June 8th

Feast Day of St. Chlodulf of Metz, also known as St. Cloud. He was Bishop of Metz in the 7th Century, holding the office for over forty years

632 The Prophet Muhammad died in Medina aged 63yo. He was succeeded by Abu Bakr.


1042 Edward the Confessor becomes King of England.


1859 British evangelist Smith Wigglesworth, who was important in the early history of Pentecostalism, was born in Menston, Yorkshire. Much of Wigglesworth's ministry was focused on faith healing. Although he had no medical training, he insisted that God had healed him of appendicitis. Despite suffering from kidney stones which passed naturally in his later years, Smith refused any medical treatment, stating that no knife would ever touch his body either in life or death.

1876 French author Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin best known by her pseudonym George Sand died at Nohant, near Châteauroux,  at the age of 71 and was buried in the grounds of her home there.



1918 American stage and film actor Robert Preston, best remembered for originating the role of Harold Hill in the 1957 musical The Music Man and the subsequent film adaptation, was born in
Newton, Massachusetts.


1924 George Mallory, English lieutenant and mountaineer disappeared with his climbing partner Andrew "Sandy" Irvine,  on the North-East ridge during their attempt to make the first ascent of the world's highest mountain. The pair were last seen when they were about 800 vertical feet (245m) from the summit. Mallory's ultimate fate was unknown for 75 years, until his body was discovered on 1 May 1999 by an expedition that had set out to search for the climbers' remains. Whether Mallory and Irvine reached the summit before they died remains a subject of speculation and continuing research.


1925 Barbara Bush, wife of George H. W. Bush, 41st First Lady of the United States, is born in New York, New York.

1936 James Darren, American actor, singer, and director is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He then achieved success co-starring as impulsive scientist and adventurer Tony Newman in the science fiction television series, The Time Tunnel (1966–1967). In 1998, he achieved renewed popularity as a singer through his appearances on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the role of holographic crooner and advice-giver Vic Fontaine; many of his performances on the show were re-recorded for the album This One's from the Heart (1999). The album showed Darren, a close friend of Frank Sinatra, comfortably singing in the Sinatra style; the 2001 follow-up Because of You showed similar inspiration from Tony Bennett.


1940 American singer and actress Nancy Sinatra was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. She is the daughter of singer/actor Frank Sinatra, and remains best known for her 1966 signature hit "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'".


1943 Colin Baker was born  in Waterloo, London. He is an English actor, who is known as Paul Merroney in The Brothers from 1974 to 1976 and as the 6th incarnation of The Doctor in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who from 1984 to 1986.


1949 George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four is published for the first time.


1951 Welsh singer-songwriter Bonnie Tyler was born in Skewen, Wales. Her career peaked in the 1980s when she collaborated with Jim Steinman, releasing international hits "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Holding Out for a Hero". Tyler's success in this period culminated in two Brit Awards and three Grammy Award nominations.


1955 Tim Berners-Lee, English-American computer scientist and engineer, who invented the World Wide Web is born in London, England.


1960 Simply Red frontman Michael "Mick" Hucknall was born in Denton, Manchester.


1968 The funeral of Robert Kennedy took place at the Basilica of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City.


1969 American actor and singer Robert Taylor died aged 57yo from lung cancer.


1980 Jamie Spencer, Irish flat racing jockey. He has been champion jockey in both Ireland and Britain and has won four classics, two in each country. Spencer married Channel 4 Racing presenter Emma Ramsden in February 2005 and they have three children. Charlie, Chloe and Ella. They divorced in 2010.


1984 Homosexuality is declared legal in the Australian State of New South Wales.


2003 Welsh darts player Leighton Rees died in his home village, Ynysybwl, in 2003, aged 63. He had  had a pacemaker fitted and also had a heart bypass operation in his later life.


2010 Crispian St. Peters, English singer-songwriter best known for his work in the 1960s, particularly his 1966 hits, "The Pied Piper" and "You Were on My Mind," died after a long illness, at the age of 71yo.


Following their much publicised public spat, Theresa May and Michael Gove have been dressed down by David Camoron , he made them both go sit on the naughty step and gave them 1,000 lines each, " I must not make the PM look silly, he does that well enough himself!" They were also grounded for a month and sent to bed with no supper.


In shock news today The Trumpton Fire Brigade attacked the coalition  over their pension proposals, Captain Flack said, " Look at  poor Barney McGrew under the government's proposals, would be 78 before he could retire! What do you say? He's 82yo already? Well there you are!"