January 19th

National Day

• Good Memory Day
• National Popcorn Day
• Tenderness Towards Existence Day
• Tin Can Day.

Birthdays

• 1942 – Michael Crawford, English actor, comedian (Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em) and singer (“The Music of the Night”), born in Salisbury, Wiltshire.
• 1944 – Laurie London, English singer best known for his hit single of the spiritual song “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”, born in London.
• 1946 – Dolly Parton, American singer-songwriter (“Jolene”, “9 to 5”) and actress (9 to 5, Steel Magnolias), born in Pittman Center, Tennessee, United States.
• 1949 – Dennis Taylor, Northern Irish former professional snooker player and current commentator, born in Coalisland, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.
• 1963 – Caron Wheeler, English singer-songwriter and musician with Soul II Soul (“Back to Life”, “Keep On Movin’”) born in London.
• 1980 – Jenson Button, English racing driver (Formula 1 world champion 2009) and FIA World Endurance Championship for Jota (retiring in 2025), born in Frome, Somerset.

On This Day

• 1915 – More than 20 people were killed when German zeppelins bombed England for the first time. The bombs were dropped on Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn.
• 1917 – The Silvertown explosion in West Ham. 73 people were killed and 400 injured in an explosion in a munitions plant . The plant was destroyed instantly, as were many nearby buildings, including the Silvertown Fire Station and a gasometer.
• 1937 – The 18-year-old English ballerina Margot Fonteyn (born Margaret Hookham) made her debut in the title role of Giselle at Sadler’s Wells, London. She was a principal dancer with the Vic-Wells Ballet, which later became the Royal Ballet and this marked her rise as a leading dancer, establishing her as England’s first internationally acclaimed ballerina.
• 1937 – The first play written for British television, The Underground Murder Mystery by J. Bissell Thomas, was broadcast by the BBC.
• 1955 – The popular board game Scrabble went on sale in the UK. Originally called Criss Cross in 1931, it was redesigned, renamed as Scrabble, and marketed in the US by James Brunot in 1948. Even decades later, Scrabble remains one of the UK’s best-selling board games, with over half of British households owning a copy.
• 1973 – The Statesman, an unarmed ocean going tug, was sent to protect British trawlers from Icelandic patrol boats as the dispute over cod fishing rights intensified.
• 1978 – The last Volkswagen Beetle made in Germany left the Emden plant, marking the end of an era for the German classic Type 1 Beetle production, though manufacturing of the Type 1 continued in Mexico until 2003.
• 1988 – Christopher Nolan, a 22-year-old Irish writer (not film director), won the £20,000 Whitbread Book of the Year Award for his autobiography, Under the Eye of the Clock. Completely paralysed, Nolan used a ‘unicorn’ attachment on his forehead to write the novel at a painfully slow speed.
• 1990 – Police in Johannesburg, armed with batons and dogs, broke up a demonstration against English cricketers who had defied a ban on playing in segregated South Africa.
• 2013 – NASA’s Curiosity Rover found Earth-like calcium-rich deposits, specifically calcium sulfate veins (like bassanite or gypsum), in Yellowknife Bay on Mars, indicating water once flowed through cracks in rocks, similar to Earth processes.
• 2013 – American former professional road racing cyclist Lance Armstrong admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs, including EPO, testosterone, and human growth hormone, during all seven of his Tour de France victories. Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned from sanctioned cycling for life.
• 2014 – The death of former British athlete Sir Chris Chataway, at the age of 82. Chataway, who broke the 5,000m world record in 1954, is also remembered as the man who helped pace Sir Roger Bannister to break the four-minute mile barrier in the same year. Chataway was named the first-ever BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1954.
• 2024 – Indian owned Tata Steel confirmed that it was cutting 2,800 jobs across the UK and closing both blast furnaces in Port Talbot, South Wales. Most of the job losses were expected to be in Port Talbot, that employs 4,000 workers. The furnaces will be replaced by an electric arc furnace, which produces less CO2 and also requires fewer workers to maintain.
• 2024 – Actor Alec Baldwin was indicted by a grand jury on involuntary manslaughter charges for the October 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie Rust. A live round fired from a prop gun Baldwin was holding during rehearsal killed Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza on the New Mexico set. The film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was convicted and jailed for involuntary manslaughter in March 2024.
• 2025 – After more than a year of bloody conflict, Israel and Hamas entered into a ceasefire in Gaza. The conflict began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a deadly incursion into Israel, resulting in 1,200 deaths and 251 captives. In response, Israeli operations in Gaza led to 46,870 fatalities and the displacement of most of its 2.3 million residents. The ceasefire terms required Hamas to release all Israeli hostages, Israel to free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.

Music

• 1963 – The Beatles made their first national TV appearance in the UK on Thank Your Lucky Stars performing ‘Please Please Me’. Thank Your Lucky Stars was a hugely popular programme at the time, and it was a major coup for The Beatles to be appearing. Their presence was secured by Dick James, who later became The Beatles’ publisher.
• 1967 – The Monkees were at No.1 on the UK singles with ‘I’m A Believer’, the group’s only UK No.1. The song composed by Neil Diamond had 1,051,280 advance orders, and went gold within two days of release. It is one of the fewer than forty all-time singles to have sold 10 million (or more) physical copies worldwide.
• 1980 – The Pretenders scored their first UK No.1 hit with their third single ‘Brass In Pocket’. The bands self-titled debut album started a four-week run at No.1 on the UK chart also on this day. Singer Chrissie Hynde got the idea for the song’s title when, during an after-show dinner, she overheard someone enquiring if anyone had, “Picked up dry cleaning? Any brass in pocket?”
• 2001 – It was reported that Paul McCartney was set to become the world’s first pop star billionaire. McCartney was said to be worth £725 million and was expected to become a billionaire after huge sales from The Beatles compilation hits album. His company MPL Collections owns the copyright to more than 25,000 songs and his fortune made him the 11th richest person in the UK, motor racing tycoon Bernie Ecclestone was the richest with a reported £3.2bn.
• 2006 – American soul singer, Wilson Pickett died in hospital near his Ashburn, Virginia home of a heart attack aged 64. Pickett recorded the soul classics ‘Mustang Sally’, ‘Everybody Needs Somebody to Love’ and ‘In The Midnight Hour’ plus Pickett scored 15 other US Top 40 singles.
• 2007 – Canadian singer songwriter and former Mamas and the Papas singer Denny Doherty died at the age of 66 at his home near Toronto, Canada after a short illness. The group scored the 1966 US No.1 & UK No.2 single ‘Monday Monday.’ Doherty started his musical career in 1956 with a band called the Hepsters and in 1963, established a friendship with Cass Elliot when she was with a band called The Big 3.
• 2014 – Bruce Springsteen scored his 10th UK No.1 album with High Hopes, putting him ahead of the likes of Abba, David Bowie and Michael Jackson. The achievement puts him on level pegging with The Rolling Stones and U2, who also have 10 UK No.1’s. The Beatles lead the way, with 15, followed by Madonna on 12, while Elvis Presley and Robbie Williams both had 11 each.
• 2017 – The former business manager of Alanis Morissette admitted stealing over $7m (£5.7m) from the singer and other celebrities. Jonathan Schwartz was charged with fraud over claims he transferred the singer’s money into his own accounts. When initially confronted about the theft, Mr Schwartz lied and said he had invested the money in an illegal marijuana growing business.

History

• 1419 – The city of Rouen in northern France surrendered to Henry V in the Hundred Years’ War, completing Henry’s reconquest of Normandy.
• 1649 – The Puritan parliament began the trial of Charles I for treason. Charles famously refused to plead, asserting that no earthly court had authority over a king but ultimately forced the court to deem his silence a confession, resulting in his beheading.
• 1661 – Thomas Venner was hanged, drawn and quartered in London. Venner was a cooper by trade but also a rebel, the last leader of the Fifth Monarchy Men, who had tried, unsuccessfully, to overthrow Oliver Cromwell. He subsequently led a coup in London against the newly-restored government of Charles II. The coup lasted lasted four days before the Royal authorities captured the rebels.
• 1736 – The birth, in Greenock, of James Watt, the Scottish inventor who developed Newcomen’s steam engine and gave his name to a unit of power. On 29th May 2009 the Bank of England announced that Watt and his business partner Matthew Boulton would appear on a new £50 note.
• 1746 – Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobite troops occupied the town of Stirling, receiving the keys to the town after the Provost surrendered, but they failed to take the strategically vital Stirling Castle from its government garrison, abandoning the siege after a few weeks to face the advancing Duke of Cumberland.