By Lady Williamson
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter (/biˈɒnseɪ/ i bee-ON-say; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and businesswoman. Known as “Queen Bey“, her artistry, vocal abilities, performances and visual presentations have led her to become a pop culture figure of the 21st century.
Beyoncé started performing in various singing and dancing competitions as a child. She rose to fame in the late 1990s as a member of the R&B girl group Destiny’s Child, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. Their hiatus saw the release of her debut album Dangerously in Love (2003). She then released the commercially successful solo albums B’Day (2006), I Am… Sasha Fierce (2008), and (2011). In the mid-to-late-2010s, after creating her own management company Parkwood Entertainment, Beyoncé’s artistry achieved widespread acclaim for releasing the sonically experimental visual albums Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016), which explored multiple societal themes such as infidelity, feminism, and womanism. Following the release of the acclaimed LGBT-inspired dance album Renaissance (2022), she became the first solo artist to have their first seven studio albums debut at number one in the United States.
Some of Beyoncé’s songs include “Crazy in Love“, “Baby Boy“, “Irreplaceable“, “If I Were a Boy“, “Halo“, “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)“, “Run the World (Girls)“, “Love On Top“, “Drunk in Love“, “Formation“, “Break My Soul“, and “Cuff It.” Her collaborative music ventures include Everything Is Love (2018), an album with her husband Jay-Z, as the Carters, and the musical film Black Is King (2020), inspired by the music of the film soundtrack The Lion King: The Gift (2019). Homecoming: The Live Album (2019), a project encapsulating her 2018 Coachella performance, has been heralded as one of the best live albums of all time, lauded for wide-reaching curation from many eras of black musical history. Outside of music, she has starred as an actress in multiple films such as Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), The Pink Panther (2006), Dreamgirls (2006), Cadillac Records (2008), Obsessed (2009), and The Lion King (2019).
Having sold an estimated 200 million records worldwide, Beyoncé is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Her accolades include 32 Grammy Awards, 26 MTV Video Music Awards (including the 2014 Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award), 24 NAACP Image Awards, 35 BET Awards, and 17 Soul Train Music Awards, all of which are more than any other artist in the music industry. With 31 career top-ten singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 – including twelve chart-toppers – she became the first female artist and third overall to achieve at least twenty as a solo artist and ten as a group member. Her success during the 2000s earned her recognition as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)’s Top Certified Artist of the Decade and Billboard‘s Top Female Artist of the Decade. In 2014, Billboard named her the highest-earning black musician of all time. She is the most successful black touring act in history according to Pollstar. Time magazine included her as one of the 100 women who defined the last century. She was named the eighth-greatest singer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2023.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Question of the Day
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Born
- Sarah Childress Polk (U.S. First Lady) –
- Anton Bruckner (composer) –
- Richard Wright (author) –
- Paul Harvey (radio personality) –
- Dick York (actor) –
- Mitzi Gaynor (dancer) –
- Damon Wayans (actor) –
- Mike Piazza (baseball player) –
- Jason David Frank (actor) –
- Beyonce Knowles (singer) –
Died
- Albert Schweitzer (physician) –
- Irene Dunne (actress) –
- Steve Irwin (died from a stingray barb wound to the chest while filming a documentary) –
- Joan Rivers (comedienne) –
- Willard Scott (television weatherman) –
Events
- Los Angeles founded by Spanish settlers–
- Russian decree issued concerning Northwest America–
- Ten-year-old Barney Flaherty became first newsboy in the U.S. He worked for New York Sun–
- George Eastman received a patent for the roll-film camera–
- First transit of McClure Strait (Northwest Passage) made by the US Navy icebreaker, Burton Island and US Coast Guard icebreaker, Northwind–
- Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel–
- U.S. swimmer, Mark Spitz, became the first person to win seven gold medals in a single Olympics–
- Bob Barker began hosting The Price is Right–
- Thieves stole $2 million in art from Montreal Museum of Fine Arts–
- A 127-pound cabbage won a prize at the Alaska State Fair–
- A 50-year overdue library book, The United States in World War I, was returned to the Lexington, Kentucky, public library.–
Weather
- Washington, D.C., got 4.4 inches of rain in 2 hours–
- A tornado struck Minneapolis, Minnesota–
- Tropical storm Delia dumped very heavy rain on Galveston, Texas, resulting in flooding–
- A strong dust devil whirled across the Flagstaff Pulliam Airport in Arizona, flipping a Cessna 182 plane and scattering papers in the National Weather service office.–
COURTESY www.almanac.com
