April 16th

National Day

• National Librarian Day
• National Orchid Day
• Save the Elephant Day

Birthdays

• 1963 – Jimmy Osmond, American singer and youngest member of the group, the Osmonds (“Long Haired Lover From Liverpool”), born in Los Angeles, California, United States.
• 1963 – Nick Berry, Retired English actor (Eastenders, Heartbeat) and pop singer ( “Every Loser Wins”, “Heartbeat”), born in Woodford, East London.
• 1965 – Martin Lawrence, American actor (Bad Boys, Big Momma’s House, Life) and comedian, born in Frankfurt, Germany.
• 1969 – Gabrielle, British singer and songwriter (“Dreams”, “Rise”, “Out Of Reach”), born in London Borough of Hackney, London.
• 1971 – Max Beesley, English actor (The Gentlemen, Hotel Babylon, Suits), born in Burnage,
• Manchester.

On This Day

• 1964 – Twelve members of the Great Train Robbery gang, who stole £2.6m in used bank notes after holding up the night mail train travelling from Glasgow to London, were sentenced to a total of 307 years.
• 1996 – The Duke and Duchess of York, Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, announced that they were to divorce.
• 2020 – Shortly before 06:00 this morning, Tom Moore, a 99-year-old war veteran from Bedfordshire, who is walking 100 laps of his garden with the aid of a walking frame before he turns 100, had raised nearly £12million for the NHS. More than 600,000 people from around the world donated money to his fundraising page since it was set up the previous week.

Music

• 1964 – The Rolling Stones first album was released in the UK, it went to No.1 two weeks later and stayed on the chart for 40 weeks, with 11 weeks at No.1. The American edition of the LP, with a slightly different track list, came out on London Records on 30 May 1964, subtitled England’s Newest Hit Makers, which later became its official title.
• 1969 – Desmond Dekker and the Aces were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘The Israelites’, making Dekker the first Jamaican artist to have an UK No.1 single.
• 1977 – David Soul one half of TV cop show Starsky & Hutch, went to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Don’t Give Up On Us’, his only US hit. Also No.1 in the UK.
• 1994 – Prince had his first UK No.1 with ‘The Most Beautiful Girl In The World’, (his 37th single release). It was his first release since changing his stage name to an unpronounceable symbol.

History

• 1705 – Queen Anne of England knighted the scientist Isaac Newton at Trinity College, Cambridge.
• 1786 – The birth of John Franklin, English Arctic explorer who, in 1845, was assigned to traverse the last, unnavigated sections of the Northwest Passage. After being icebound for more than a year, his ships Erebus and Terror were abandoned and by that point Franklin and nearly two dozen others had died. The survivors, led by Franklin’s deputy Francis Crozier and Erebus’ captain James Fitzjames, set out for the Canadian mainland and disappeared. In 2014, a Canadian search team discovered the wreck of Erebus. Two years later, the Arctic Research Foundation found the wreck of his ship Terror. Both sites are now protected as a combined National Historic Site.
• 1886 – The death of Alexander Balfour, Scottish merchant and founder of the Liverpool shipping company ‘Balfour Williamson’. He was a committed philanthropist, and founded the Duke Street Home, to provide better conditions for sailors, and orphanages for their children.
• 1895 – The birth of Sir Ove Arup, English structural engineer, to Danish parents. He built the Sydney Opera House and worked with Sir Basil Spence on Coventry Cathedral.