ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE JANUARY 7, 1981
MARK CHAPMAN, the man accused of shooting John Lennon, is fit to stand trial for murder, but will plead temporary insanity. Lennon was shot dead on December 8 outside the Dakota apartment building, in Manhattan, where he lived with his wife Yoko Ono and son, Sean.
JANUARY 7, 1994
A MANIAC wielding a collapsible baton brutally clubbed the right knee of U.S. ice skating champion Nancy kerrigan last night. The 24- year- old was attacked as she finished practising at a rink in Detroit. As the man lashed out at her legs, police rushed to protect her. The attacker fled. [The attack was planned by the ex-husband of rival skater Tonya Harding, who was later banned from competing for life for trying to cover up the assault. kerrigan won silver at the Winter Olympics (above) in February 1994.]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
ANDY BURNHAM, 51. The Liverpool-born former health secretary is mayor of Greater Manchester, having lost Labour leadership races to Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn. He has become an unlikely sex symbol. An article in Vogue last October was headlined: ‘Suddenly, Inexplicably, We All Fancy Andy Burnham’ and swooned over his ‘swoosh of dark hair’ and ‘long eyelashes’. HELEN WORTH, 70. The actress has played Coronation’s Street’s most-married character, Gail platt (formerly potter, Tilsley, Hillman, McIntyre and Rodwell), since 1974. Born Cathryn Wigglesworth in Yorkshire, in real life she has married twice.
BORN ON THIS DAY
BUTTERFLY McQUEEN (19111995). The U. S. actress made her name playing prissy, Scarlett O’Hara’s maid in Gone With The Wind (right), but said: ‘I hated it. The part of prissy was so backward.’ McQueen was barred from the film’s premiere in 1939 because it was held in a whites-only cinema and had to wait until its 50th anniversary party to be invited. Born Thelma, she got the nickname Butterfly after dancing in a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. WILLIAM pETER BLATTY (1928-2017). The author from New York wrote the 1971 horror novel The Exorcist and won an Oscar when he turned it into a film. Blatty’s ambition was to be a comic writer, but he said: ‘The sad truth is that nobody wants me to write comedy. The Exorcist not only ended that career, it expunged all memory of its existence.’
ON JANUARY 7…
IN 1558, France captured Calais, the last continental possession of England. IN 1988, Brief Encounter star Trevor Howard died aged 74.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Maunder (1600s) A) To sell wares. B) To grumble or moan. C) Languidly content. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED To be in apple-pie order — meaning to be clean, tidy, well-organised; coined in 1780, it comes from the French ‘nappe pliée en ordre’ for neatly folded linen.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. Thomas Watson Snr, American chairman of IBM (1874-1956)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT type of sandals do frogs wear? Open-toad. Guess The Definition answer: B.