ON THIS DAY
JULY 13, 1955
IN HER final 24 hours in the condemned cell at Holloway jail, 28-year- old Ruth Ellis broke her silence about the murder of her lover, racing motorist David Blakely. She said a man gave her the gun and loaded it for her. Mrs Ellis (right), a mother of two, then shot 25-year-old Mr Blakely. After a family visit yesterday, she lay on her iron bed screaming: ‘I do not want to die.’ She is to be hanged at 9am today. [Ellis was the last woman in Britain to be executed.]
JULY 13, 1967
BARBARA CASTLE, Minister of Transport, confirmed the 70mph limit on all Britain’s fast roads and motorways yesterday. Car firms warned of the risk to the development of 100mph sports cars, which are the UK’s best-sellers overseas.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
CHARLOTTE DUJARDIN, 32. The Enfield-born dressage star (right) won two golds at the 2012 Olympics and a gold and silver in Rio last year. Fiance Dean Wyatt said: ‘On our first date, Charlotte said she would always love horses more than me. I thought she was joking.’ In Rio, having been engaged for four years, he wore a T-shirt that read: ‘Can we get married now?’ ROGER McGUINN, 75. The co-founder, lead singer and guitarist of U.S. rock group The Byrds. It was McGuinn who came up with the name The Birds, but the spelling was changed when they realised that in Britain ‘bird’ was slang for a girl.
BORN ON THIS DAY
TOMMASO BUSCETTA (1928-2000). The Sicilian supergrass was the first Mafia boss to turn informant after more than a dozen members of his family were killed. The youngest of 17 children, he lived his final years peacefully in the U.S. SIMONE VEIL (1927-2017). The French politician and first president of the European Parliament, who died last month, survived Auschwitz. She led a campaign to overturn her country’s ban on abortion.
ON JULY 13...
IN 1793, French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat was stabbed to death in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, who was executed four days later. Artist Madame Tussaud made death masks of both victim and killer while their bodies were still warm, for an exhibit of the murder scene later displayed at her London waxworks museum.
IN 1960, John F. Kennedy won the Democratic U.S. presidential nomination.
WORD WIZARDRY
NEW WORD OF THE DAY Pocket dial: To call someone accidentally with a phone in your pocket.
GUESS THE DEFINITION Verbigeration (coined 1886)
A) The frequent altering of one’s opinions or principles to follow trends. B) The process of spreading manure. C) The repetition of the same word or phrase in a meaningless way (as a symptom of mental disease). Answer below. PHRASE EXPLAINED Bare-faced lie: An obvious lie told with no shame (from the idea of clean- shaven faces being unable to hide slyness easily).