On This Day In History
Encyclopedia
On This Day In History was a feature on the BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...

 breakfast show in the UK between 1988 and 1993. It was devised by the programme's presenter at the time, Simon Mayo
Simon Mayo
Simon Mayo is an English radio presenter who has worked for BBC Radio since 1981. As of January 2010, Mayo is presenter of Simon Mayo Drivetime on BBC Radio 2 and, with Mark Kermode, presenter of Kermode and Mayo's Film Reviews on BBC Radio 5 Live.In 2008, Mayo was recognised as the "radio...

.

Mayo, a history graduate from University of Warwick
University of Warwick
The University of Warwick is a public research university located in Coventry, United Kingdom...

, used the day's date each morning to regurgitate facts and events which had happened on that date in years passed.

As a quirk, he would often add a mildly cynical punchline to each of the stories he recounted, and then would get his "crew" (female co-host, newsreader and producer) each to guess the age of living celebrities who were born on that day.

A tie-in book of the same title was published in later years,with much advertisement by the bbc,initially just to give away on the show to a daily winner who rang in with the correct answer to a question posed by Mayo about a specific person or event of relevance to that date.

Perhaps the most famous part of the feature was the music used to soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...

 it; a looped instrumental version of the George Michael
George Michael
George Michael is a British musician, singer, songwriter and record producer who rose to fame in the 1980s when he formed the pop duo Wham! with his school friend, Andrew Ridgeley...

 hit I Want Your Sex
I Want Your Sex
"I Want Your Sex" was a single which first charted in June 1987, appearing on George Michael's Faith album, and the soundtrack to Beverly Hills Cop II....

; the full version of which had been banned from broadcast by Radio 1 when it was released in 1987.

The feature ended when Mayo left the breakfast show, although when he switched to the mid-morning programme, he revived it in part with a spot called Dead Or Alive?, where he would ask listeners whether celebrities or known figures born on the date in question were still living or not.

Mayo now works for BBC Radio Five Live
BBC Radio Five Live
BBC Radio 5 Live is the BBC's national radio service that specialises in live BBC News, phone-ins, and sports commentaries...

 and no longer does any features which show off his passion for history. However, the feature is often heard in one form or another on many commercial radio stations.
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