Famous deaths
2018 – Chas Hodges (b. 1943), English musician and singer. He was the lead vocalist, pianist and guitarist of the musical duo Chas & Dave.
On This Day 2025
Hello, … Welcome to day 351 of the year.

Wednesday, December 17th Daily Prep.

Today is Wright Brothers Day, National Maple Syrup Day and National Device Appreciation Day. Your star sign is Sagittarius and your birthstone is Blue Topaz.
2004 – The opening of ‘The Sage’ in Gateshead, a concert venue and centre for musical education, located on the south bank of the River Tyne. It rebranded to The Glasshouse International Centre for Music in 2023.
The opening of ‘The Sage in Gateshead’, a concert venue and centre for musical education, located on the south bank of the River Tyne.
Today’s birthdays
1946 – Simon Bates (79), English disc jockey and radio presenter (1976 – 1993 with BBC Radio 1, then later with Classical FM), born in Birmingham, West Midlands.
1949 – Paul Rodgers (76), English singer, musician and lead vocalist with rock band Free (“All Right Now”), born in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire.
1961 – Sara Dallin (64), English singer-songwriter and a founding member of the pop group Bananarama (“Venus”, “Cruel Summer”, “Love in the First Degree”), born in Bristol.
1971 – Claire Forlani (54), English actress (Mallrats, Meet Joe Black, Hawaii Five-0, The Rock, Green Street), born in Twickenham, London.
1973 – Paula Radcliffe (52), English long-distance runner. She is a three-time winner of the London Marathon, three-time New York Marathon champion, born in Davenham, Cheshire.
1975 – Milla Jovovich (50), American actress (Resident Evil, The Fifth Element) and former model, born in Kyiv, Ukraine.
1978 – Manny Pacquiao (47), Filipino professional boxer and retired politician. Nicknamed “PacMan”, born in Kibawe, Philippines.
Famous deaths
1966 – Walt Disney (b. 1901), American animator, film producer, voice actor, and entrepreneur.
1984 – Lennard Pearce (b. 1915), English actor who played Grandad in the sitcom Only Fools and Horses from its first episode in 1981 until his death.
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The day today
1903 – Piloted by Orville Wright in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Wright brothers finally made their first successful aircraft flight. The aircraft traveled about 850 feet in one minute.

1917 – Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, first English woman physician, died and was buried in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. She was the founder of the first hospital staffed by women and the first woman mayor in the United Kingdom.

1925 – The death of Albert Neilson Hornby (A. N. Hornby), one of the best known sportsmen in England during the 19th century. Hornby was the first of only two men to captain the country at both rugby and cricket. He is also remembered as the England cricket captain whose side lost the Test match at home against the Australians in 1882 which gave rise to the Ashes.

1967 – Alec Rose, aboard Lively Lady, completed his solo 14,500 mile sail from Britain to Australia, having been at sea for 155 days. He returned successfully to Portsmouth on 4th July 1968 and was knighted the next day by the Queen.

1968 – An 11-year-old girl (Mary Bell) was sentenced to life in detention after being found guilty at Newcastle Assizes of the manslaughter of two small boys. It was said that she strangled the boys, aged four and three, ‘solely for the pleasure and excitement of killing’.
1973 – Terrorists attacked Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino International Airport, leaving thirty dead. Shortly before Pan-Am flight 110 departed from the airport, five armed Palestinian terrorists walked out onto the tarmac and started shooting at the plane. During the attack, the aircraft itself was destroyed, but most passengers were able to escape with their lives.
1989 – The first full-length episode of The Simpsons aired on FOX in the US. The episode “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” was nominated for two Emmy Awards in 1990 and received positive reviews from television critics. Approximately 13.4 million people watched it during its original airing. The Simpsons is both the longest-running and the highest ranking animated series.
2003 – Former school caretaker Ian Huntley was convicted of the murders of 10 year olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. The judge said that the killings did not meet the criteria for a ‘whole-life tariff’, but that the 40-year term offered ‘little or no hope’ of his release.
2003 – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, directed by Peter Jackson and starring Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis and Elijah Wood was released in theaters.
2004 – The opening of ‘The Sage’ in Gateshead, a concert venue and centre for musical education, located on the south bank of the River Tyne. It rebranded to The Glasshouse International Centre for Music in 2023.
2011 – The Grand Theatre in Wolverhampton brought in children to play the seven dwarfs in its pantomime production of Snow White, apparently because dwarf actors were seen as too expensive. But in a statement, the producer said: ‘This was a response to audience discomfort with what was considered by some to be exploitative casting.’
2014 – The Rev Libby Lane, a parish priest from Crewe, was chosen to be the Church of England’s first female bishop. Her appointment brought to an end 22 years of resistance to the promotion of female priests.
2014 – Dominique Harrison-Bentzen (22) slept rough on the streets of Preston, Lancashire, to raise money for homeless man Robbie after he had offered her his last £3 for a taxi home when she lost her bank card. Dominique raised more than £21,000 to help him after she put posts on Facebook and Twitter, asking people to help raise money to give Robbie a home.
2018 – Merriam-Webster named “justice” their Word of the Year for 2018, driven by intense public interest and searches related to racial justice, criminal justice, the Department of Justice (DOJ), and Supreme Court nominations, reflecting deep national debates on fairness and the rule of law.

2021 – Scientists discovered the world’s first “true” millipede in Western Australia. Previously, the most legs any known millipede had was 750. The newly discovered species, “Eumillipes Persephone,” has over 1,306 legs, making it the first to truly match the Latin meaning of “millipede,” which means “thousand legs.”

Today in music
1971 – David Bowie released his fourth album Hunky Dory, which was the first to feature all the members of the band that would become known the following year as Ziggy Stardust’s Spiders From Mars.
1973 – Slade were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ their sixth chart topper. It has been released during every decade since 1973, and has been covered by numerous artists. In a 2007 poll, ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ was voted the UK’s most popular Christmas song.
1982 – Karen Carpenter made her last live appearance with The Carpenters when she delivered an intimate performance at The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, California. Carpenter suffered from anorexia nervosa, the eating disorder which was a little-known illness at the time. She died at the age of 32 from heart failure, on February 4, 1983 caused by complications related to her illness.
2005 – U2 had the top-grossing tour of 2005, according to Billboard. More than three million people watched the band’s sell-out 90-date Vertigo tour which grossed more than £146.6m.
2006 – English saxophonist Denis Payton died. Member of Dave Clark Five who had the 1964 UK No.1 single ‘Glad All Over’, 1965 US No.1 single ‘Over And Over’, plus over 15 other UK top 40 singles.
2010 – Sir Paul McCartney performed an intimate lunchtime gig at the 100 Club on London’s Oxford Street, the historic music venue threatened with closure. Around 300 fans were treated to a set lasting almost two hours, in what was McCartney’s smallest gig in the UK for nearly 10 years. A campaign to keep the 100 Club open had attracted support from Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie and Sir Mick Jagger.
2012 – Adele was named Billboard’s top artist of 2012, while her hit record 21 was named top album of the year in the music magazine’s annual review. The 24-year-old became the first to receive both accolades two years in a row. The year’s top three songs were ‘Gotye’s Somebody That I Used to Know’, Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Call Me Maybe’ and Fun’s ‘We Are Young’. respectively.
2015 – A London judge said he was concerned at how much Liam Gallagher and his ex-wife Nicole Appleton were spending in a legal dispute over how their assets should be split after it was revealed that the pair had spent over £800,000 on legal fees. Judge O’Dwyer decided their money and property should be divided equally, with each receiving £5.4m.
2022 – English singer and songwriter Sam Ryder was at No.1 on the UK chart with his debut studio album There’s Nothing but Space, Man! It was supported by four singles including ‘Space Man’, which came second in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 and peaked at No.2 on the UK Singles Chart.
Today in history
497 BC – The festival of Saturnalia was first celebrated after a temple to the Roman god Saturn was built in Rome. It started as a one-day event to honour Saturn, the Roman god of farming and the harvest. It included a sacrifice of young pigs at a temple dedicated to Saturn, which were then eaten at a public feast the next day.
1538 – Pope Paul III officially excommunicated King Henry VIII of England on December 17, 1538, after years of escalating conflict over Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon, his subsequent marriages, and his declaration as Supreme Head of the Church of England, effectively finalizing England’s break from papal authority.
1778 – The birth, in Penzance, of Sir Humphrey Davy, English inventor of the safety lamp for miners which allowed miners to work safely in the presence of flammable gases. Davy refused to patent the lamp, and its invention led to him being awarded the Rumford medal in 1816. The medal has been awarded every alternate year since 1800 by the Royal Society for outstandingly important discoveries by a scientist working in Europe.
1843 – Charles Dickens began inscribing copies, for friends, of his new novel A Christmas Carol. There were 10 pre-publication presentations made ‘on this day’ and the novel went into general publication on 19th December. It was an immediate success with the public and the initial print run of 6,000 copies was sold out by Christmas Eve.
1849 – Thomas and William Bowler, felt hat makers, sold their first ‘bowler’ to William Coke, which he purchased at James Lock & Co. in London.