ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE DECEMBER 22, 1981
ACTRESS elizabeth Taylor and U. S. senator John Warner have separated after five years of marriage. A spokesman for the star, married seven times including twice to Richard Burton, said the parting was ‘amicable’. Miss Taylor, 49, is reported to have told friends she had become ‘bored stiff’ with the life of a politician’s wife.
DECEMBER 22, 1988
UP To 300 people were killed last night when a jumbo jet crashed in the centre of a small Scottish town. A fireball leapt 300ft into the sky as the Pan-Am 747 ploughed a trail of death through Lockerbie. experts were asking if anything but a terrorist bomb could have caused such a catastrophe.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
RALPH FIENNES, 58. The actor from Suffolk, who starred in Schindler’s List and the Harry Potter films, is an eighth cousin of the Prince of Wales. Fiennes succeeded Judi Dench to play M in the Bond films and was once tipped to play 007. But he said he could only ‘have had a crack at it if it had been set in the 1950s’. DIANE SAWYER, 75. The U.S. TV journalist was a former member of Richard nixon’s White House staff and helped him prepare for his interviews with David Frost. She earned up to $20 million a year, and met her husband-to-be, The graduate director Mike nichols, while waiting at an airport.
BORN ON THIS DAY
ROBIN GIBB (1949-2012). Robin and his twin Maurice were born on the Isle of Man before moving to Manchester then Australia. With brother Barry, their group the Bee gees sold 220 million records, but gibb never forgot growing up in poverty, saying: ‘I remember my dad sitting under a 40-watt bulb counting pennies, trying to make them last until Friday. The evening meal was a sixpenny bag of chips divided among us all.’ Dame Peggy Ashcroft ( 1907- 1991). The actress from Croydon won an oscar for her role in A Passage To India. She had an affair with Paul Robeson (both pictured) while starring in a stage production of othello in 1930 and said: ‘How could one not fall in love in such a situation with such a man?’ on why she gave so few interviews, Dame Peggy said: ‘I’m not interested in myself, very.’
ON DECEMBER 22…
IN 1967, the BBC broadcast the first edition of Just A Minute, chaired by nicholas Parsons. IN 1974, Tory leader edward Heath’s house was bombed ten minutes before he arrived home. The attack was blamed on the IRA.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Lambent (17th c) A) gracefully glowing (light or fire) B) Foppish, conceited C) A priest’s mistress ( Answer below) PHRASE EXPLAINED Hung, drawn and quartered — from 1352, a penalty in england for men convicted of high treason; the offender was dragged to the execution spot, hung to the point of death then disembowelled and quartered: sometimes limbs were tied to four horses which were spurred in different directions.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
he knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career. George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist (1856-1950)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do they sing at a snowman’s birthday party? Freeze a jolly good fellow! Guess The Definition answer: A.