October 21st "2024" Daily Prep
Welcome to day 295 of the “leap” year! Known as National Apple Day, Back to the Future Day, Trafalgar Day. Your star sign is Libra and your birthstone is Pink Tourmaline.
1966 – 144 people were killed in the small Welsh mining village of Aberfan when tons of slush, from a nearby coal slag tip weakened by rain, slid downhill and engulfed the village school.
Todays birthdays
1940 – Geoffrey Boycott (84), cricket commentator and former test cricketer, who played cricket for Yorkshire and England from 1962 to 1986, born in Fitzwilliam, West Yorkshire.
1953 – Eric Faulkner (71), guitarist, songwriter and singer, best known as a member of the Scottish pop band the Bay City Rollers (Bye Bye Baby, Shang-A-Lang), born in Edinburgh.
1967 – Paul Ince (57), English professional football manager and former player who was most recently manager of EFL Championship side Reading, born in Ilford, East London.
1970 – Tony Mortimer (54), British singer, songwriter (“Stay Another Day”), record producer and former member of the boy band East 17, born in London.
1980 – Kim Kardashian (44), American media personality, socialite, businesswoman, model, and actress, born in Los Angeles, California, United States.
Famous deaths
2023 – Bobby Charlton (b. 1937), English footballer and manager (member of the England team that won the 1966 FIFA World Cup).
The day today
1960 – Britain launched its first nuclear submarine, HMS Dreadnought, at Barrow (port town in Cumbria). Launched by Queen Elizabeth II on Trafalgar Day, she was commissioned into service with the Royal Navy in April 1963 and continued in service until 1980.
1966 – 144 people, 116 of them children, were killed in the small Welsh mining village of Aberfan when tons of slush, from a nearby coal slag tip weakened by rain, slid downhill and engulfed the village school, a farm and a row of terraced houses. The tragedy occurred at the beginning of the school day and on the day before the school closed for the half-term holiday. The children are buried in Aberfan’s cemetery, on the hillside above the valley.
1990 – Apple Day started in Covent Garden, London. The annual event is a huge celebration of apples with cooking demos, games, juice and cider, and the hundreds of apple varieties on sale.
2011 – St Paul’s Cathedral was closed to visitors for the first time since World War II because of anti-capitalist demonstrators (the ‘Occupy London Stock Exchange’ movement) ‘camping on its doorstep’. The Right Reverend Graeme Knowles said that the decision had been taken with a heavy heart, for health and safety reasons.
2021 – Alec Baldwin accidentally used a live firearm during a movie rehearsal, during which he shot and killed a cinematographer.
Today in music
1965 – The Spencer Davis Group recorded ‘Keep On Running’ at Pye Studios in London, England. The track went on to top the UK chart next January.
1976 – Keith Moon played his last show with The Who at the end of a North American tour at Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto. On September 7 1978, Moon died of an overdose of the sedative Heminevrin, that had been prescribed to prevent seizures induced by alcohol withdrawal.
1989 – Jive Bunny And The Mastermixes had their second UK No.1 single with ‘That’s What I Like.’ The Theme from Hawaii Five-O was the recurring hook in the record which also included ‘Lets Twist Again’, ‘Lets Dance’, ‘Great Balls of Fire’ and ‘The Twist’.
1997 – Elton John’s ‘Candle In The Wind 97’ was declared by the Guinness Book Of Records as the biggest selling single record of all time, with 31.8 million sales in less than 40 days and raising more than £20 million for charity.
2006 – Evanescence were at No.1 on the US album chart (No.2 in the UK) with their second album ‘The Open Door.’ It became the 700th No.1 album in Billboard since the chart became a weekly feature in 1956.
Today in history
1520 – Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived at Cape Virgenes, becoming the first European to sail the Pacific Ocean.
1805 – At the Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson gave his famous signal, ‘England expects…’ which flew from the HMS Victory shortly after 11:00 a.m. The British won this important battle against Napoleon’s combined French and Spanish fleets off Cape Trafalgar, south-west of Spain and left Britain’s navy unchallenged until the 20th century but Nelson was one of the day’s casualties.
1824 – Portland cement, the modern building material, was first patented by Joseph Aspdin of Wakefield in Yorkshire. Its name is derived from its similarity to Portland stone, a type of building stone that was quarried on the Isle of Portland in Dorset.
1854 – Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 women volunteer nurses that she trained, were deployed to the Crimea, where the main British camp was based, fighting in the Crimean War. During her first winter at Scutari, ten times more soldiers died from illnesses such as typhus, typhoid, cholera and dysentery than from battle wounds. She had the sewers flushed and ventilation improved. Almost six months after her arrival death rates were sharply reduced.
1868 – Sir Ernest Dunlop Swinton, the English inventor of the military tank, was born.