By Mariana Smith
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Ann Lennox OBE (born 25 December 1954) is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. After achieving moderate success in the late 1970s as part of the new wave band the Tourists, she and fellow musician Dave Stewart went on to achieve international success in the 1980s as Eurythmics. Appearing in the 1983 music video for “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” with orange cropped hair and wearing a man’s business suit, the BBC states, “all eyes were on Annie Lennox, the singer whose powerful androgynous look defied the male gaze“. Subsequent hits with Eurythmics include “There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)“, “Love Is a Stranger” and “Here Comes the Rain Again“.
Lennox embarked on a solo career in 1992 with her debut album, Diva, which produced several hit singles including “Why” and “Walking on Broken Glass“. The same year, she performed “Love Song for a Vampire” for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Her 1995 studio album, Medusa, includes cover versions of songs such as “No More ‘I Love You’s'” and “A Whiter Shade of Pale“. To date, she has released six solo studio albums and a compilation album, The Annie Lennox Collection (2009). With eight Brit Awards, which includes being named Best British Female Artist a record six times, Lennox has been named the “Brits Champion of Champions”. She has also collected four Grammy Awards and an MTV Video Music Award. In 2002, Lennox received a Billboard Century Award; the highest accolade from Billboard. In 2004, she received the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Into the West“, written for the soundtrack to the feature film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Lennox’s vocal range is contralto. She has been named “The Greatest White Soul Singer Alive” by VH1 and one of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time by Rolling Stone. In 2012, she was rated No. 22 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Women in Music. In June 2013 the Official Charts Company called her “the most successful female British artist in UK music history”. As of June 2008, including her work with Eurythmics, Lennox had sold over 80 million records worldwide. As part of a one-hour symphony of British Music, Lennox performed “Little Bird” during the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony in London. At the 2015 Ivor Novello Awards, Lennox was made a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (The Ivors Academy), the first woman to receive the honour. Lennox and her Eurythmics partner Dave Stewart were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2020, and the duo were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.
In addition to her career as a musician, Lennox is also a political and social activist, raising money and awareness for HIV/AIDS as it affects women and children in Africa. She founded the Sing campaign in 2007 and founded a women’s empowerment charity called The Circle in 2008. In 2011, Lennox was appointed an OBE by Queen Elizabeth II for her “tireless charity campaigns and championing of humanitarian causes”. On 4 June 2012, she performed at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert in front of Buckingham Palace. In 2017, Lennox was appointed Glasgow Caledonian University‘s first female chancellor.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Christmas Day is a Christian holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ. Although the actual date of Christ’s birth is unknown, it has been celebrated on December 25 since the 4th century. Christmas is also extensively celebrated by non-Christians as a seasonal holiday, on which popular traditions such as gift-giving, feasting, and caroling take place.
As Christianity began to spread in the 4th century, the Christmas feast day was set to December 25 by Pope Julius I; although no one knows for certain, some say that this was to align with the Roman pagan holiday Dies natalis solis invicti, the birth of the invincible Sun.”
Today’s rich mosaic of Christmas customs dates back through the ages. Evergreen branches were used to symbolize life in ancient solstice festivals, as they stayed green in winter. This tradition was absorbed by Christians, who interpreted the evergreens as the Paradise tree and began decorating them with apples. The candles and lights associated with Christmas, meant to symbolize guiding beacons for the Christ child, may have evolved from the Yule log, which was lit to entice the Sun to return as part of the jol (Yule) festival in pagan Scandinavia.”
Question of the Day
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Died
- Samuel de Champlain (explorer) –
- W.C. Fields (actor) –
- Charlie Chaplin (actor) –
- Billy Martin (baseball player) –
- Dean Martin (singer & actor) –
- James Brown (singer; the Godfather of Soul”“) –
- George Michael (singer, songwriter) –
Born
- William Collins (English poet) –
- Clara Barton (founder of the American Red Cross) –
- Humphrey Bogart (actor) –
- Cab Calloway (musician) –
- Rod Serling (author) –
- Gary Sandy (actor) –
- Jimmy Buffet (singer) –
- Sissy Spacek (actress) –
- Annie Lennox (singer) –
- Justin Trudeau (Canadian prime minister) –
- Dido (singer) –
Events
- Columbus’s flagship, the Santa Maria, abandoned off the coast of Hispaniola–
- From the Pennsylvania side, General George Washington’s troops crossed the icy Delaware River at night during a winter storm for a surprise attack against a Hessian garrison in Trenton, New Jersey (American Revolutionary War)–
- Bytown (Ottawa) and Prescott Railway opened in Ontario–
- Union Stock Yards opens giving the south side of Chicago a distinctive smell–
- Pansy blossoms picked, Manhattan, Montana–
- Comic strip hero Dick Tracy married Tess Trueheart–
Weather
- A chilly -57 degrees F at Fort Smith, Northwest Territories–
- White Christmas from central North Carolina to New England in wake of major snowstorm, even coastal Virginia was white–
- Temperatures throughout northern New England averaged -39 degrees F–
- A Christmas Day mudslide ran through St. Sophia Camp, San Bernardino, California–
- 1.3” snow fell in Atlanta, Georgia–
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