Wednesday, April 8th
Today is International Day of Pink, Baby Massage Day, International Kids Yoga Day and Pygmy Hippo Day.
Your star sign is Aries and your birthstone is Diamond.
Today’s birthdays
1941 – 2022 – Vivienne Westwood, English fashion designer who brought modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream.
1943 – 2013 – James Herbert, English horror writer (The Fog, Sepulchre, The Unholy) selling 54 million copies worldwide.
1949 – John Philip Madden (77), English director of stage and film (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Shakespeare in Love, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin), born in Portsmouth.
1955 – Kane Hodder (71), American actor and stuntman best known for his portrayal of Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th franchise, born in Auburn, California, United States.
1963 – Julian Lennon (63), English musician (“Too Late for Goodbyes”, “Love Don’t Let Me Down”), photographer, author, and philanthropist, born in Liverpool.
1963 – Alec Stewart (63), English former cricketer, and former captain of the England cricket team, who played Test cricket and One Day Internationals, born in Merton Park, London.
1966 – Mark Blundell (60), British racing driver who competed in Formula One for four seasons and winner of the 1992 24 Hours of Le Mans, born in Barnet, North London.
1968 – Patricia Arquette (58), American actress (Stigmata, CSI: Cyber, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors), born in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
1968 – Jenny Powell (58), English radio (Greatest Hits Radio) and television presenter (Wheel of Fortune), born in Ilford, Greater London.
1983 – Josh Widdicombe (43), English comedian and presenter (The Last Leg, Hypothetical, One Night In), born in Hammersmith, London.
Famous deaths
1973 – Pablo Picasso (b. 1881), Spanish painter and sculptor known for co-founding the Cubist movement.
2013 – Margaret Thatcher (b. 1925), English politician, first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
The day today
1925 – The Australian Government and the British Colonial Office offered low interest loans to encourage Britons to borrow the money to emigrate to Australia.
1946 – The League of Nations held its final assembly (from April 8 to April 18, 1946) in Geneva, Switzerland before it’s dissolution. During this session, nations attended to formally approve the dissolution of the organisation and transfer its assets to the newly established United Nations.
1953 – British colonial authorities in Kenya sentenced Jomo Kenyatta to seven years’ imprisonment. He allegedly organised the extremist Mau Mau in their violence against white settlers and the colonial government.
1968 – BOAC Flight 712 bound for Sydney caught fire shortly after take off from London Heathrow Airport. As a result of her heroic actions in the accident which claimed her life, Barbara Jane Harrison, a British air stewardess, was awarded a posthumous George Cross, the first GC awarded to a woman in peacetime.
1973 – Pablo Picasso died at age 91 at his home in Mougins, France, due to pulmonary edema following a heart attack. The prolific Spanish artist, recognised as the most influential artist of the 20th century, continued working until the day before his death.
1975 – At the 47th Academy Awards Robert De Niro won an award for Best Supporting actor for The Godfather Part II. The film also won Best Picture, Best Originalk Score and Best Director (Francis Ford Coppola). The Towering Inferno starring Steve McQueen and paul Newman won Best Cinematography.
1983 – David Copperfield famously made the Statue of Liberty disappear on live television in front of a live audience of 20 people. The illusion was achieved by positioning the audience and cameras on a large, slow-rotating platform that turned away from the statue while a curtain was lowered, hiding it behind one of the support pylons.
1986 – Clint Eastwood was elected Mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. He famously overturned a ban on eating ice cream in public, improved parking, and supported the construction of a new library annex. He did not run for reelection, opting to return to his filmmaking career.
1990 – British golfer Nick Faldo won his second successive US Masters after a play-off.
1991 – Actor Michael Landon (Highway to Heaven, Little House on the Prairie), announced he had inoperable, terminal pancreatic cancer that had spread to his liver. Diagnosed with exocrine adenocarcinoma at age 54, he vowed to fight the disease but passed away on July 1, 1991, just three months after the diagnosis.
1995 – British-born Nicholas Ingram was executed in the electric chair in the US after two appeals to the US Supreme Court were turned down. He had been on death row since 1983 for murdering J C Sawyer and injuring his wife, Eunice Sawyer, during a robbery.
1997 – The results of the first ultrasonic scan of the front of the Titanic revealed a series of six short slits as the principal damage to the ship after it struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic in 1912. There is a memorial in Southampton to the 35 engineer officers who battled to keep Titanic afloat during her fated maiden voyage.
1997 – Microsoft announced and released the first “Platform Preview” of Internet Explorer 4.0. It was specifically intended for content developers, software developers, and technical corporate evaluators, rather than general consumers. The final, stable version of Internet Explorer 4.0 was subsequently released in September 1997.
2008 – Construction of the Bahrain World Trade Center was officially completed. The Bahrain WTC was the first skyscraper in the world to integrate wind turbines into its design, which provide approximately 11-15% of the tower’s total power consumption.
2012 – 35 year old Trenton Oldfield was charged over an incident which led to the 158th University Boat Race being halted halfway through. He swam in front of the boats, protesting about university elitism and narrowly avoiding being hit by the oars of the Oxford crew.
2013 – The death of former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher, aged 87. She was Conservative prime minister from 1979 to 1990 and the first woman to have held the role.
2014 – Windows XP reached its official extended end of support ending over 12 years of updates for the operating system. While the OS continues to function, it is no longer supported by Microsoft, creating significant security risks for computers still running it.
2019 – Researchers captured a record-setting 17-foot (5.2-meter), female Burmese python in Florida’s Big Cypress National Preserve. The invasive snake was carrying 73 developing eggs. This significant catch was part of a research initiative using male “sentinel” snakes fitted with radio transmitters to locate breeding females in the Everglades.
2022 – US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences bans Will Smith from attending the Oscars for 10 years after he slapped host Chris Rock on stage during the 2022 ceremony.
2024 – A total solar eclipse dubbed the “Great North American Eclipse” swept across the continent, bringing totality to a 115-mile wide path stretching from Mazatlán, Mexico, to Newfoundland, Canada. The path of totality, where the moon fully blocked the sun, was home to an estimated 44 million people.
2024 – The Vatican’s doctrinal office released a document titled Dignitas Infinita (Infinite Dignity) which strongly reiterates the Catholic Church’s opposition to gender-affirming surgery, “gender theory,” and the concept of changing one’s biological sex. Approved by Pope Francis, the document declares that such interventions risk threatening the unique dignity a person receives from conception and are a “concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God”.
Today in music
1965 – Unit Four Plus Two were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Concrete And Clay’, the English group’s only No.1 hit.
1967 – Sandie Shaw won the Eurovision Song Contest held in Vienna representing Britain with the song ‘Puppet On A String’. She became the first UK female artist to win the contest.
1977 – CBS released the self- titled first album by The Clash in the UK. The album is widely celebrated as one of the greatest punk albums of all time. CBS in the US refused to release it until 1979 and Americans bought over 100,000 imported copies of the record making it one of the biggest- selling import records of all time.
1991 – English trip hop group Massive Attack released their debut studio album Blue Lines. In 1997, Blue Lines was named the 21st greatest album of all time in a “Music of the Millennium” poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian and Classic FM. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
1995 – Take That had their sixth UK No.1 single when the Gary Barlow penned ‘Back For Good’ went to the top of the UK charts. The song sold over 300,000 copies in its first week and was also a US Top 10 hit. The song won Best British Single at the 1996 Brit Awards.
1998 – Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood and 11 others were rescued from a burning boat near Angra dos Reis, Brazil. The group was exploring islands south of Rio de Janeiro when an engine fire caused the boat to burst into flames. Paparazzi pursuing the vessel for photos spotted the fire and rescued the passengers just before the boat exploded.
2001 – Former Spice Girl Emma Bunton scored her first UK No.1 single with ‘What Took You So Long.’ She became the fourth Spice Girl to have a solo No 1. Written by Richard Stannard who wrote six of the Spice Girls’ UK No.1 hits.
2002 – Marilyn Manson denied claims that he was responsible for the death of a woman after a party at his mansion in 2001. Jennifer Syme, a former girlfriend of actor Keanu Reeves, died when her Jeep Cherokee hit three parked cars. Her mother, Maria St John, was suing the singer for wrongful death, claiming Manson was negligent in “instructing the woman to operate a motor vehicle in her incapacitated condition”.
2008 – Babyshambles frontman Pete Doherty was jailed for 14 weeks for violating his probation and for using drugs. Doherty had been given a suspended jail sentence for possession of drugs and driving illegally in October 2007. The singer’s supervision order had required him to make regular visits to court for progress reports, as well as take part in a drug rehabilitation programme but he missed one appointment with his probation team and had been late for another. The sentence forced Doherty to cancel his biggest gig to date at the Royal Albert Hall scheduled for later this month.
2016 – Alex Turner secured his seventh consecutive UK No.1 album with The Last Shadow Puppets’ second studio album, Everything You’ve Come To Expect.The album followed the band’s 2008 debut and extended Turner’s flawless record, which included five consecutive No.1 albums with Arctic Monkeys at the time.
2022 – Pink Floyd reunited to record their first new material in 28 years, a protest song against the Ukraine war. ‘Hey Hey, Rise Up!’ featured David Gilmour and Nick Mason alongside long-time Floyd bassist Guy Pratt and Nitin Sawhney on keyboards.
Today in history
1093 – The new Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire was dedicated to Bishop Walkelin after which, the monks moved into their new home and the relics of St Swithun transferred. The Grade 1 listed cathedral is one of the largest cathedrals in England, with the longest nave and overall length of any Gothic cathedral in Europe.
1484 – Portuguese sea captain Diogo Cão returns to Lisbon from his first voyage to explore the coast of Africa, during which he was the first European to discover the Congo River.
1766 – The first patent for a fire escape was granted, featuring a wicker basket connected to a pulley and chain system. Designed to be attached to a window, this mechanism allowed individuals to safely descend from burning buildings. Later, in 1784, Daniel Maseres of England invented a similar machine fastened to windows, and by the mid-19th century, metal fire escapes became common.
1838 – The day before his 32nd birthday, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s 236 ft steamship Great Western sailed from Bristol on her maiden voyage to New York. The journey took 15 days, half the time of the fastest sailing ship. She became the first steamship to make regular Atlantic crossings.
1886 – William Ewart Gladstone introduced the first Irish Home Rule Bill into the House of Commons.
1904 – Britain and France settled their foreign affairs differences with a newly negotiated ‘Entente Cordiale’. Britain recognised the Suez Canal Convention and surrendered its claim to Madagascar.
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