ON THIS DAY
AUGUST 6, 1962
MARILYN MONROE, the star who could not cope with stardom, has died alone in her locked bedroom in Hollywood.
A bottle which had held 40 to 50 tablets of nembutal, a strong sedative prescribed for her only a few days ago, was empty nearby.
Police say they are treating her death as ‘apparent suicide’. There was no note, but 36-year-old Marilyn is known to have been despondent in recent weeks.
AUGUST 6, 1974
AFTER a weekend summit meeting with his family, friends and advisers, President Nixon issued an astonishing statement last night admitting he lied about Watergate. He has, at last, admitted he knew about the political implications of Watergate six days after the burglary — and discussed with his staff the advantages of a cover up. Nixon admitted his impeachment is now ‘virtually a foregone conclusion.’ But he still won’t resign. [He did on August 9.]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN, 49. The director of hit films Sixth Sense, Signs and Unbreakable is known for his twist endings. Born in India, and raised in Pennsylvania, his movies have grossed more than $3 billion. In complete contrast, he was also a writer for the CGI/live action film Stuart little (1999) about a talking mouse. ROMOLA GARAI, 38. The Hong Kongborn British actress starred in the film Atonement and TV dramas The Hour and The Windermere Children. Garai, who calls herself a ‘bra-burning, building-burning feminist’, has only appeared in one Hollywood film, Dirty Dancing 2, after describing it as ‘a cesspit of horrific misogyny’.
BORN ON THIS DAY
SIR ALEXANDER FLEMING (1881-1955). The bacteriologist from Ayrshire won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 for his 1928 discovery of penicillin. In 2017, a signed sample of the original culture, then 89 years old, sold for £11,875. lUCIllE BALL ( 19111989). The American actress was dubbed ‘the unquestioned queen of television comedy’ thanks to sitcoms I love lucy, The lucy Show and Here’s lucy. But she insisted: ‘I am not funny. My writers were funny. My directors were funny. The situations were funny. What I am is brave.’
ON AUGUST 6 . . .
IN 1961, Russian cosmonaut Gherman Titov became the first person to spend more than a day in space, aboard the one-person Vostok II spacecraft.
IN 2005, former foreign secretary Robin Cook died, aged 59, two years after resigning as Commons leader over the Iraq War.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: colporteur (coined c 1795)
A) An ornamental stand for holding salt B) A scarecrow C) A peddler of books
PHRASE EXPLAINED
On the right tack: Meaning to be following a course of action or reasoning that is likely to result in success; this 1675 phrase relates to the sailing manoeuvre ‘tacking’, where a boat is turned onto a line which can best use the wind on its sails.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
An Expert is one who knows more and more about less and less.
Nicholas Murray Butler, American philosopher (1862-1947)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHERE are average things made? In the satisfactory. Word wizardry answer: C