ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE APRIL 18, 1941
THOUSANDS of sightseers ignored appeals to stay away and flocked into London to gape at craters and damaged buildings caused by the heaviest night of bombing so far. Traffic was brought to a stop, and bomb disposal cars and Army Fire Service men were held up by the crowds of ‘tourists’.
APRIL 18, 1962
IN PETER Hall’s revived production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, all the time that Judi Dench is on the stage, the moonlight is real moonlight and it is possible that there are fairies. She is a wild-haired Titania ( pictured), as ethereal as ectoplasm, as pale as death, but undoubtedly female and very much alive.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
SAMANTHA CAMERON, 47. The wife of former PM David Cameron has admitted she used to vote Green. Her husband said: ‘I think she was embarrassed to tell her friends she was going out with a Tory.’ She now has her own upmarket womenswear label but has disclosed that she buys most of her husband’s clothes from M&S. NIALL FERGUSON, 54. The controversial Scottish historian (once described by Horrible Histories writer Terry Deary as ‘a deeply offensive Right-wing man who uses history to get across a political point’) now lives and works in America. He complained that ‘the British public has a nauseating prurience’ about the lives of so- called celebrities, while America has ‘proper stars . . . like Brad and Angelina’.
BORN ON THIS DAY
GEORGE H. HITCHINGS (1905-1998). The Nobel Prize-winning American doctor was one of the founding fathers of chemotherapy. His work also led to the development of drugs to treat leukaemia, gout, malaria and Aids, and he also created the immunosuppressant azathioprine, the drug that made organ transplantation possible. He retired just before his 90th birthday. VIRGINIA O’BRIEN (19212001). The Forties movie star and singer (pictured) was nicknamed Miss Red Hot Frozen Face because of her comedic poker-face delivery. She was related to American Civil War general Robert E. Lee, whose home state, Virginia, she was named after. Her MGM contract was cancelled after she lost the lead role in Annie Get Your Gun when she admitted she was scared of horses.
ON APRIL 18 . . .
IN 1930, during its 8.45pm bulletin, a BBC announcer said: ‘There is no news.’ The rest of the programme featured piano music.
IN 1956, Harold Macmillan announced plans for a state saving scheme — premium bonds — offering cash prizes instead of interest.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Sennet (coined in the Tudor-Stuart era) A) A governing body. B) A signal-call played on a trumpet. C) A greedy sponger. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
To go berserk: To work oneself up into a frenzy. It derives from an elite band of Norse warriors, Berserkers, who went into battle without armour and in a trance-like fury.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
LIFE is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up. Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY did the physics teacher break up with the biology teacher? There was no chemistry. Guess The Definition answer: B.