August 18th "2024" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 231 of the year! Known as World Breast Cancer Research Day, Green Man Festival. If you were born today you were likely conceived the week of November 25th in the previous year. Your star sign is Leo and your birthstone is Peridot.
1932 – Scottish aviator, Jim Mollison made the first westbound solo transatlantic flight in a light aircraft when he arrived in New Brunswick, Canada after leaving Portmarnock in Ireland 30 hours earlier.
Todays birthdays
1936 – Robert Redford (88), American actor (Indecent Proposal, A River Runs Through It, Natural, Great Gatsby), born in Santa Monica, California, United States.
1950 – Dennis Elliott (74), British musician and artist, who was the original drummer for the rock band, Foreigner (“I Want to Know What Love Is”), born in Peckham, London.
1958 – Madeleine Stowe (66), American actress (The Last of the Mohicans; We Were Soldiers), born in Los Angeles, California, United States.
1969 – Edward Norton (55), American actor (American History X; Fight Club, Primal Fear, Red Dragon), born in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
1981 – Mika, born Michael Holbrook Penniman (40), British-American pop singer (“Grace Kelly”, “Lollipop”), born in Beirut, Lebanon.
Famous deaths
1964 – Ian Fleming (b. 1908), British writer, best known for his postwar James Bond series of spy novels.
2015 – Stephen Lewis (b. 1926), English actor and screenwriter (Inspector Blake – On The Buses and as Smiler in Last of the Summer Wine).
2021 – Una Stubbs (b. 1937), English actress, TV personality, and dancer (Till Death Us Do Part, In Sickness and in Health).
The day today
1941 – Britain’s National Fire Service was established.
1948 – Jockey Lester Piggott, aged 12, rode his first winner on only his seventh ride.
1949 – Adi Dassler founded Adidas after falling out with his brother… His brother Rudolf went on to found Puma.
1967 – The luxury liner Queen Mary was sold to the Southern Californian town of Long Beach. During her service, the Queen Mary transported over 2 million passengers, and approximately 810,000 members of the military during World War II.
1982 – The City of Liverpool named four Streets after the fab four, John Lennon Drive, Paul McCartney Way, George Harrison Close and Ringo Starr Drive.
Today in music
1977 – The Police made their live debut as a three-piece band when they played at Rebecca’s in Birmingham, England. The Police became globally popular in the late 1970s and are generally regarded as one of the first New Wave groups to achieve mainstream success, playing a style of rock that was influenced by punk, reggae, and jazz.
1984 – George Michael was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with his first solo single ‘Careless Whisper.’ It made George the first person to reach No.1 as a solo artist and a member of a band in the same year. It gave Epic records UK their first UK million seller and the song was No.1 in nearly 25 countries, selling over six million copies worldwide.
1986 – Bon Jovi released their third studio album, Slippery When Wet, going on to sell over 28 million copies worldwide. The album featured two chart toppers, ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’ and ‘Livin’ On A Prayer’.
1991 – Sweet Jesus appeared at the Boardwalk, Manchester. Support act was The Rain (later to become Oasis) minus Noel Gallagher who had yet to join his brothers band.
2014 – Ed Sheeran’s album X (pronounced “multiply”) notched up eight weeks at No.1 on the UK chart, becoming the joint longest chart-topper by a male solo artist. The last man to achieve the feat was James Blunt for his 2005 collection Back to Bedlam.
Today in history
1587 – An expedition led by Sir Walter Raleigh landed at what is now Roanoke Island, North Carolina. Seven days later, Virginia Dare, granddaughter of governor John White, became the first child of English parentage to be born in America.
1612 – The trial of the Pendle witches, one of England’s most famous witch trials, begins at Lancaster Assizes. The Pendle witches are among the most famous witch trials in English history. The twelve accused lived in the area surrounding Pendle Hill in Lancashire, and were charged with the murders of ten people by the use of witchcraft.
1634 – Urbain Grandier, a French Catholic priest who was accused and convicted of sorcery, is burned alive in Loudun, France.
1783 – A huge fireball meteor was seen across Britain. Analysis of observations indicated that the meteor entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the North Sea, before passing over the east coast of Scotland and England and the English Channel. It finally broke up, after a passage within the atmosphere of around a thousand miles over south-western France or northern Italy.
1825 – Scottish explorer Alexander Gordon Laing became the first European to reach Timbuktu, now in Mali. He was murdered there the following month.