Portrait of Vera Lynn

Birthday profile

Vera Lynn

Vera Lynn, English singer, songwriter and actress (died 2020)

Born
March 20, 1917
Died
June 18, 2020
Zodiac sign
Pisces
Birth year
1917

About Vera Lynn

Dame Vera Margaret Lewis was an English singer and entertainer whose musical recordings and performances were popular during World War II. She is honorifically known as the "Forces' Sweetheart", having given outdoor concerts for the troops in Egypt, India, and Burma during the war as part of the Entertainments National Service Association. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography wrote of Lynn, "Her reassuring voice and mastery of radio made her the forces' sweetheart in the Second World War—a connection she fostered with her ongoing commitment to veterans and memory of the war." The songs most associated with her include "We'll Meet Again", "(There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover" and "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square". In 2009, at the age of 92, she became the oldest living artist to top the UK Albums Chart with the compilation album We'll Meet Again: The Very Best of Vera Lynn. Issued to commemorate her centenary, it was a No. 3 hit, making her the first centenarian performer to have a Top 10 album in the charts. Dame Vera Margaret Lewis (née Welch; 20 March 1917 – 18 June 2020) was an English singer and entertainer whose musical recordings and performances were popular during World War II.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Vera Lynn timeline

  1. Dame Vera Margaret Lewis (née Welch; 20 March 1917 – 18 June 2020) was an English singer and entertainer whose musical recordings and performances were popular during World War II.
  2. In 2009, at the age of 92, she became the oldest living artist to top the UK Albums Chart with the compilation album We'll Meet Again: The Very Best of Vera Lynn.

The world when Vera Lynn was born

Vera Lynn was born in 1917. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1917

  • Best-selling book"Mr. Britling Sees It Through" – H.G. Wells

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentProfessional sports curtailed as America enters World War I
  • Top headlineUS enters World War I
  • Technology milestoneFirst practical military use of sonar
  • World population~1.77B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWoodrow Wilson
  • U.S. population100.8M

1917 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Vera Lynn's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19172026
Gas$0.25$3.45/gal
Population100.8M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, IMDb, MusicBrainz, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.