January 1st

National Day

• Today is Commitment Day, Euro (currency) Day and New Years Day.
• Your star sign is Capricorn and your birthstone is Garnet.

Birthdays

• 1954 – Richard Gibson, British actor, best known for his role as the Gestapo Officer Herr, Otto Flick in the BBC sitcom series, ‘Allo ‘Allo!, born in Kampala, Uganda.
• 1961 – Fiona Phillips, English retired journalist, broadcaster and television presenter (GMTV), born in Canterbury, Kent.
• 1969 – Paul Lawrie, Scottish professional golfer and winner of The Open Championship in 1999, born in Aberdeen, Scotland.
• 1980 – Richie Faulkner, English musician and lead guitarist with the heavy metal band Judas Priest since April 2011, born in London.
• 1992 – Jack Wilshere, English football coach (Luton Town) and former professional player (Arsenal, England), born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire.

On This Day

• 1919 – More than 200 men, returning home after the end of World War One, died when the naval yacht HMY Iolaire hit a reef in bad weather close to Stornoway harbour and sank just yards from the Lewis coastline.
• 1951 – The first episode of BBC’s radio serial The Archers, about the farming folk of Ambridge, aired nationally. It is the world’s longest running radio ‘soap’. By 18th December 2011 it had reached 16,600 episodes.
• 1965 – Stanley Matthews was knighted, the first professional footballer to receive this honour.
• 1973 – The UK became a full member of the European Economic Community (EEC) under Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath, joining Denmark and Ireland, following years of applications and French vetoes, with its entry cemented by the European Communities Act 1972 after intense parliamentary debate.
• 1985 – Michael Harrison, the son of former Vodafone chairman Sir Ernest Harrison, made the first ever mobile phone call in Britain. He called his father from London’s Parliament Square on the newly-launched Vodafone network using an 11lb (5kg) Transportable Vodafone VT1, which boasted around 30 minutes of talk time. A few days later, a crowd gathered at St Katherine’s Dock in London to watch comedian Ernie Wise make the first public mobile phone call using the same device. All were far from portable and cost around £2,000 – equivalent to roughly £5,000 today.
• 1995 – Fred West committed suicide in his prison cell at the age of 53, while awaiting trial for 12 murders, leaving his wife, Rosemary West, to face the courts alone.
• 1998 – Archaeologist Bryony Coles coined the name “Doggerland” for the vast, submerged landmass in the North Sea, highlighting its importance as a crucial, habitable area linking Britain and Europe during the Ice Age and Mesolithic periods.
• 1999 – The Euro currency was introduced and adopted by 11 Member States – Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.
• 2011 – Estonia joined the Eurozone and adopted the Euro as its currency. For many people in Estonia, the adoption of the Euro was the final proof that they had finally separated as a nation from the Soviet Union.
• 2018 – World Darts Championship: Retiring 16-time title holder Phil Taylor loses 7-2 to fellow Englishman Rob Cross in the Final at the Alexandra Palace, London.
• 2022 – Tobias Weller, aged 11 and Max Woosey, 12, became the youngest-ever recipients of New Year’s Honours after raising more than £700,000 between them for charity. Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism walked more than 50 miles using his walking frame, plus a 112 mile ride on his trike, a 4km swim and running the length of a full marathon. Max inspired nearly 2,000 other young people all over the world to raise money for their own charities through Max’s Big Camp Out and has spent every night in a tent since March 2020.
• 2022 – Mayor of Kingstown actor Jeremy Renner is accidentally run over by a snowplow, breaking more than 30 bones in his body near Reno, Nevada.
• 2022 – Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s state funeral was held at St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa, marking a final farewell to the anti-apartheid icon.
• 2025 – Liechtenstein became the 37th country to legalize same-sex marriage, with the law taking effect on January 1, 2025, following a near-unanimous parliamentary vote in May 2024, making it the last German-speaking nation to adopt marriage equality and aligning it with neighbors like Austria, Germany, and Switzerland.

Music

• 1956 – Bill Haley’s ‘Rock Around the Clock’ went to No.1 on the UK singles chart for the second time. The single is often cited as the biggest-selling vinyl rock and roll single of all time with sales over 25m.
• 1957 – BBC Television aired its new rock & roll show ‘Cool For Cats’ for the first time. With a miniscule budget, the program was forced to rely on artists miming and the talents of a resident dance group (led by Douglas Squires). Ker Robertson, the first host, was succeeded after a few weeks by Kent Walton, later better known for his ITV wrestling commentaries.
• 1962 – The Beatles auditioned for Decca Records in West Hampstead, London. A&R boss at Decca Dick Rowe turned them down in what is considered one of the biggest mistakes in music industry history, Decca decided to reject the band, selecting instead Brian Poole and the Tremeloes.
• 1964 – The first edition of the BBC TV show Top Of The Pops was transmitted from an old church hall in Manchester, England. Acts miming to their latest releases included The Rolling Stones, (I Wanna Be Your Man), The Dave Clark Five, (Glad All Over), The Hollies, (Stay), and The Swinging Blue Jeans, (Hippy Hippy Shake). The first song played was Dusty Springfield’s ‘I Only Want To Be With You’. Also featured on disc and film, The Beatles (I Want to Hold Your Hand), Freddie & the Dreamers, Cliff Richard and the Shadows and Gene Pitney.
• 1966 – Simon And Garfunkel started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘The Sounds Of Silence’, a No.13 hit in the UK.
• 1982 – ABBA’s last official live performance as a group was in Stockholm, Sweden, for a television appearance on the The Late Late Breakfast Show, where they sang “Thank You For The Music”. While they reunited for private events and later for Mamma Mia! The Party in 2016 and the Voyage album/concert in 2021-22, the 1982 TV show marked their final time performing together as a quartet for the public.
• 2007 – Queen beat The Beatles to be crowned greatest British band of all time by BBC Radio 2 listeners in the UK. They pipped the Fab Four in a live contest, trouncing other finalists The Rolling Stones, Oasis and Take That. The bands were judged on song-writing, lyrics, live performances, originality and showmanship.
• 2009 – According to official UK sales figures Duffy’s debut album Rockferry came top of the year-end chart, with 1.685 million copies sold. Take That had the second biggest seller with The Circus, Kings of Leon, Only By The Night was third, Spirit by Leona Lewis was fourth and Coldplay had the fifth biggest seller with Viva La Vida. X Factor winner Alexandra Burke had the UK’s top-selling single after her version of Hallelujah sold 888,000 copies in the last two weeks of the year.
• 2013 – Ultravox’s 1981 hit ‘Vienna’ was voted the UK’s favourite number two single. The song topped a poll by BBC Radio 2 and the Official Charts Company to find the greatest track to miss out on the number one spot. Vienna was held off by novelty track ‘Shaddup You Face’ by Joe Dolce. ‘Fairytale of New York’ by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl was voted into second place. Other songs to feature included The Beatles ‘Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever’, The Who’s ‘My Generation’ and Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’.

History

• 1651 – Charles II was crowned King of Scotland at Scone, a village in Perth and Kinross.
• 1660 – Samuel Pepys began writing the Diary which he kept for nine years, writing in an early form of shorthand.
• 1760 – The death in Rome of ‘the Old Pretender’, James Stuart, father of Bonnie Prince Charlie. He is buried in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.
• 1773 – The hymn that became known as “Amazing Grace”, was first used to accompany a sermon, led by John Newton in the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire.
• 1818 – The publication of Mary’s Shelley’s book ‘Frankenstein’, frequently called the world’s first science fiction novel.