On August 21st these people were born ...
1660 Hubert Gautier, engineer, wrote first book on bridge building.
1754 William Murdock, Scottish inventor.
1765 King William IV.
1872 Aubrey Beardsley, English illustrator.
1904 Count Basie, US jazz pianist and bandleader.
1930 HRH Princess Margaret.
1933 Barry Norman, film critic. (BBC then Sky)
1933 Janet Baker, English mezzo-soprano.
1937 Donald Dewar, Scottish First Minister.
1938 Kenny Rogers, singer.
1956 Kim Cattrall, actress.
1975 Alicia Witt, actress.
1983 Brody Jenner, American television personality, celebutante, and model.
1986 Usain Bolt, fastest man in the world, Jamaican Olympic gold winner of 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay.
1989 Hayden Panettiere, actress.
... and these people died ...
1649 Richard Crashaw, English poet.
1930 Ashton Webb, English architect.
1940 Leon Trotsky, assassinated with an ice pick in Mexico City.
1947 Ettore Bugatti, Italian car designer and manufacturer.
1951 Leonard Constant Lambert, English composer.
1959 Jacob Epstein, British sculptor.
1978 Jomo Kenyatta, Kenyan president, led his country to independence.
1983 Benigno Aquino, Phillipine politician.
1993 Tatiana Troyanos, US operatic mezzo-soprano.
... and these things happened - On August 21st
1808 French forces were defeated by Wellington at Battle of Vimiero.
1841 John Hampson patents the venetian blind
1901 The Cadillac Motor Co of Detroit was founded.
1911 Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in Paris.
1933 Aerial photography over Germany banned by Hermann Goering.
1939 Civil Defence was started in Britain.
1953 Lobotomy operations were banned in the USSR.
1959 Hawaii joins the USA as the 50th state.
1965 Gemini 5 launched into earth orbit (2 astronauts)
1968 Soviet tanks rolled into Prague, ending Dubcek's 'Spring'.
1968 William Dana reaches 80 km (last high-altitude X-15 flight)
1972 US orbiting astronomy observatory Copernicus is launched
1983 Hackers break into USA's top defence computer.
1988 British pub opening times extended to 12 hours per day.
1991 Latvia declared independence from the USSR.
1991 Second Russian revolution fails as coup leaders flee.
Gorbachev returns to find Yeltsin a hero.
2000 Carribean islands warned of the approach of Hurricane Debby.
2000 Worcestershire cave(3 rooms no electric or water) sold for £30 000
2001 Shuttle Discovery left ISS with 7 on board, three left as crew.
2001 Typhoon Pabuk hit central Japan at 80 mph.
2002 Bank of England withdrew £5 notes after serial numbers smudged.
2002 US gave details (4677) of Argetina's human rights violations.
2003 Sobig.F became the fastest spreading e-mail plague of all time.
2003 World Bank withdrew staff from Iraq after attack on the UN HQ.
2004 Britain won 4 gold medals - rowing, sailing, cycling and horse riding.
2004 Dido headlined at the V Festival at Chelmsford and Staffordshire.
2004 The Run Across America Ultra Marathon was won by an Englishman,
Bob Brown. He ran coast to coast for 72 days the equivalent of
130 marathons. He finished in Central Park NY, 60 miles in front.
2005 Chinese Vogue hit the news stands.
2005 Home computers produced 97% of fake $5, $10 and $20 bills, up from 46% in 2003
2005 The first F1 GP at the new Istanbul track was won by Kimi Raikonnen in a McLaren.
2006 Royal Mail charge structure changed from just weight to include shape and thickness.
2007 Category 5 Hurricane Dean ripped through Jamaica at 145mph and headed for the Mexican resort of Cancun.
2007 Personal debt in the UK was 'out of control' and at record levels acording to banks, now well past £1 trillion.
2007 World record pumpkin weighed in at 1,468 lbs. at the 150th Annual Indianapolis State Fair.
2008 A record 375,000 people accepted university places this year.
2008 London was 9th in an online poll for the first international Monopoly board taking Trafalgar Sq., Mayfair was taken by Montreal.
2009 Black Eyed Peas set the record for maintaining the no.1 position on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart, 20 weeks at the top.
2009 Bournemouth Air Festival set a record with a Roar on the Shore consisting of 114,000 screaming rockets all going off at once.
2009 Colonel Gaddafi sent a luxury plane to collect Lockerbie bomber Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, freed because he was dieing of cancer.
2010 McDonalds upset the French by using the cartoon character Asterix the Gaul in an advertising campaign eating burger and fried.
2010 The pass rate for A-levels rose for the 28th year in a row, with 97.6% of entries gaining an E or above, 1 in 12 with the new A* grade.
2011 At Bournemouth, the biggest airshow in the UK, a Red Arrows Hawk crashed killing the pilot, Jon Egging, the airshow continued but the Red Arrows were grounded.
2011 Police were investigating almost 3,300 offences following the riots and looting in London.
2012 Comedian Stewart Francis won the funniest joke award at the Edinburgh Fringe; the joke - You know who really gives kids a bad name? - Posh and Becks.
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The Alternative Dictionary
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Bed: the place where marriages are decided.
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