ON THIS DAY

FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE MAY 21, 1948 PRINCESS ELIzABETH’S Sunday out in Paris was condemned by the synod of the Free Presbyterian Church. It expressed ‘profound grief’ that the Princess and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, attended horse races and a dance on the Lord’s Day. MAY 21, 1966

THE number of murders in England and Wales in 1965, a year in which no one was hanged and the death penalty was suspended, was at least one fewer than the year before. There were 154 murders last year, compared with 155 in 1964, when two murderers were executed. Campaigners against capital punishment welcomed it as evidence that they had been right.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

TOM DALEy, 24. The Plymouth- born Olympic diver (right) is expecting a child with his Oscar-winning screenwriter husband Dustin Lance Black. In 2008, aged 14, he became the second youngest athlete to have represented Great Britain at an Olympics, and was the youngest competitor of any nationality to participate in a final that year. His greatest fear is ‘hitting my head on the diving board’. NOEL FIELDING, 45. When the comedian — who thinks he looks like ‘a troll wearing a woman’s wig backwards’ — was announced as new co-host of The Great British Bake Off, he joked: ‘I get more work when I’m thinner. No one likes a tubby gut. I don’t eat anything. I’m like a plant.’

BORN ON THIS DAY

HENRI ROUSSEAU (1844-1910). The French painter, the ‘father of naive art’, was most famous for his works depicting jungles, even though he never visited one. Instead, he was inspired by the greenhouses of Paris’s botanical gardens and modelled his animals on photos of a German zoo. Having taught himself to paint in his 40s, he was derided by critics — but Picasso was a fan. ALExANDER POPE (1688-1744). The London-born poet and satirist is one of the most quoted writers in the Oxford Dictionary Of Quotations, contributing such phrases as, ‘To err is human, to forgive, divine’ and ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread’. He suffered from curvature of the spine and only grew to 4ft 6in after contracting a tubercular infection as a child.

ON MAY 21 . . .

IN 1927, Charles Lindbergh completed the first solo plane flight across the Atlantic Ocean, from New york to Paris.

IN 1966, Muhammad Ali (right), who was known as Cassius Clay before his conversion to Islam, defeated Henry Cooper after six rounds to retain the world heavyweight championship, three years after beating the Briton in five rounds.

WORD WIZARDRY

GUESS THE DEFINITION: Ugsomeness (coined 1440) A) Physically short but powerful. B) Loathsome. C) Hardiness. Answer below

PHRASE EXPLAINED

To lick into shape — from the medieval belief that bear cubs were born shapeless and remained so until their mother had licked them into their proper form.

QUOTE FOR TODAY

Silence is not only golden; it is seldom misquoted Bob Monkhouse, comedian (1928-2003)

JOKE OF THE DAY

I’VE always been scared of lifts. I think it’s time I took steps to avoid them. Guess The Definition answer: B.