August 19th "2024" Daily Prep

Welcome to day 232 of the year! Known as National Potato Day, Orangutan Day, Photography Day. If you were born today you were likely conceived the week of November 26th in the previous year. Your star sign is Leo and your birthstone is Peridot.
2008 – Chris Hoy encapsulates British dominance of track cycling at the Beijing Olympics beating teammate Jason Kenny to win the sprint, adding to his keirin and team sprint gold medals.
Todays birthdays
1943 – Billy J. Kramer (81), British pop rock vocalist (The Dakotas – “Bad To Me”, “It’s a Mad, Mad World”), born in Bootle, Merseyside.
1948 – James Carter (76), English actor best known for his role as Mr Carson in the ITV historical drama series Downton Abbey, born in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.
1950 – Jennie Bond (74), English journalist (BBC Royal Correspondent) and television presenter (Cash in the Attic), born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire.
1951 – John Deacon (73), English retired musician best known for being the bass guitarist for the rock band Queen (“Another One Bites The Dust”), born in Leicester.
1984 – Simon Bird (40), English actor and screenwriter (The Inbetweeners – “Will”; Friday Night Dinner – “Adam”), born in Guildford, Surrey.
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
1942 – British and Canadian troops launched a disastrous attack on German-held Dieppe. Of the 6,000 troops involved, roughly 2,500 returned. The rest were killed or captured.
1953 – The England cricket team, under captain Len Hutton, won The Ashes against Australia for the first time since the tour of 1932-1933.
1970 – The 1000th episode of Coronation Street was broadcast. It is the world’s longest-running television soap opera.
1987 – 27 year old gunman Michael Ryan shot dead 16 people during a rampage through Hungerford, Berkshire. 14 people were wounded, and one of the dead was Ryan’s own mother. He proceeded to set fire to his mother’s house, and the worst civil massacre in modern British history ended when he shot himself.
1989 – The offshore, North Sea pirate radio station, Radio Caroline, was raided and silenced by the British and Dutch governments. However broadcasts resumed on 1st October of that year and continued on low/moderate power until fuel for the generator ran out on 6th November 1990. Radio Caroline currently broadcasts 24 hours a day via the Eutelsat satellite and Internet radio.
Today in music
1967 – The Beatles scored their 14th US No.1 single with ‘All You Need Is Love’. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Keith Moon, Graham Nash, Marianne Faithfull and Walker Brother Gary Leeds all sang backing vocals on the track.
1974 – The Three Degrees were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘When Will I See You Again.’ The girl group’s only UK No.1. They were Prince Charles’ favourite group of the 70s.
1977 – The Sex Pistols started an undercover UK tour as The Spots, (an acronym for Sex Pistols on tour secretly).
1978 – The Commodores started a five-week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Three Times A Lady’. Lionel Richie wrote the song about his love for his wife, mother and grandmother hence ‘Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady.’
1988 – ‘Crazy’ by Patsy Cline and Elvis Presley’s ‘Hound Dog’ were announced as the most played jukebox songs of the first hundred years. The jukebox had been around since 1906, but earlier models had been first seen in 1889.
Today in history
1274 – The coronation of Edward I, known as ‘Longshanks’, as he was 6 feet 2 inches tall.
1561 – Mary Queen of Scots arrived in Scotland (following the death of her French husband Francis II,) to assume the throne after spending 13 years in France.
1612 – Three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury were put on trial, accused of practicing witchcraft. It was one of the most famous witch trials in English history as all three – Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley were acquitted. The charges against the women included child murder and cannibalism. In contrast, the others tried at the Lancaster Castle assizes, including the Lancashire Pendle witches (one day previous), were accused of maleficium i.e. causing harm by witchcraft.
1685 – The beginning of the ‘Bloody Assizes’ in England with Judge Jeffreys regularly sentencing people to death. Jeffreys prosecuted the rebels with ferocity, executing perhaps 150 to 200 persons and ordering hundreds of others sold into slavery in the colonies. At the same time, he profited by extorting money from the victims. Jeffreys took charge of the ecclesiastical commission that forced the Church of England to accept James’s pro-Catholic policies. When William of Orange, stadholder of Holland (later King William III), overthrew James’s government in December 1688, Jeffreys tried to escape from the country disguised as a sailor, but he was arrested and died four months later in the Tower of London.
1879 – The laying of the foundation stone for the Eddystone Lighthouse in Cornwall.