January 24

Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset and 1st Earl of Middlesex (24 January 1638 – 29 January 1706) was an English poet and courtier.
He bore his share in the excesses for which Sir Charles Sedley and Lord Rochester were notorious. In 1662 he and his brother Edward, with three other gentlemen, were indicted for the robbery and murder of a tanner named Hoppy. The defence was that they were in pursuit of thieves, and mistook Hoppy for a highwayman. They appear to have been acquitted, for when in 1663 Sir Charles Sedley was tried for a gross breach of public decency in Covent Garden, Sackville, who had been one of the offenders, according to Samuel Pepys was asked by the Lord Chief Justice "whether he had so soon forgot his deliverance at that time, and that it would have more become him to have been at his prayers begging God's forgiveness than now running into such courses again."

Something in his character made his follies less obnoxious to the citizens than those of the other rakes, for he was never altogether unpopular, and Rochester is said to have told Charles II that "he did not know how it was, my Lord Dorset might do anything, yet was never to blame". In 1665 he volunteered to serve under the Duke of York in the Second Anglo-Dutch War. His famous song, To all you ladies now at Land, was written, according to Prior, on the night before the victory gained over foggy Opdam off Harwich (3 June 1665). Dr Johnson, with the remark that seldom any splendid story is wholly true, says that the Earl of Orrery had told him it was only retouched on that occasion.

In 1667 Pepys laments that Sackville had lured Nell Gwyn away from the theatre, and that with Sedley the two kept merry house at Epsom. Next year the king was paying court to Nell, and her Charles the Second, as she called him (Charles Hart, a former lover, being her Charles the First), was sent on a sleeveless errand into France to be out of the way. In 1678 he narrowly escaped death at the hands of the deranged Earl of Pembroke, with whom he was engaged in a lawsuit.

His gaiety and wit secured the continued favour of Charles II, but did not especially recommend him to James II, who could not, moreover, forgive Dorset's lampoons on his mistress, Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester. On James's accession, therefore, he retired from court. He concurred in the invitation to William of Orange, who made him a Privy Counsellor, Lord Chamberlain (1689), and Knight of the Garter (1692). During William's absences in 1695–1698 he was one of the Lord Chief Justices of the Realm. In 1699 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society

He was a generous patron of men of letters. When Dryden was dismissed from the laureateship, he made him an equivalent pension from his own purse. Matthew Prior, in dedicating his Poems on Several Occasions (1709) to Dorset's son, affirms that his opinion was consulted by Edmund Waller; that the Duke of Buckingham deferred the publication of his Rehearsal until he was assured that Dorset would not rehearse upon him again; and that Samuel Butler and Wycherley both owed their first recognition to him. Prior's praise of Dorset is no doubt extravagant, but when his youthful follies were over he appears to have developed sterling qualities, and although the poems he has left are very few, none of them are devoid of merit. Dryden's Essay on Satire and the dedication of the Essay of Dramatick Poesie are addressed to him. Walpole (Catalogue of Noble Authors, iv.) says that he had as much wit as his first master, or his contemporaries Buckingham and Rochester, without the royal want of feeling, the duke's want of principles or the earl's want of thought; and Congreve reported of him when he was dying that he slabbered more wit than other people had in their best health.

Julian Miles "Jools" Holland, OBE, DL (born 24 January 1958) is an English pianist, bandleader, singer, composer, and television presenter. He was a founder of the band Squeeze and his work has involved him with many artists including Sting, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, George Harrison, David Gilmour, Magazine and Bono.

Holland is a published author and appears on television shows besides his own and contributes to radio shows. In 2004, he collaborated with Tom Jones on an album of traditional R&B music. He currently hosts Later... with Jools Holland, a music-based show aired on BBC2, on which his annual show Hootenanny is based. He also regularly hosts the weekly program Jools Holland on BBC Radio 2, which is a mix of live and recorded music and general chat, and features studio guests, along with members of his Orchestra.

Jade Louise Ewen (born 24 January 1988) is an English singer, songwriter, actress and member of the Sugababes. Ewen began her singing career in a girl group named Trinity Stone signed to Sony BMG in 2005, but they disbanded in 2007 with no album released. In 2009, she represented the UK at the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest performing the Andrew Lloyd Webber penned "It's My Time" after winning the UK national selection. She achieved fifth place, making her the most successful British Eurovision act since 2002.

Ewen replaced Keisha Buchanan of the Sugababes in September 2009 and has since attained two UK top-ten singles with the group and one album Sweet 7; the band have been on hiatus since 2011 with a new album planned for release some point in 2013.