January 20th

National Day

• National Cheese Lovers Day
• National Disc Jockey Day
• Take A Walk Outdoors Day.

Birthdays

• 1930 – Buzz Aldrin, American former astronaut and the second person to walk on the Moon after mission commander Neil Armstrong, born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, United States.
• 1934 – Tom Baker, English actor best known for playing the fourth incarnation of the Doctor in the BBC science fiction series Doctor Who from 1974 to 1981, born in Liverpool.
• 1946 – Jimmy Chambers ,Trinidad born British singer-songwriter with dance-pop band Londonbeat (“I’ve Been Thinking About You”), born in Trinidad and Tobago.
• 1965 – Heather Small, English soul singer and former lead vocalist of the band M People (“Moving on Up”, “Search for the Hero”), born in London.
• 1965 – Sophie Helen Rhys-Jones, Duchess of Edinburgh, member of the British royal family, born in Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford.
• 1971 – Gary Barlow, English singer-songwriter and lead vocalist with Take That (“A Million Love Songs”, “Back for Good”), and television personality, born in Frodsham, Cheshire.
• 1976 – Kirsty Gallacher, British television presenter (Soccor AM, Kirsty’s Home Videos, Sky Sports News) and model, born in Edinburgh, Scotland.
• 1979 – Will Young, English singer (“Leave Right Now”, “Evergreen”), songwriter and 2002 Pop Idol winner, born in Wokingham, Berkshire.
• 1982 – Joe Swash, English actor (as Mickey Miller in Eastenders) and TV personality (I’m a Celebrity: Extra Camp, Stacey & Joe), born in London.

On This Day

• 1936 – George V died and was succeeded by Edward VIII who abdicated 325 days later because of his insistence on marrying American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
• 1942 – Senior Nazi officials met in Berlin at the Wannsee Conference to coordinate the “Final Solution,” the systematic plan to exterminate European Jews.
• 1945 – Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first and last US President to serve four terms. Roosevelt was inaugurated with very little fanfare in what was described as a “homey little ceremony on the back porch of the White House.” The 22nd Amendment was brought in after Roosevelt’s presidency to prevent US Presidents from serving more than two terms.
• 1972 – The number of people out of work and claiming benefit in the UK exceeds 1 million for the first time since the 1930s.
• 1986 – Mrs. Pauline Williams of Luton won her three year fight to prosecute the man who injected her drug addict son with a fatal painkiller. She was the first person to bring a private prosecution for manslaughter to a Crown Court trial.
• 1986 – France and Britain finally decided to undertake the Channel Tunnel project, promising that trains would run under the Channel by 1993. When it eventually opened, on 6th May 1994, it left Eurotunnel with debts of £925m a year later.
• 1987 – Terry Waite, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s special envoy, was indeed kidnapped in Beirut by the militant group Islamic Jihad (a faction of Hezbollah). He had traveled to Lebanon to negotiate the release of four Western hostages, including journalist John McCarthy, but was instead lured into a trap and taken captive himself. He was held for 1,763 days (nearly five years) being kept in strict solitary confinement, often blindfolded and chained to a wall or a radiator, without natural light or exercise.
• 1997 – Three sisters, Phoebe, Faith and Alice Julian were among 17 girls who were the first to be admitted to the choir of York Minster, ending a 400 year old tradition of men only.
• 2007 – Britons Henry Cookson, Rory Sweet, Rupert Longsdon, and Canadian Paul Landry, became the first team to complete a 1,093-mile trek to reach the ‘southern pole of inaccessibility’ without mechanical support, using only skis and kites to haul sleds, achieving a Guinness World Record and fulfilling a challenge first set by Soviet explorers in 1958.
• 2014 – Dr. Michael Ramscar and a team of scientists suggested that the brains of older people only appear to slow down because they have so much information to compute, much like a full-up hard drive. “The brains of older people do not get weak. On the contrary, they simply know more.”

Music

• 1968 – One Hit Wonders John Fred and the Playboy Band started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Judy In Disguise, (With Glasses)’, it made No.3 in the UK. The song was inspired by The Beatles ‘Lucy In The Sky’.
• 1982 – During an Ozzy Osbourne concert in Des Moines, Iowa, a member of the audience threw a bat onto the stage. Stunned by the light, the bat lay motionless, and thinking it was a rubber fake, the singer picked it up and attempted to bite its head off. As he did this, the bat started to flap its wings and Ozzy soon realized it wasn’t fake but in fact a living thing. After the show Ozzy was immediately rushed to the nearest hospital for rabies shots.
• 1983 – Def Leppard released their third studio album ‘Pyromania’ which featured new guitarist Phil Collen.
• 1988 – The Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Yoko, Sean, and Julian Lennon all attend. Paul McCartney did not attend, sending instead a letter stating that continuing business differences with the other ex-Beatles was the reason for his absence. Other inductees include The Beach Boys, The Drifters, Bob Dylan, The Supremes, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Les Paul, and Berry Gordy, Jr.
• 2001 – A memorial service was held for Kirsty MacColl who was killed in a boating accident off the coast of Mexico in December 2000. Bono from U2 and Billy Bragg were among friends and fans that packed St Martin-in-the-fields church in London.
• 2002 – George Harrison had the posthumous UK No.1 single with the re-release of the 1971 former No.1 ‘My Sweet Lord’. Harrison’s single replaced Aaliyah’s ‘More Than A Woman’, the only time in chart history that one deceased artist had taken over from another at No.1.
• 2003 – 8 Mile, starring Eminem toppled The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers from its four-week hold at the top of the UK box office. The story of a Detroit rapper took over £4 million at 423 cinemas across the UK and Ireland.
• 2012 – Etta James, most often remembered for her signature song, ‘At Last’, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard R&B chart, died from complications of leukemia at the age of 73. She also placed nine other songs in the American Top 40 including ‘I Just Want to Make Love to You’, won three Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
• 2021 – Some of the UK’s biggest music stars sent an open letter to the British government demanding action to ensure visa-free touring in the European Union. Sir Elton John, Liam Gallagher, Ed Sheeran, Sting and Radiohead were among 110 artists who signed the letter. It said they had been “shamefully failed” by the government over post-Brexit travel rules for UK musicians.
• 2022 – American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer and actor Meat Loaf (Marvin Lee Aday) died aged 74. His record-breaking 1978 album Bat Out Of Hell spent 457 weeks on the UK album chart. His Bat Out of Hell trilogy of albums (consisting of Bat Out of Hell, Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell, and Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose) has sold more than 50 million copies worldwide, (his first album stayed on the charts for over nine years).

History