ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE MARCH 21, 1949
THERE are only two classes of people in the modern world who really know what they are after, said the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Fisher, yesterday. ‘One, quite frankly, is the Communist. The other, equally frankly, is the convinced Christian. Both of them know. I don’t think anybody else does.’
MARCH 21, 1962
LONDON and two other big cities yesterday took the first steps towards banning smoking in public places. Mr Bernard Bagnart, chairman of the LCC Public Control Committee, announced that as an ‘urgent matter’ his committee was asking for a report on the council’s powers to make no smoking a condition of granting licences to cinemas and other entertainment places. Bristol and Manchester are considering similar changes.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JADE JONES, 25. The Welsh athlete, pictured, became Britain’s first taekwondo Olympic champion in 2012, and won a second gold in Rio in 2016. Jones, awarded an MBE aged 19, took up the martial art after being encouraged by her grandfather, who wanted to keep her off the streets. GARY OLDMAN, 60. The man hailed by critics as ‘the best actor of his generation’ finally received the ultimate accolade when he won Best Actor at this month’s Oscars for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour. He supported his early days as an actor by working as a hospital porter, selling shoes and beheading pigs. He wed fifth wife, Gisele Schmidt, last year, and had a two-year marriage to Uma Thurman in the Nineties. His elder sister is Laila Morse, who plays Big Mo in EastEnders.
BORN ON THIS DAY
SOLOMON BURKE (1940-2010). The U.S. singer-songwriter was one of the founding fathers of soul in the Sixties. A former preacher and funeral parlour embalmer, he was a father of 21 and grandfather 90 times over. He tried, and failed, to imitate the Jackson Five’s success by putting seven of his children in a band called Sons and Daughters of Solomon. GILBERT M. ANDERSON (1880-1971). Better known as Broncho Billy, he was responsible for many film firsts. He played three roles in 1903’s The Great Train Robbery, the first motion picture with a plot. He also appeared in Mr Flip in 1909, which featured the first ever ‘pie-in-theface’ gag. Billy was also the first star of Westerns, though he could neither ride nor shoot before his initial appearance as a cowboy.
ON MARCH 21…
IN 1960, 69 black South Africans were killed in the Sharpeville Massacre, when police opened fire on a protest.
IN 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally annexed Crimea from Ukraine, despite new EU and U.S. sanctions.