ON THIS DAY
August 30, 2017
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
AUGUST 30, 1940 A secret method of painting British bombers to make them invisible at night in spite of searchlights is reported by German Air Force sources in Berlin. these sources revealed that British bombers on night raids on Germany have been painted with a secret type of varnish which made them invisible to searchlights. A bomber recently shot down, they said, was held in the beam of a car’s lights and became invisible. AUGUST 30, 1958 russiA has taken another vital stride in the race to put a man into space. soviet scientists have shot two dogs, both females, 280 miles up in a rocket and brought them back to earth again, apparently unharmed, at a prearranged spot.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
sue MAcGreGor, 76. the former presenter of BBc radio 4’s today and Woman’s Hour ( right), described as ‘the nation’s favourite schoolmistress’, dented her prim image when she revealed that she’d had a five-year affair with married actor Leonard rossiter — who played rigby in rising Damp. she said last month there will never be equal pay for women ‘until men have babies’. sir Antony GorMLey, 67. the sculptor, most famous for his Angel of the north in Gateshead, said his catholic parents named him Antony Mark David so his initials would spell AMDG — Ad maiorem Dei
gloriam (‘to the greater glory of God’) in Latin. He considered becoming a Buddhist monk before devoting himself to art.
BORN ON THIS DAY
MAry sHeLLey (1797-1851). the english author of Frankenstein was the daughter of feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, who died 11 days after giving birth to her. At 16, she eloped to italy with married poet Percy Bysshe shelley and was ostracised when she returned pregnant. the baby was born prematurely and died. the couple married in 1816 after the suicide of shelley’s wife. ernest rutHerForD (1871-1937). the nobel Prizewinning physicist from new Zealand (right), regarded as the father of nuclear physics, split the atom, discovered radioactive half-life and differentiated and named alpha and beta radiation. He was buried alongside Britain’s greatest scientists, including sir isaac newton, in Westminster Abbey. the element rutherfordium was named after him in 1997.
ON AUGUST 30…
IN 1901, Briton Hubert cecil Booth patented the first powered vacuum cleaner. IN 1941, nazi forces launched the siege of Leningrad by cutting the last rail link. IN 2001, ex-yugoslav president slobodan Milosevic was told he’d be charged with genocide, the most serious of all war crimes. He died before the trial concluded.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION Rantantingly (coined 1599) A) Without thought, headlong. B) extravagantly. c) Annoyingly. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED
Blue stocking: intellectual woman. comes from Venice in 1400, where a theatrical society was formed, Compagnie della calza (calza means sock), distinguished by the colour of their stockings.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be breakthrough. R D Laing, Scottish psychiatrist (1927-89)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHy did tom go out with a prune? Because he couldn’t find a date. Guess The Definition answer: B