Monday, August 18th "2025" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 230, known as World Breast Cancer Research Day, Green Man Festival, National Couples Day. 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 (89), American actor (Indecent Proposal, A River Runs Through It, Natural, Great Gatsby), born in Santa Monica, California, United States.
1950 – Dennis Elliott (75), English 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 (67), American actress (The Last of the Mohicans; We Were Soldiers), born in Los Angeles, California, United States.
1969 – Edward Norton (56), American actor (American History X, Fight Club, Primal Fear, Red Dragon), born in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
1969 – Christian Slater (56), American actor (Broken Arrow, Young Guns II, Mr. Robot), born in New York, New York, United States.
1983 – Mika, born Michael Holbrook Penniman (42), British pop singer (“Grace Kelly”, “Lollipop”, “Relax, Take It Easy”), 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 best known for his roles as Inspector Blake in 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 (NFS) was established during World War II. It was formed by merging the wartime Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) with local authority fire brigades. This unification aimed to streamline fire fighting efforts and improve efficiency in the face of the ongoing conflict.
1948 – Jockey Lester Piggott, aged 12, rode his first winner on only his seventh ride on a horse called The Chase, at Haydock Park.
1949 – Adi Dassler founded Adidas after a falling out with his brother, Rudolf, who subsequently founded Puma. The Dassler brothers initially worked together, building the Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik (Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory). However, their relationship deteriorated, and they split in 1948, leading to the creation of Adidas by Adi and Puma by Rudolf. This rivalry between the brothers and their companies became legendary and even divided their hometown.
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.
1971 – The British Army was accused of shooting dead an unarmed, disabled man during disturbances in Northern Ireland. Soldiers said that Eamon McDevitt, 24, was brandishing a pistol when he was shot, but civilian witnesses said that the man, who was born deaf and dumb, was simply waving his arms about, his way of attracting attention.
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.
2012 – The death of Winnie Johnson, mother of Keith Bennett. He was murdered, along with three others, by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley in 1964. For decades she had fought tirelessly to find the location of the grave of her son on Saddleworth Moor. Experts suspected that Brady had manipulated her and the media by promising information about the grave location and then withholding it.
Today in music
1962 – Ringo Starr made his debut with The Beatles (after replacing Pete Best) at the horticultural society Dance in Birkenhead, having had a two-hour rehearsal in preparation. This was the first appearance of The Beatles as the world would come to know them: John, Paul, George, and Ringo.
1966 – Paul Jones left Manfred Mann just as ‘Pretty Flamingo’ was climbing the US charts. He was replaced by singer Mike D’Abo, who would take over lead vocals on the bands next hit, ‘The Mighty Quinn,’ a song written by Bob Dylan.
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 near there the following month.