Daily Almanac for Saturday, April 27, 2024

By Lucy Santiago

Scottish singer Sheena Easton is 65 today. Here she is in 1981. By Poster Verkerke in 1981 – Vintage press kit at Worthpoint, Public Domain, https commons.wikimedia.org

FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

Sheena Shirley Easton (née Orr; born 27 April 1959) is a Scottish singer and actress who achieved recognition in an episode of the reality television series The Big Time: Pop Singer, which recorded her attempts to gain a record deal and her eventual signing with the EMI label. Her first two singles, “Modern Girl” and “9 to 5” both entered the top ten of the UK Singles Chart simultaneously. She became one of the most successful British female recording artists of the 1980s. Easton became the first and only recording artist in Billboard history to have a top five hit on each of Billboard‘s primary singles charts: “Morning Train (Nine to Five)” (Pop and Adult Contemporary), “We’ve Got Tonight” with Kenny Rogers (Country and Adult Contemporary) and “Sugar Walls” (R&B and Dance).

A six-time Grammy Award nominee, Easton is a two-time Grammy Award winner – Best New Artist in 1982 and Best Mexican-American Performance in 1985 for her duet with Mexican singer Luis Miguel on the 1984 single “Me Gustas Tal Como Eres“. Her discography includes fifteen studio albums, fifty–five singles and twenty consecutive US singles, including fifteen top forty hits, seven top tens and one number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1981 and 1991. She has received five RIAA-certified Gold albums and one Platinum album in the United States, and in Canada, she has been awarded three Gold albums and two Platinum albums. With a total of twenty–five top forty singles internationally, her combined records sales stand at 20 million records worldwide.

Easton’s other hit singles include the James Bond theme “For Your Eyes Only“, “You Could Have Been with Me“, “Telefone (Long Distance Love Affair)“, “Almost Over You“, “Strut“, “U Got the Look” and “The Arms of Orion” with Prince, “The Lover in Me” and “What Comes Naturally“. She has worked with prominent singers, writers and producers, such as Prince, Christopher Neil, Kenny Rogers, David Foster, Luis Miguel, L.A. Reid, Babyface, Patrice Rushen and Nile Rodgers.

TODAY’S ALMANAC

Question of the Day

When something is done in secret or on the sly, it is said to be done “on the Q.T.” Where did this originate, and what does Q.T. mean?

It’s simply an abbreviation of the word quiet. In the late 1800s, quiet came to mean “clandestine,” or “secretive” (e.g., “I’d like to have a word with you on the quiet.”). Sometime later, it was reduced to the slang “Q.T.”

Advice of the Day

To help you have more energy, wear red.

Home Hint of the Day

In the spring, give your lawn a good brisk raking, then reseed any bare spots. Lightly mulch reseeded areas with peat moss or grass clippings.

Word of the Day

SOS

The letters signified by the signal ( … – … ) prescribed by the International Radiotelegraphic Convention of 1908 for use by ships in distress. SOS was chosen as the universal distress signal because this combination of three dots followed by three dashes followed by three dots (…–…), was easy to send and easily recognized, especially since they were usually sent as a nine-character signal, which stood out against the background of three-character Morse Code letters. The letters themselves are meaningless. SOS does not stand for Save Our Souls, Save Our Ship, Stop Other Signals, or Sure Of Sinking.

Puzzle of the Day

What did they wear at the Boston Tea Party?

T-shirts!

Died

Ferdinand Magellan (explorer) – 1521
Ralph Waldo Emerson (poet) – 1882
Julius Sterling Morton (Arbor Day founder) – 1902
Edward R. Murrow (broadcast journalist) – 1965
Ruth Handler (co-founded Mattel and created Barbie) – 2002

Born

Samuel Morse (inventor) – 1791
Ulysses S. Grant (18th U.S. president) – 1822
Rogers Hornsby (baseball player) – 1896
Coretta Scott King (civil rights leader) – 1927
Sheena Easton (singer) – 1959
Chris Carpenter (baseball player) – 1975
William Moseley (actor) – 1987

Events

Astronomer John Russell Hind discovered a new variable star in Ophiuchus – 1848
Steamboat Sultana exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee– 1865
A hearing aid was patented by F. D. Clarke and M. G. Foster– 1880
Fourth modern Olympic games opened in London, England– 1908
U.S. Soil Conservation Service established by Congress– 1935
Babe Ruth Day– 1947
Expo ‘67 was officially opened in Montreal, Quebec, by Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson– 1967
L. Patrick Gray resigns as acting director of the FBI due to the Watergate fiasco– 1973
Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger plane, successfully took off on its maiden flight– 2005
Oh Eun-sun from South Korea became the first woman to scale the world’s 14 highest mountains– 2010
An odd green light shot across the night sky in southern California. Experts concluded that it likely was a meteor.– 2016

Weather

The temperature in New York City reached 92 degrees F– 1915
Pahala, Hawaii, reached 100F (37.8C), which, at the time, was the highest temperature ever recorded for the state– 1931
Ninety-four degrees F, Hartford, CT– 1962
27 inches of snow fell in a 24-hours in Minot, North Dakota– 1984
Downtown Los Angeles hit 102 degrees F, shattering the April 27 mark of 94 degrees F set in 1881– 2004

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