December 18th "2024" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 353 of the “leap” year! Known as Answer the Phone like Buddy The Elf Day and Bake Cookies Day. Your star sign is Sagittarius and your birthstone is Blue Topaz.
2018 – A meteor that entered the Earth’s atmosphere at 32 kilometers per second, explodes in a huge fireball over the Bering Sea with 10 times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
Todays birthdays
1943 – Keith Richards (81), English singer/songwriter and musician, who is an original member of the Rolling Stones (“I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”), born in Dartford, Kent.
1946 – Steven Spielberg (78), American film director, producer and screenwriter (Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park), born in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States.
1963 – Brad Pitt (61), American actor (Fight Club, Meet Joe Black, Troy, Fury), born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, United States.
1964 – Robson Green (59), English actor (Soldier, Soldier), singer (“Unchained Melody”), and television presenter (Extreme Fishing), born in Hexham, Northumberland.
1980 – Christina Aguilera (44), American singer, songwriter (“Genie in a Bottle”), actress (Burlesque), born in Staten Island, New York, United States.
Famous deaths
2017 – Keith Chegwin (b. 1957), British TV presenter also known by the nickname Cheggers (Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, It’s a Knockout, Cheggers Plays Pop).
The day today
1954 – The only shared own goal in Football League history as in the First Division match between Chelsea and Leicester City at Stamford Bridge, Leicester defenders Jack Froggatt and Stan Milburn each strike the ball at exactly the same time to send it past the Leicester ‘keeper in Chelsea’s 3-1 victory.
1963 – Premiere of The Pink Panther, Peter Sellers’ first appearance as Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau.
2000 – UK singer, songwriter Kirsty MacColl was killed in a boating accident off the coast of Mexico when a speedboat hit her. MacColl was aged 41. McColl and her sons were diving at the Chankanaab reef, of Cozumel, Mexico in a designated diving area that watercraft were restricted from entering.
2012 – The Queen attended a historic cabinet meeting at Downing Street, the first monarch to do so since 1781. Later, Foreign Secretary William Hague announced that the southern part of the British Antarctic Territory, an unnamed area almost twice the size of the UK would be called Queen Elizabeth Land.
2013 – The death, aged 84, of the criminal Ronnie Biggs who was part of the gang which escaped with £2.6m from the Glasgow to London mail train on 8th August 1963. Biggs was given a 30-year sentence but escaped from Wandsworth prison in 1965. In 2001 he returned to the UK seeking medical helpp, but was sent to prison. He was released on compassionate grounds in 2009 after contracting pneumonia. Coincidentally Biggs’ death occurred hours before the first broadcast of a two-part BBC television series ‘The Great Train Robbery’.
Today in music
1961 – The Tokens started a three week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’; it reached No.11 in the UK. REM included a live version of the song on the 1993 ‘Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight’ single.
1971 – T. Rex scored their first No.1 album with their sixth release ‘Electric Warrior’. The album which became the biggest seller of the year in the UK contained two of T. Rex’s most popular songs, ‘Get It On’ and ‘Jeepster.’
1982 – Renee And Renato were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Save Your Love’, the duo’s only UK Top 40 hit and that years Christmas No.1.
1999 – The Spice Girls unveiled their waxwork look-alikes at Madame Tussaud’s, London. Each model had cost £35,000 to make.
2005 – ‘Fairytale of New York’ was voted the favourite Christmas song ever in a VH1 poll. The song by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl took the top spot, Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’, was voted into 2nd place and Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’ came third. Other songs voted into the Top 10 were, ‘Mistletoe and Wine’, Sir Cliff Richard at No.4, ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ by Slade at No.5, ‘I Wish it could be Christmas Everyday’, Wizzard, No.6, ‘Christmas Time’, The Darkness, No.7, ‘Saviour’s Day’, Sir Cliff Richard No.8, Do They Know It’s Christmas? (1984), Band Aid at No.9 and ‘Lonely This Christmas’ by Mud at No.10.
Today in history
1559 – Queen Elizabeth I of England sent aid to the Scottish Lords to drive the French from Scotland.
1707 – The birth at Epworth, Lincolnshire, of Charles Wesley, English hymn writer of more than 6,000 hymns. He was an evangelist like his brother John, who was the founder of Methodism. Charles ministered for part of his life in The New Room Chapel in Bristol, which is the oldest Methodist Chapel in the world (originally built in 1739) and the cradle of the early Methodist movement.
1779 – The birth, in London, of Joseph Grimaldi, English creator of the original white faced clown. He was introduced to the stage at Drury Lane at the age of three and began to appear at the Sadler’s Wells theatre. As Music Hall became popular, he introduced the pantomime dame to the theatre and was responsible for the tradition of audience participation.
1792 – Radical political writer Thomas Paine was tried for treason, in his absence, for publishing ‘The Rights of Man’ in which he supported the French Revolution and called for the abolition of the British Monarchy.
1912 – The Piltdown Man was discovered in Sussex by Charles Dawson. It was claimed to be the fossilized skull and remains of the earliest known European, but in 1953 it was proved to be a hoax. The skull was that of an orang-utan.