 Robert Earl Jones, American actor (The Sting, Witness, Sleepaway Camp), born in Senatobia, Mississippi (d. 2006)

1943 Dennis Edwards, American lead singer of The Temptations (Papa was a Rollin' Stone), born in Fairfield, Alabama (d. 2018)

Famous Weddings

1112 Ramon Berenguer III of Barcelona and Douce I of Provence marry, uniting the fortunes of those two states.

1547 Russian Tsar Ivan IV (17) marries Anastasia Romanova

1910 Author James Weldon Johnson (38) weds civil rights activist Grace Nail Johnson (24) at her family's home

1994 Actor Jean-Claude Van Damme (32) weds Darcy Lapier (28) in Bangkok

2006 "The Science Guy" Bill Nye (50) weds author/oboist Blair Tindall at Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles

Famous Divorces

1999 Actress Angelina Jolie (23) divorces actor Jonny Lee Miller (26) after 3 years of marriage

Famous Deaths

Woodrow Wilson
(1856 - 1924)



Buddy Holly
(1936 - 1959)



2012 Ben Gazzara, American actor, dies from pancreatic cancer at 81

Charlie Sifford
(1922 - 2015)

[Altobelli]

04 FEBRUARY

1905 The birth, in Farnworth near Bolton, Lancashire of Hylda Baker, British comedienne, actress and music hall star. Her most famous role was in the comedy series 'Nearest and Dearest' with comedian Jimmy Jewel. They bickered on screen as part of the script, but the insults continued off screen. The two disliked each other intensely and their arguments became showbiz legend.

1911 Rolls-Royce commissioned their famous figurehead ‘The Spirit of Ecstasy’ by Charles Sykes. He used Lord Montague’s mistress, Eleanor Thornton, as his model. 60 years later to the day, Rolls-Royce was declared bankrupt due to a disastrous contract to supply aero engines to Lockheed. The British government came to its rescue.

1920 Norman Wisdom, actor & star of many comedy films, was born. In 1995 he was given the Freedom of the City of London and also Tirana in Albania where the population were devoted to him and referred to him as 'Pitkin'. He received an OBE in the same year and was knighted in 2000. He retired from acting at the age of 90 after his health deteriorated and died in October 2010.

1927 Malcolm Campbell reached 174.88 mph in Bluebird on Pendine Sands, a 7 mile stretch of beach on the shores of Carmarthen Bay on the south coast of Wales in south Wales, to set a new land speed record. A year later in 1928 at Daytona Beach, Florida, he reached 206.35 mph. Four years and one day later, in 1931, he reached a record-breaking 245 mph, again at Daytona Beach.





1945 Roosevelt, Churchill & Stalin meet at Yalta in the Crimea to discuss the final phase of the war

1962 The first colour supplement in Britain was published by The Sunday Times.

1968 The world's largest hovercraft, weighing 165 tonnes, was launched at Cowes on the Isle of Wight. The Hovertravel service from the mainland to the Isle of Wight is the world’s longest running commercial hovercraft service and is now the only scheduled passenger hovercraft service in the Europe.

1974 The 'M62 coach bombing' when a Provisional IRA bomb exploded in a coach carrying off-duty British Armed Forces personnel and their family members. Twelve people (nine soldiers and three civilians, including children aged 5 and 2) were killed.

1975 Edward Heath withdrew from the Conservative party leadership after losing the first-round vote to Margaret Thatcher.

2002 Cancer Research UK was founded. It is the world's largest independent cancer research charity.

2004 Mark Zuckerberg launches Facebook from his Harvard dormitory room

2008 The London Low Emission Zone (LEZ) scheme began to operate, with hefty fines for the owners of polluting vehicles.

2012 Fifty four year old Nottingham Forest owner Nigel Doughty was found dead at his home in Skillington, Lincolnshire. The life-long Forest fan was estimated to have invested more than £100m of his personal fortune into the football club.

2012 The death, aged 110, of Florence Green, the last surviving veteran of the First World War from any country.

2013 A skeleton found beneath a Leicester car park in August 2012 was confirmed as that of English king Richard III. He was reintered at Leicester Cathedral on 26th March 2015 after experts from the University of Leicester said that DNA from the bones matched that of descendants of the monarch's family.

2014 A new international study showed that British workers have the shortest retirements in any major EU country, despite significant improvements in life expectancy.

2015 An online fund, launched by Katie Cutler after the mugging of a Tyneside pensioner, was halted with donations totally £330,000. Her 'Help Alan Barnes' online donation page was launched after the frail and visually disabled 67-year-old had been attacked outside his Gateshead home. Richard Gatiss (25) was later arrested and given a four-year prison sentence for assault.

Famous Birthday's

Charles Lindbergh
(1902 - 1974)



1905 Hylda Baker, English comedy actress, born in Farnworth, Lancashire, England (d. 1986)

Byron Nelson
(1912 - 2006)



Rosa Parks
(1913 - 2005)



1918 Norman Wisdom, comedian (Kraft Music Hall), born in London, England (d. 2010)

Alice Cooper, [Vincent Furnier], rocker (School's Out), born in Detroit, Michigan
70th Birthday

Famous Weddings

1875 Princess Louise of Belgium marries Prince Philip von Saksen-Coburg-Gotha in Belgium

1924 Jazz musician Louis Armstrong (22) weds pianist Lil Armstrong (26)

1939 Singer Frank Sinatra (23) marries 1st wife Nancy Barbato

1941 Actress Vera-Ellen (19) weds fellow dancer Robert Hightower

2006 Daughter of June Carter country singer Carlene Carter (50) weds Joe Brown began at Cinnamon Hill in Jamaica

Famous Divorces

1985 Professional boxer George Foreman (35) divorces Andrea Skeete after almost 3 years of marriage

Famous Deaths

Septimius Severus
(146 - 211)

James Donnelly
(1816 - 1880)

1983 Karen Carpenter, rock drummer (Carpenters), dies of anorexia at 32

Liberace
(1919 - 1987)

1992 John Dehner [Forkum], American actor (The Right Stuff, Big Hawaii, Bare Essence), dies of emphysema and diabetes at 76

2016 Maurice White, American singer-songwriter (Earth, Wind & Fire), dies at 74

[Altobelli]

05 FEBRUARY

1782 The Spanish defeated British forces and captured the island of Minorca.

1788 The birth, in Bury, Lancashire, of Sir Robert Peel, the first commoner to become British Prime Minister, although he was hardly from humble beginnings, as his father was a cotton millionaire. This statue of Robert Peel (see ©BB picture) is in Bury. Peel was the founder of the Metropolitan Police, first nicknamed ‘Peelers’, then ‘Bobbies’, after his name.

1811 The Regency Act was passed in Britain, allowing Prince George of Wales to rule because his father, King George III, was considered insane. He later became George IV.

1840 The birth of Scottish vet. John Boyd Dunlop, inventor of the pneumatic bicycle tyre which he tested on his son's tricycle and patented in 1888. Two years after he was granted the patent, Dunlop was officially informed that it was invalid, as Scottish inventor Robert William Thomson had patented the idea in France in 1846 and in the US in 1847.

1852 The embankment of the Bilberry reservoir in West Yorkshire collapsed, releasing 86 million gallons of water down the River Holme and into Holmfirth, the location for the BBC's Last of the Summer Wine. It caused 81 deaths and is recorded as the 23rd most serious, worldwide, in terms of loss of life from floods and landslides.

1881 The death of Thomas Carlyle, Scottish philosopher and a satirical writer who was considered one of the most important social commentators of his time. He was born in Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire.

1918 The SS Tuscania was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland by the German U-boat UB-77. She sank with the loss of 210 lives and was the first ship carrying American troops to Europe to be torpedoed and sunk.

1920 Founding of the RAF Training College at Cranwell, in Lincolnshire.

1924 The BBC time signals, ('pips' from Greenwich Observatory) broadcast on the hour, were heard for the first time.

1953 Sweets were taken 'off ration' in Britain, 8 years after the 2nd World War had ended.

1954 Britain opened its first atomic power station, at Harwell.

1958 Parking meters first appeared on the streets, in London's exclusive Mayfair district. The meters were first used in America in 1935.

1967 A ban by the Musicians' Union, 'in the cause of decency', stopped The Rolling Stones' latest record Let's Spend the Night Together, from being performed on television.

1968 Another trawler from Hull sank off the coast of Iceland. Over a period of three weeks 60 fishermen lost their lives in Iceland's worst storms since 1925.

1982 The small, independent Laker Airlines, created by former British pilot Sir Freddy Laker to cut prices and make air travel more accessible, collapsed with debts of £270m.

1993 In the Antarctic, British explorers Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Dr Michael Stroud broke the record for longest unsupported polar march.

1996 Two British supermarket chains (Safeway and Sainsbury) became the first to stock genetically modified food when they sold GM tomato puree.

1998 Prime Minister Tony Blair, announced that veteran US entertainer Bob Hope, who was born in England, would receive an honorary knighthood.

2004 Twenty-three Chinese people drowned when a group of 35 cockle-pickers were trapped by rising tides in Morecambe Bay, Lancashire.

2014 Overnight storms caused the loss of the sea wall and railway line at Dawlish, between Exeter and Cornwall. Around 30 residents had to be evacuated from their homes in the seaside town, while beach huts that once stood on the sea wall were destroyed. The line reopened on 4th April 2014, in time for the Easter holidays.

2016 The general release of "Dad's Army", based on the BBC television sitcom Dad's Army. Much of it was filmed in Bridlington Old Town and at North Landing, Flamborough.

2017 Heavy metal band Black Sabbath play their last concert in their home town Birmingham, England

Famous Birthday's

1920 Frank Muir, British comedian (d. 1998)

Sven-Göran Eriksson, Swedish football manager
70th Birthday

Cristiano Ronaldo
33rd Birthday

Neymar
26th Birthday

Famous Weddings

1826 Future US President Millard Fillmore (26) weds Abigail Powers (27)

1971 Actress Judi Dench (36) weds actor Michael Williams (35) at St Mary's Catholic Church in Hampstead, London

1990 Actor Rowan Atkinson (35) weds Sunetra Sastry in New York

2007 "Rudo y Cursi" Mexican actor Diego Luna (28) weds actress and model Camila Sodi (21) in Mexico City

Famous Deaths



Thomas Carlyle
(1795 - 1881)



George Arliss
(1868 - 1946)

Gnassingbé Eyadéma
(1935 - 2005)



2010 Ian Carmichael, British actor (Private's Progress, I'm All Right Jack), dies at 89

[Altobelli]

06 FEBRUARY

1649 The claimant King Charles II of England and Scotland was declared King of Great Britain, by the Parliament of Scotland. This move was not followed by the Parliament of England nor the Parliament of Ireland.

1665 The birth of Queen Anne, the last Stuart ruler and second daughter of James II. She bore Prince George of Denmark 17 children, but 16 died in infancy and the remaining child died when aged 12. Her desire for national unity led to the union of the English and Scottish parliaments in 1707.

1685 Charles II, King of Great Britain and Ireland, died after several days of revelry with his concubines and his favourite mistresses. Charles acknowledged at least 12 illegitimate children by various mistresses, but as illegitimate children were excluded from the succession, he was succeeded by his brother James. On his deathbed Charles asked his brother to look after his mistresses and told his courtiers: 'I am sorry, gentlemen, for being such a time a-dying.'

1783 Death of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, the greatest English landscape gardener. His work lives on today throughout the great estates of England. He designed and assisted with many gardens, including Charlecote Park in Warwickshire and Wallington in Northumberland.

1804 The death of Joseph Priestley (FRS) the 18th-century English theologian and chemist. Priestley is generally credited with the discovery of oxygen. He was born at Birstall, near Leeds. a statue of Priestley is in Leeds City Square.

1840 The Treaty of Waitangi was signed, giving Britain sovereignty over New Zealand.

1918 The Representation of the People Act passed by the British Parliament received the Royal Assent, granting the vote to women over 30. Their first opportunity to use it would come at the General Election on 14th December 1918.



1931 Fred Trueman, Former Yorkshire and England cricketer was born. Trueman played first-class cricket for Yorkshire County Cricket Club from 1949 until he retired in 1968. He represented England in 67 Test matches and was the first bowler to take 300 wickets in a Test career. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson described him as the 'greatest living Yorkshireman', yet Trueman was omitted from numerous Test teams because he was frequently in conflict with the cricket establishment. a statue of Fred (Freddie) Trueman is in the canal basin at Skipton, North Yorkshire, the town where he lived for many years.

1935 "Monopoly" board game goes on sale for 1st time

1948 Bradman retires hurt, 57 in his last Test Cricket innings in Australia

1952 Queen Elizabeth succeeded to the British throne. The Queen and Prince Philip were on tour in Kenya when they heard the news of the death of her father, King George VI.

1958 Seven Manchester United footballers (Busby’s Babes) died in their Airspeed AS-57 Ambassador when the plane crashed in thick snow on the runway at Munich airport during its third attempted take off. The team had just beaten Red Star Belgrade in the European Cup quarter-final. Duncan Edwards survived the crash but died 15 days later in hospital. Manager Matt Busby was seriously injured, but survived. Of the 44 passengers and crew on board, 8 United players were killed and there were 15 other fatalities, including 8 journalists.

1995 The National Trust for Scotland banned foxhunting on any of its land.

1997 The Court of Appeal made an historic judgement in favour of Diane Blood to be allowed to be inseminated with her dead husband's sperm.

1998 Washington National Airport is renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport

2005 Tony Blair marked 2,838 days in his post at Number 10, making him the Labour Party's longest-serving prime minister. He would only surpass Margaret Thatcher's 11 years if he was still Prime Minister at the end of 2008 and he was not!

2015 26 year old Royal Marine, Andy Grant, woke up from an operation to remove his leg below the knee and found a key word missing from his You'll Never Walk Alone tattoo. He used the new wording "You'll Never Walk" as the inspiration for his rehabilitation. The marine learnt to walk and run, won two gold medals at the Invictus Games, abseiled the Shard and went on to work as a motivational speaker.

2017 Queen Elizabeth II became the first British Monarch to reach her Sapphire Jubilee. The Royal Mint is to mark the 65th anniversary of her accession with a range of specially designed Sapphire Jubilee commemorative coins, with the Royal Mail issuing a Sapphire Blue £5 stamp.

Famous Birthday's



Babe Ruth
(1895 - 1948)

Ronald Reagan
(1911 - 2004)

1917 Zsa Zsa Gabor [Zsa Sari], Hungarian-born actress (Queen of Outer Space), born in Budapest (d. 2016)



1924 Billy Wright, English soccer player (d. 1994)

1931 Fred Trueman, English cricketer ("Fiery Fred",307 wickets for England) (d. 2006)

1933 Leslie Crowther, English TV-comic and quizmaster (d. 1996)

Bob Marley
(1945 - 1981)



1950 Natalie Cole, American vocalist (Pink Cadillac, Miss You Like Crazy), born in Los Angeles, California (d. 2015)

Jimmy Tarbuck, English comic/golfer
78th Birthday

Rick Astley, rock vocalist (Never Gonna Give You Up)
52nd Birthday

Famous Weddings

1843 Frontiersman Kit Carson (33) weds Josefa Jaramillo (14) at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church

1949 Diplomat Henry Kissinger (25) weds Ann Fleisher (23) in Washington Heights, Manhattan

1993 US Senator Mitch McConnell (51) weds economist Elaine Chao

1995 "The Beach Boys" leader and chief songwriter Brian Wilson (52) weds former model Melinda Ledbetter (47) at Palos Verdes in Peninsula, California

2009 "The L Word" actress Sarah Shahi (29) weds actor Steve Howey (31) in Las Vegas, Nevada

Famous Divorces

2007 "Married ... With Children" actor David Faustino (32) divorces actress Andrea Elmer Faustino (31) due to irreconcilable differences after 3 years of marriage

Famous Deaths

Charles II
(1630 - 1685)

1945 Jan Bos, Dutch resistance fighter, executed

1945 Paul Bos, Dutch resistance fighter, executed

George VI
(1895 - 1952)

Emilio Aguinaldo
(1869 - 1964)

1985 Dandy Nichols, actress (Confessions of a Window Cleaner), dies at 78

1993 Arthur Ashe, (Wimbledon 1975), dies of aids at 49

1998 Carl Wilson, American rock vocalist and guitarist (Beach Boys), dies of lung cancer at 51

[Altobelli]

07 FEBRUARY

1812 Charles Dickens, English journalist and novelist was born. He is considered the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. He created characters such as Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby and David Copperfield and amongst his other works were The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations, Bleak House and many, many more.

1837 The birth of Sir James Murray, Scottish lexicographer. He was the primary editor of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1879 until his death.

1863 185 British sailors were killed when HMS Orpheus was wrecked off the coast of New Zealand.

1886 While building a cottage for a prospector in the Transvaal, South Africa, an Englishman, George Walker, found a clear streak of gold. It became the richest gold reef in the world.

1873 The birth, in County Down, of Thomas Andrews. Andrews was the naval architect in charge of the plans for the ocean liner RMS Titanic. He was travelling on board the Titanic during its maiden voyage when it hit an iceberg on 14th April 1912 and was one of the 1,517 people who perished in the disaster. Titanic's engineers, who battled below decks to try and keep Titanic afloat are commemorated on this monument in Southampton.

1937 Britain's first dive-bomber, the prototype B-24 Skua, made its maiden flight over Yorkshire, piloted by Dasher Blake.

1964 The Beatles pop group arrived in New York at the start of their first tour of the United States.

1964 Cassius Clay converts to Islam, and is renamed Muhammad Ali

1974 Prime Minister Edward Heath announced a general election and appealed to the miners to suspend their planned strike.

1974 The island of Grenada, in the southeastern Caribbean Sea, gained independence from Britain.

1976 Joan Bazeley became the first woman to referee a men's football match and Diana Thorne became the first woman jockey to win under National Hunt Rules (on ‘Ben Ruler’ at Stratford).

1991 Prime Minister John Major and senior Cabinet Ministers escaped unhurt during an apparent assassination attempt, when the IRA fired three mortar shells at 10 Downing Street from a van parked several streets away in the centre of London.

1992 The European Union was formed.

1994 It was reported that 13.1 million television viewers watched British boxer Chris Eubank beat German Graciano Rocchigiani in Berlin. It was the most watched programme of the year.

1995 Last day of Test Cricket cricket for Graham Gooch & Mike Gatting

2005 Britain's Ellen MacArthur (born 8th July 1976) became the fastest person to sail solo around the world. Two months after her amazing feat she also became the youngest person to receive a damehood.

2006 The completion, in Cardiff Bay, of The Senedd. It the main public building of the National Assembly, the main centre for democracy and devolution in Wales.

2015 Printing blocks from a typeface called 'Doves Type' were discovered in the River Thames. The font has not been used for nearly a century as the printing type blocks, used to print letters, were thrown into the river in 1917.

Famous Birthday's



Charles Dickens
(1812 - 1870)



1946 Pete Postlethwaite, actor (d. 2011)

Eddie Izzard
56th Birthday

Garth Brooks
56th Birthday

Ashton Kutcher
40th Birthday

Famous Weddings

1901 Queen Wilhelmina marries Prince Heinrich von Mecklenburg-Schwerin

1925 Heavyweight boxing champ Jack Dempsey (29) weds actress Estelle Taylor (30)

1931 Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart (33) weds publisher George Palmer Putnam (43) in Noank, Connecticut

1988 Heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson marries actress Robin Givens

2009 Actress and skating champ Kristy Swanson (39) weds 1993 World Pair Skater Champion Lloyd Eisler (45) at The Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, California

Famous Deaths



Harvey Firestone
(1868 - 1938)



1985 Matt Monro, English singer (b. 1932)

Anne Morrow Lindbergh
(1906 - 2001)

50 Years Ago # 1 Singles and Albums

EVERLASTING LOVE - LOVE AFFAIR

SGT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND - BEATLES