Born on this Day 17th April
1894 Nikita Krushchev
1918 William Holden
1941 Billy Fury
1929 James Last
1930 Chris Barber
1946 Henry Kelly
1946 Clare Francis
1951 Olivia Hussey
1954 Riccardo Patrese
1958 Sean Bean
1963 Michael Jordan
1974 Victoria Adams Beckham

Died on this Day
1790 Benjamin Franklin
1960 Eddie Cochran
1998 Lady Linda McCartney

Music
1950 Frank Sinatra’s favourite singer Tony Bennett made his first recording, ‘Boulevard Of Broken Dreams’.

1964 Eddie Cochran’s single ‘Skinny Jim’ was released in the UK on the fourth anniversary of his death.

1970 Johnny Cash gave a performance at the White House in Washington DC.

1973 Pink Floyd received their gold disc for ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’.

1982 Paul McCartney became the first composer to simultaneously have two songs on the American ‘Black Music’ and ‘Country Music’ charts.

1984 It was announced that Michael Jackson was to undergo scalp surgery at Culver City Hospital in California after being badly burnt by fireworks while filming a Pepsi Cola commercial.

Sport
1961 The English League Championship was won by Tottenham Hotspur.

1983 The London Marathon was won by Britain’s Michael Gratton, with Grete Waitz of Norway the first woman home, losing out on a new marathon record by only a fraction of a second.

1993 Colombian boxer Ruben Palacio was stripped of his world featherweight title after it was discovered that he had HIV.

People & Showbiz
1953 Charlie Chaplin announced that he was never to return to America, having been threatened with proceedings to bar him entry on the grounds of being a Communist.

1983 78 year old stage and screen star Ethel Merman was recovering in a New York hospital from a successful operation to remove a brain tumour.

1984 Terry Wogan and Michael Aspel were named television personalities of the year by the Television and Radio Industries Club at their annual awards ceremony in London.

General Events
1963 Twenty CND activists were arrested by Special Branch officers for revealing military information.

1969 The eligible voting age was dropped from 21 to 18, the first change since 1928.

1969 22 year old Bernadette Devlin was elected for Mid Ulster to become the youngest woman MP.

1983 Thailand banned the sale of alcohol for 14 hours before polling in their General Election, to stop the risk of violence.

1989 Nigel Lawson, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, rejected plans for European economic and monetary union.

1989 A tanker spilt 2000 gallons of sulphuric acid onto the M25 at Swanley, Kent causing 10 mile traffic jams.

1995 Greenpeace campaigners breached security at the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria and blocked roads leading to the site. Greenpeace’s ship, The Moby Dick, was anchored close to the discharge pipe which Greenpeace claims pumps high levels of radioactive waste into the Irish Sea. More than 60 people were arrested at the demonstration.

1997 Four months after allowing stewardesses working over the Christmas period to take husbands and boyfriends with them, British Airways were recruiting extra cabin staff to cover the record maternity leave claims they were receiving.