ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
NOVEMBER 9, 1939 AN ATTeMpT was made on Hitler’s life last night in the Burgerbrau beer cellar in Munich where Nazism was born. He had just left after addressing his Nazi Old Guard followers when an explosion shook the cellar. Hitler was not hurt, but it is officially stated that six of his followers were killed. NOVEMBER 9, 1946 THe 7,355-ton steamer Saxon Star sailed from Vancouver for england with 46,600,000 eggs, enough for every man, woman and child in Britain to have an extra egg each at Christmas.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
GAReTH MAlONe, 42. The choirmaster, star of BBC’s The Choir series, says he was bullied ‘mercilessly’ at school for his singing and regrets not hitting back: ‘Maybe it would have been better to have had a bit of a scrap in the playground.’ Many of his fans were upset when he grew a ginger beard and pleaded with him to shave it off. He said: ‘I’ve been the butt of casual gingerism.’ KAReN DOTRICe, 62. The Guernsey-born actress made her name as an eight-year-old child star, playing Jane Banks in Mary poppins, But she has said that if it had been her decision, she wouldn’t have appeared in any films because child stars often end up living in a ‘Justin Bieberesque world, surrounded by a bunch of yes people’. Her older sister Michele played Frank Spencer’s wife Betty in the Seventies sitcom Some Mothers Do Have ’em and her father Roy, who died last month, appeared in Game Of Thrones.
BORN ON THIS DAY
JIll DANDO ( 1961- 1999). The BBC newsreader and Holiday and Crimewatch presenter was murdered on her doorstep aged 37 by an unknown gunman. A former policeman claimed this year that she was killed on the orders of an organised crime boss in london. SIR GIleS GIlBeRT SCOTT (1880-1960). Best known as the designer of the iconic red telephone box, the architect was also responsible for Waterloo Bridge, Battersea power Station and liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral — which wasn’t finished until nearly 20 years after his death.
ON NOVEMBER 9...
IN 1940, Neville Chamberlain died, six months after resigning as prime minister.
IN 1998, the death penalty — already repealed for murder — was finally abolished in Britain. It had remained a potential punishment for crimes such as treason and piracy with violence.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION Benthic (coined 1942) A) Having the stench of tobacco. B) Of or living in the bottom part of the ocean or lake. C) Sullenly angry; depressed in spirits. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED
An eye for an eye: Refers to the law of retaliation, the principle that a person who has injured another is to be penalised to a similar degree. It originates in the Bible in the book of exodus in the Old Testament: ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.’
QUOTE FOR TODAY
MEN seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses. Dorothy Parker, American writer and critic (1893-1967)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you call the noise made when someone impersonates a cat? Fake mews. Guess The Definition answer: B.