Born on this Day 4th April
1896 Robert Sherwood
1915 Muddy Waters
1932 Anthony Perkins
1914 Frances Langford
1918 Margaret DuPont
1924 Peter Vaughan
1963 Graham Norton
1965 Robert Downey Jr
1965 Sean Wilson

Died on this Day
1929 Karl Benz
1968 Martin Luther King
1995 Kenny Everett

Music
1959 BBC TV ran a pilot episode of its new music programme ‘Juke Box Jury’.

1964 The top 5 places in the US singles chart were all held by the Beatles, with ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ at No.1.

1981 Bucks Fizz won the Eurovision Song Contest with their first release ‘Making Your Mind Up’.

1981 Depeche Mode’s debut single ‘Dreaming Of Me’ entered the UK charts.

1987 Ferry Aid’s charity record ‘Let It Be’ entered the UK charts at No.1. Amongst the singers was unknown Rick Astley.

1987 In America, Starship scored their third No.1 single in just 18 months.

Sport
1981 Oxford’s first woman cox, Susan Brown, led her crew to victory in the University Boat Race.

1981 Bob Champion, who 2 years earlier had been given only 8 months to live after cancer had been diagnosed, won the Grand National.

1988 Manchester United fought back from 3-1 down to draw 3-3 against Liverpool, preserving an unbeaten 9 year record at Anfield.

1992 Oxford won the 138th University Boat Race, beating Cambridge by one and a quarter lengths.

1992 Party Politics won the Grand National, ahead of Romany King.

People & Showbiz
1984 Peter O’Toole was to return to the West End stage as Professor Higgins in a production of Shaw’s ‘Pygmalion’.

1988 The final episode of popular soap ‘Crossroads’ was shown, having begun in December 1964 and run for a total 4510 episodes.

General Events
1581 Francis Drake returned to England having circumnavigated the world in the Golden Hind. Queen Elizabeth I knighted him on board his ship.

1934 The first cats-eye reflective studs were laid in a road near Bradford.

1949 NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was formed in Washington.

1958 Members of CND held their first protest march, beginning at Hyde Park Corner and continuing to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire.

1984 NASA announced that the space shuttle Challenger was to conduct its first rescue mission in space. The astronauts would have to retrieve and repair a scientific satellite that malfunctioned several months after its launch.

1988 Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama arrived in London on a state visit.

1989 Wee Sweeties, the first polar bear to be bred successfully in captivity in Scotland, made his first public debut at Edinburgh zoo.