ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
FEBRUARY 3, 1947 A ROYAL Commission set up to reward wartime inventors will meet next week to consider handing out £1million [£38m today]. The creators of the Mulberry harbour; Bailey bridge; ‘sticky’ bomb; amphibious tanks; and Fido, the airfield landing device, may benefit. One being considered is jet engine inventor Frank Whittle. FEBRUARY 3, 1966 THE millionth Mini rolled off the production line at Longbridge, Birmingham, yesterday (right). A sensation at its launch in August 1959, it became Britain’s first truly classless car. Royalty and film stars found it fun, and Rolls-Royce owners switched to it to beat traffic jams.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
PAULA NICKOLDS, 45. The first female managing director at 154-year-old retailer John Lewis worked her way up via the haberdashery department and graduate trainee scheme. She was responsible for its marketing when the viral Monty The Penguin and Man On The Moon Christmas campaigns were launched. A ‘shopaholic’, she wears jeans to meetings. DAVE DAVIES, 71. The London-born guitarist founded The Kinks with his older brother Ray and together they have sold over 50 million records. The distinctive distorted guitar sound on their first hit You Really Got Me in 1964 was created by Dave slashing the speaker of his amplifier with a razor blade. It is considered by many to be the first ever ‘heavy metal’ single.
BORN ON THIS DAY
HENRY HEIMLICH (1920-2016). The U.S. thoracic surgeon invented the Heimlich manoeuvre, which since 1974 has stopped thousands from choking to death, including Simon Cowell, Cher, Ronald Reagan, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlene Dietrich. But Heimlich did not use the technique himself until, in his final year, he saved a woman in his retirement home who had a piece of hamburger stuck in her throat. She said: ‘God put me in the seat next to him.’ DORIS SPEED (1899-1994). The actress, most famous for playing Rovers Return landlady Annie Walker (right) in Coronation Street, made her music hall stage debut, aged four, with her parents. She was in the first Corrie in 1960 and stayed for 23 years. She got more fan mail that any other Street star and liked to arrive at the studios early to do The Times crossword before filming.
ON FEBRUARY 3 . . .
IN 1917, the U.S. cut diplomatic ties with Germany after it said its submarines would sink American ships without warning.
IN 1995, Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot a space shuttle, with the blast-off of Discovery.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION Larithmics (1930) A) Science of travellers’ health. B) Study of population statistics. C) Union of opposites. Answer below. PHRASE EXPLAINED
The three Rs: The most important lessons at school: reading, writing and arithmetic. From when a Lord Mayor of London raised his glass to ‘Reading, riting and rithmetic’. ONLY when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiography. Evelyn Waugh, English novelist (1903-1966)
JOKE OF THE DAY
I WENT to the doctor about my phobia of over-engineered buildings. She said I have a complex complex complex. Guess The Definition answer: B.