Valentine's Day, 170 years ago
The "last night but three" of Pablo Fanque's Rochdale circus was held on February 14th, Valentine's Day. The traditions we associate with February 14th today were present in some form 170 years ago. But Wikipedia also says that Saint Valentine's Day was "reinvented" in the 1840s and a writer in 1849 observed that, "Saint Valentine's Day... is becoming, nay it has become, a national holyday."
It's unclear how many audience members decided to go on a Valentine's date to this circus, but it's not impossible that cupid struck that night in Rochdale!
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On this day in 1969, John Lennon returned his MBE
Receiving an MBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) is an award many people would see as a great achievement and honour. John Lennon, however, was not one of these people, and returned his MBE four years after he received it in 1965.
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