ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE MAY 5, 1941
HITLER addressed his Reichstag yesterday in a 72-minute speech in which he referred to night bombing. ‘Churchill,’ he said, ‘is determined to continue this kind of warfare. We, also, are resolved to continue, and are prepared to drop 100 bombs for each British bomb until Britain gets rid of this criminal and his methods.’
MAY 5, 1958
PRINCESS ANNE yesterday was taken to have her tonsils and adenoids out at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street. The Princess, 7 [pictured], was the first member of the Royal Family to have an operation in a hospital. Prince Charles had his tonsils out a year ago, at the Palace.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
RICHARD E. GRANT, 60. The actor and star of Withnail And I was born in Swaziland. He began a diary at 11 as a coping mechanism after seeing his mother ‘committing adultery with one of my father’s friends’. He is allergic to alcohol and eats Christmas pudding at least once a month. JAMES CRACKNELL, 45. The double Olympic gold medallist (pictured), nearly died in 2010 when he was hit by a truck while cycling across the U.S. The frontal lobe of his brain was damaged and his wife Beverley said he woke from a coma ‘as though steaming drunk’, with a ‘newly acquired ruling-class accent’ and thinking he was in the Tour de France. Cracknell failed last week to become Tory candidate for the Brentford and Isleworth seat.
BORN ON THIS DAY
KARL MARX (1818-1883). The German philosopher and father of modern Communism was a rebellious youngster — at the University of Bonn, he was jailed for drunkenness and fought a duel with a fellow student. He named all four of his daughters Jenny, after their mother. Jokers have called his grave at Highgate Cemetery in London a ‘Communist plot’. NELLIE BLY (1864-1922). The pioneering U. S. journalist, real name Elizabeth Cochran Seaman, went round the world in 72 days in 1889, having set out to beat the fictional voyage by Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne’s Around The World In Eighty Days.
ON MAY 5 . . .
IN 1930, Amy Johnson took off from Croydon — in the first solo flight by a woman between England and Australia. IN 2005, Tony Blair won a historic third term for the Labour Party.
WORD WIZARDRY
NEW WORD OF THE DAY Subprime: Mortgages offered to people without a good credit history or who will struggle repay the loan. GUESS THE DEFINITION Pax (coined 1375) A) Tablet kissed by participants in mass. B) Lively jig. C) Drum beat or trumpet blast which announces a surrender. Answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Touch and go: Meaning a very narrow escape. Derived from driving where the wheel of one vehicle touches that of another passing without causing harm.