Today is Boxing Day, Kwanzaa and Saint Stephens Day. Your star sign is Capricorn and your birthstone is Blue Topaz.
2004 – A devastating tsunami with waves up to 30 m (100 ft) high and an earthquake occurred in the Indian Ocean. The destruction killed an estimated 227,898 people.
Today’s Birthdays
1957 – Dermot Murnaghan (68), English broadcaster (BBC News) and television presenter (Eggheads), born in Barnstaple, Devon.
1960 – Temuera Morrison (65), New Zealand actor (Once Were Warriors, The Book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian), born in Rotorua, New Zealand.
1963 – Lars Ulrich (62), Danish musician, drummer and a founding member of American heavy metal band Metallica (“Enter Sandman”), born in Gentofte Municipality, Denmark.
1971 – Jared Leto (54), American actor (Suicide Squad, House of Gucci, Lord of War) and musician (Thirty Seconds to Mars), born in Bossier City, Louisiana, United States.
1972 – Shane Meadows (53), English director, screenwriter and actor (This Is England and its three television sequels), born in Uttoxeter, West Midlands.
1986 – Kit Harington (39), English actor (The Beast Within), better known for his role as Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, born in Acton, London.
1992 – Jade Thirlwall (33), English singer and songwriter with girl group Little Mix (“Shout out to My Ex”), born in South Shields, South Tyneside.
Famous Deaths
2001 – Nigel Hawthorne (b. 1929), English actor (Yes Minister, The Madness of King George, Demolition Man).
2012 – Gerry Anderson (b. 1929), English television and film producer, director, writer and occasional voice artist (Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Terrahawks, Joe 90).
2021 – Desmond Tutu (b. 1931), South African Anglican bishop, theologian and anti-apartheid and human rights activist.
The Day Today
1900 – A relief crew arrived at the the lighthouse on the Flannan Isles, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, only to find that the previous crew of three lighthouse keepers had all disappeared without a trace. The mystery has never been resolved, but rumours and myths still abound.
1932 – The BBC presented the first televised pantomime, Dick Whittington.
1943 – A Royal Navy convoy, including the battleship Duke of York and cruiser Jamaica, attacked and sank the mighty German battlecruiser Scharnhorst, of North Cape, Norway. She was the last major German battleship.
1970 – British Olympic medallist Lillian Board, MBE, died after losing her battle against a virulent form of cancer. The twice European Gold medallist and Olympic silver medallist who helped set four world records on the track, died late in the afternoon after she slipped into a coma on Christmas Eve.
1980 – A security patrol near RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk, saw what they believed to be a UFO. This was the first in a series of unexplained lights witnessed in the area. The patrol saw the lights descend into a nearby forest, and when they went to investigate, they found a glowing metallic object covered in lights. It moved further away from them whenever they tried to approach it. The incident has since been referred to as “Britain’s Roswell.”
1988 – Crash investigators uncovered wreckage which they hoped would hold the key to the Lockerbie air disaster of 21st December. Two men, said to be Libyan intelligence agents were later put on trial for planting the bomb.
2001 – Just four months after the 9/11 attacks, British terrorist Richard Reid boarded American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with homemade bombs hidden in his shoes. During the flight, Reid tried to detonate his shoes, but he struggled to light the fuse. Crew members and passengers noticed and restrained him.
2004 – A devastating tsunami with waves up to 30 m (100 ft) high and an earthquake occurred in the Indian Ocean. The earthquake was a 9.3 magnitude which caused a tsunami that hit Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Maldives and other countries. The destruction killed an estimated 227,898 people.
2006 – At 40 years and 268 days, Teddy Sheringham scores for West Ham United in a 2-1 loss to Portsmouth at Upton Park, becoming the oldest goalscorer in EPL history.
2013 – More people accessed the BBC iPlayer on tablets than on computers for the first time, after thousands had unwrapped new devices for Christmas. Over the festive period, there were 1.96 million requests for Doctor Who’s Christmas special The Time of the Doctor, in which Peter Capaldi arrived to succeed Matt Smith.
2015 – Weeks of heavy rain led to the worst floods Hebden Bridge (West Yorkshire) had ever seen. 1600 businesses were affected. 45% of flooded premises suffered structural damage, 75% lost stock and 46% lost office equipment – almost double the losses faced after the floods in summer 2012. By early spring 2016 almost 40% of businesses in the town were still closed.
Today In Music
1966 – The Jimi Hendrix Experience played an afternoon show at The Uppercut Club, London, (where he was billed as “The American Top soul Singer – Jimi Hendrix”). Hendrix also wrote the lyrics to Purple Haze in the dressing room on the same day.
1967 – BBC Television broadcast The Beatles movie ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ in black and white. The next day, the British press and the viewing public pronounce the film an utter disaster. The negative reaction was so strong that a US television deal for broadcasting the movie was cancelled.
1976 – The Sex Pistols recorded ‘God Save The Queen’ at Wessex Studios London, England. The song was released during Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee in 1977. The record’s lyrics, as well as the cover, were controversial at the time, and both the BBC and the Independent Broadcasting Authority refused to play the song. The song reached No.1 on the NME charts.
1979 – The first night of a series of concerts were held at The Hammersmith Odeon in London for the People of Kampuchea, featuring Queen, The Clash, The Pretenders, The Who, Elvis Costello, Wings, and many more artists. The events which were organised by Paul McCartney and Kurt Waldheim were aimed to raise money for the victims of war-torn Cambodia.
1979 – Pink Floyd’s The Wall was at No.1 on the US album chart. (The album spent a total of 15 weeks at No.1 during a 35-week stay on the chart). The Wall also spent a total of 5 weeks at No.1 on the UK chart.
1998 – The Spice Girls scored their 8th UK No.1 single with ‘Goodbye’, (the first single without Geri Halliwell). It gave the group the Christmas No.1 for the third year in a row equaling the record set by The Beatles from 1963, 64 and 65.
2007 – Amy Winehouse’s second album ‘Back to Black’ was named as the biggest-selling album of the year. Released at the end of 2006 the album had now sold more than 1.5m copies in the UK, achieving five platinum sales awards, Winehouse was also nominated for six Grammys including song of the year. Leona Lewis’s ‘Spirit’ was the second best seller, Lewis sold 1.27m copies in just five weeks, becoming the fastest-selling debut in UK history and making the former X Factor winner the fastest female million-seller in the UK. Mika’s ‘Life in Cartoon Motion’ were the third best selling album of 2007.
Today In History
1135 – The Coronation of King Stephen, grandson of William the Conqueror. Stephen’s reign was marked by civil war and unsettled government. He was succeeded in 1154 by Henry II.
1606 – William Shakespeare’s King Lear had its first known royal performance at Whitehall Palace. This court performance was a significant event, marking Shakespeare’s first play about a King of Britain and aligning with James I’s efforts to create a unified “Great Britain”.
1791 – The birth of Charles Babbage, English mathematician, philosopher, and mechanical engineer who originated the idea of a programmable computer.
1860 – The first ever inter-club football match took place between Hallam F.C. and Sheffield F.C. at Hallam’s Sandygate Road ground in Sheffield, Yorkshire. Sandygate has been recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as the ‘Oldest Ground in the World’.
1874 – Boxing Day was officially recognised in Britain as a Bank Holiday. The name originates from the custom of Christmas boxes being given to a lord’s serfs and dates back to the middle ages.
1898 – Marie and Pierre Curie announced their discovery of radium at the French Academy of Sciences, revealing a new, intensely radioactive element isolated from pitchblende, a uranium ore, a discovery that, along with their earlier finding of polonium, established the field of radioactivity.
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