At A Glance

8 January 1997 at a glance

Day of the week
8 January 1997 was a Wednesday.
UK Number One
The UK Number One single was “2 Become 1” by Spice Girls.
Top Film of 1997
The highest-grossing film worldwide released in 1997 was Titanic.
Star sign
The star sign for 8 January is Capricorn.
Chinese zodiac
In the Chinese zodiac, 8 January 1997 fell in the Year of the Rat.
Birthstone
The birthstone for January is Garnet.
Moon phase
The moon phase on 8 January 1997 was New Moon.

On this day: 8 January

  • 1981 A local farmer reports a UFO sighting in Trans-en-Provence, France, claimed to be "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time".
  • 1982 Breakup of the Bell System: In the United States, AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions.
  • 1994 Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov on Soyuz TM-18 leaves for Mir. He would stay on the space station until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space.
  • 2002 President of the United States George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act.
  • 2004 The RMS Queen Mary 2, then the largest ocean liner ever built, is christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

Famous people born on 8 January

  • Elvis Presley, American singer, guitarist, and actor (1935–1977)
  • David Bowie, English singer-songwriter, producer, and actor (1947–2016)
  • Stephen Hawking, English physicist and author (1942–2018)
  • Damiano David, Italian singer-songwriter (born 1999)

Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Choose your country: the charts, news and leaders change to match.

Events of 1997 in the United Kingdom

A selection from Wikipedia's '1997 in the United Kingdom'. Not a complete list.

  • 30 March – Channel 5, Britain's fifth terrestrial television channel and its first new one since the launch of Channel 4 in November 1982, is launched.
  • 31 March – BBC preschool children's television series Teletubbies first airs.
  • 26 June – Publication of J. K. Rowling's first Harry Potter fantasy novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in London by Bloomsbury Publishing, in an edition of 500 copies.

Life in 1997

Prime Minister

John Major

Monarch

Elizabeth II

Pint of Beer

£1.60

Loaf of Bread

67p

Average House

£65,798

Weekly Wage

£385.00

Or

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Famous Faces Born in the 1990s

Well-known people born in the same decade as you, not on your birthday.

Sources: Wikidata and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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