By Brenda June Temple
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Miley Ray Cyrus (/ˈmaɪli ˈsaɪrəs/ MY-lee SY-rəs; born Destiny Hope Cyrus, November 23, 1992) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Dubbed the “Pop Chameleon“, she has been recognized for her musical versatility and continual artistic reinventions. Cyrus has been referred to as the “Teen Queen” of the 2000s pop culture and regarded as one of the few examples of a child star who went on to have a successful career as an adult. Among her accolades are 19 Teen Choice Awards, five Billboard Music Awards, four World Music Awards, three MTV Video Music Awards, a People’s Choice Award, a GLAAD Media Award, and eight Guinness World Records. She was ranked as the ninth-greatest Billboard 200 female artist of all time, and has been featured in listicles such as the Time 100 in 2008 and 2014, Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2014 and 2021, and Billboard‘s “Greatest of All Time Artists” in 2019.
Cyrus is the elder of two biological daughters among country singer Billy Ray Cyrus‘s six children. She emerged as a teen idol while portraying the titular character of the Disney Channel television series Hannah Montana (2006–2011). As Hannah Montana, she attained two number-one and three top-five soundtracks on the Billboard 200, and the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 top-ten single “He Could Be the One.” Cyrus’s initial solo career consisted of the teen-friendly pop rock U.S. number-one albums Meet Miley Cyrus (2007) and Breakout (2008); these releases contained the US top-ten singles “See You Again” and “7 Things.” The extended play The Time of Our Lives (2009), peaked at number two in the U.S; its lead single “Party in the U.S.A.” became one of the best-selling singles in the United States and was certified diamond by the RIAA. Cyrus also released the country pop ballad “The Climb“, which peaked at number four. Trying to reinvent her image, she explored dance-pop in her third album, Can’t Be Tamed (2010). The record received mixed reviews; however, its title track reached the top ten in the U.S.
Following a hiatus, Cyrus underwent a mature and provocative musical shift with the R&B and hip hop-infused Bangerz (2013), which became her fifth number-one album. Featuring the top-five single “We Can’t Stop” and her first U.S. number-one “Wrecking Ball“, it earned Cyrus her first Grammy Award nomination. She experimented with psychedelic music on her follow-up, the free album Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz (2015), embraced country pop on Younger Now (2017), which yielded the U.S. top-ten single “Malibu“, and incorporated trap on the EP She Is Coming (2019). Cyrus explored rock on Plastic Hearts (2020), which topped the Billboard Top Rock Albums chart. Her next, Endless Summer Vacation (2023), was preceded by the lead single “Flowers“, which set several streaming and chart records and marked her second U.S. number-one. The album and song earned her multiple Grammy nominations; including for Record, Song, and Album of the Year, her first nominations in the general categories.
Outside of her music, Cyrus starred in the films Bolt (2008), Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009), The Last Song (2010), LOL (2012), and So Undercover (2013), and appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017). On television, she led and produced the documentary, Miley: The Movement (2013), served as a coach on the singing competition series The Voice (2016–2017), starred in the “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” episode from the Netflix series Black Mirror (2019), hosts the yearly NBC holiday special Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party (2021–present), and starred in and executive produced the Disney+ documentary concert special, Endless Summer Vacation (Backyard Sessions) (2023). In 2014, she founded the non-profit organization Happy Hippie Foundation, which was supported by the web video series Backyard Sessions (2012–2023).
TODAY’S ALMANAC
In a 1789 proclamation, President George Washington called on the people of the United States to acknowledge God for affording them “an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness” by observing a day of thanksgiving. Devoting a day to “public thanksgiving and prayer,” as Washington called it, became a yearly tradition in many communities.
Thanksgiving became a national holiday in 1863. In that year, during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln made his Thanksgiving Day Proclamation. He asked his fellow citizens to “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise …”
It was not until 1941 that Congress designated the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day, thus creating a federal holiday.
However official, the idea of a special day for giving thanks was not born of presidential proclamations. Native American harvest festivals had been celebrated for centuries, and colonial services dated back to the late 16th century. Thanksgiving Day, as we know it today, began in the early 1600s when settlers in both Massachusetts and Virginia came together to give thanks for their survival, for the fertility of their fields, and for their faith. The most widely known early Thanksgiving is that of the Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts, who feasted for 3 days with the Wampanoag people in 1621.
Turkey has become the traditional Thanksgiving fare because at one time it was a rare treat. During the 1830s, an eight- to ten-pound bird cost a day’s wages. Even though turkeys are affordable today, they still remain a celebratory symbol of bounty. In fact, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin ate roast turkey in foil packets for their first meal on the Moon.
Question of the Day
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Born
- Franklin Pierce (14th U.S. president) –
- Jose Clemente Orozco (painter) –
- Boris Karloff (actor) –
- Harpo Marx (comedian & actor) –
- Bruce Hornsby (musician) –
- Dominique Dunne (actress) –
- Robin Roberts (broadcast journalist) –
- Jonathan Papelbon (baseball player) –
- Miley Cyrus (actress & singer) –
- Jordan Fry (actor) –
Died
- Walter Reed (American pathologist) –
- Roald Dahl (author) –
- Roy Acuff (country music singer) –
- Larry Hagman (actor) –
Events
- Horseshoe manufacturing machine patented–
- The water level in Lake Merced in California dropped 30 feet–
- The Intercollegiate Football Association formed–
- The first jukebox was installed in the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco–
- The first issue of LIFE debuted–
- U.S. Coast Guard Women’s Reserve (SPARs) authorized–
- Food rationing ended–
- Newsman Dan Rather announced he would step down in March as the anchor of the CBS Evening News after nearly a quarter-century in the job–
Weather
- Berlin, New Hampshire, received 55 inches of snow–
- -38 degrees Fahrenheit, Chinook, Montana–
- Yarmouth, Massachusetts, received 14 inches of snow–
- Strasburg, Connecticut, received 6.5 inches of snow–
COURTESY www.almanac.com
