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 352 of the year.

Thursday, December 18th Daily Prep.

Today is Answer the Phone like Buddy The Elf 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.
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.
Today’s birthdays
1943 – Keith Richards (82), English singer-songwriter, musician, and an original member of the Rolling Stones (“I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”), born in Dartford, Kent.
1946 – Steven Spielberg (79), American film director, producer and screenwriter (Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park), born in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States.
1963 – Brad Pitt (62), American actor (Fight Club, Meet Joe Black, Ocean’s Eleven, Fury), born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, United States.
1964 – Robson Green (61), English actor (Soldier Soldier, Wire in the Blood), singer (“Unchained Melody”), and television presenter (Extreme Fishing), born in Hexham, Northumberland.
1975 – Sia (50), Australian singer-songwriter (“Cheap Thrills”, “Chandelier”, “Unstoppable”), born in Adelaide, Australia.
1978 – Lindsay Armaou (47), Irish singer with the girl group B*Witched (“C’est La Vie”, “Blame It on the Weatherman”), born in Athens, Greece.
1980 – Christina Aguilera (45), American singer, songwriter (“Genie in a Bottle”, “Beautiful”), actress (Burlesque), born in Staten Island, New York, United States.
2001 – Billie Eilish (24), American singer-songwriter (“What Was I Made For?”), born in Los Angeles, California, United States.
Famous deaths
2000 – Kirsty MacColl (b. 1959), English singer (“Fairytale of New York”, “They Don’t Know”)
2013 – Ronnie Biggs (b. 1929), English criminal who helped plan and carry out the Great Train Robbery of 1963.

2016 – Zsa Zsa Gabor (b. 1917), Hungarian-American socialite and actress (Moulin Rouge, Queen of Outer Space).

2022 – Terry Hall (b. 1959), English musician who came to prominence as the lead singer of the 2-tone band the Specials (“Ghost Town”, “You’re Wondering Now”).
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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.
1969 – The House of Lords voted to permanently abolish the death penalty in England as part of the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 to make life imprisonment the standard punishment for murder.
1969 – On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the 6th James Bond film starring George Lazenby as 007 and Diana Rigg as Tracy di Vicenzo, premiered in London.
1979 – American stuntman Stanley Barrett unofficially breaks the land speed record and the sound barrier in his three-wheeled vehicle the Budweiser Rocket (739.666 mph or Mach 1.01). The speed was never officially recorded and the attempt remains controversial.
1997 – A bill giving Scotland its own parliament for the first time in three centuries was unveiled in Glasgow. Work commenced in June 1999 on the Scottish Parliament Building.
1997 – The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published HTML 4.0 as a formal W3C Recommendation, defining the standard markup language for the web, with later revisions like HTML 4.01 refining it before the transition to newer standards.
2001 – Liverpool’s Michael Owen was named European Footballer of the Year (Ballon d’Or), beating Raúl (Real Madrid) and Oliver Kahn (Bayern Munich) for the award. Also, on this day in 1956, Stanley Matthews wins the inaugural award beating Real Madrid pair Alfredo Di Stéfano & Raymond Kopa.
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.
2012 – Comet stores closed their doors for the last time, bringing the electrical retailer’s 79 year history to an end.
2013 – The Bank of England announced its plans to press ahead with switching to plastic banknotes, starting with the new Sir Winston Churchill £5 note in 2016. The decision marked the beginning of the end of 320 years of paper notes from the Bank.
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’.
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.
2018 – Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was appointed Manchester United’s caretaker manager following the sacking of José Mourinho, tasked with leading the team until the end of the 2018/19 season while a permanent manager was sought.
2022 – Argentina managed to snatch victory away from France at the last second in the 2022 FIFA World Cup Final.
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.
2000 – English singer, songwriter Kirsty MacColl (41) was killed in a boating accident off the coast of Mexico when a speedboat hit her. McColl and her sons were diving at the Chankanaab reef in Cozumel, Mexico in a designated diving area that watercraft were restricted from entering.
2003 – Out on bail, Michael Jackson was formally charged with seven counts of child molestation and two counts of administering intoxicating liquor to a minor with the intent of committing a crime. The abuse was claimed to have taken place between 7 February and 10 March 2003 and the alleged victim was identified only as ‘John Doe’. Jackson’s lawyer said the entertainer was ‘unequivocally and absolutely innocent’ and would fight the charges ‘with every fibre of his soul.’
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.
2013 – Fazer, best known for being part of the group N-Dubz, was declared bankrupt. The 26-year-old rose to fame alongside N-Dubz bandmates Costadinos Contostavlos (Dappy) and Tulisa Contostavlos. N-Dubz had eight songs in the Official Singles Chart. Their most successful track was the appropriately titled Number 1, which hit the top spot in 2009.
2013 – Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins was sentenced to 35 years in jail for a string of child sex offences. Watkins, 36, from Pontypridd, Wales, had pleaded guilty at Cardiff Crown Court in November 2013 to 13 child sex offences.
2022 – English musician Terry Hall died aged 63. He was the lead singer of The Specials, and formerly of Fun Boy Three. The Specials, had the 1981 UK No.1 single ‘Ghost Town’ and with Fun Boy Three he had the 1982 UK No.4 single ‘It Ain’t What You Do It’s The Way That You Do It’ (with Bananarama). Hall was also a member of Colour Field who had the 1985 UK No.12 single ‘Thinking Of You’.
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.
1773 – A skirmish at Grass Cove in Queen Charlotte Sound results in the deaths of two Māori and nine members of James Cook’s expedition. After a period of peaceful exchange, tensions escalated, possibly due to perceived disrespect or theft (a cutlass), leading to a violent confrontation where nine sailors were killed by Māori, and in retaliation, Cook’s crew killed two Māori men.
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.