ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
JANUARY 23, 1973
LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON, the onetime farm boy who became 36th President of the U.S., died last night from a heart attack. He was flown by plane and army helicopter from his ranch in central Texas to hospital in San Antonio, but was dead on arrival. He was 64.
JANUARY 23, 1987
JULIA SMITH and Tony Holland, creators of TV’s top series eastenders, claimed yesterday that the names of the show’s characters came from beyond the grave. The names of the residents of Albert Square were chosen from gravestones and 140 years of dusty leather-bound records at Abney Park Cemetery in north London. Ms Smith said: ‘We wanted London names that had existed from Victorian times.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
LISA SNOWDON, 52. The former model and host of Britain’s next Top Model won Celebrity MasterChef in 2022. Snowdon dated George Clooney for five years after they met while filming an advert for Martini in Spain. Her real surname is Snawdon.
DAVID ARNOLD, 62. The composer, conductor and producer from Luton scored the films Independence Day and The Inbetweeners as well as five James Bond movies. The musical director for the London olympics worked on elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Thames Flotilla, composing a new arrangement of the 007 theme as Her Majesty sailed by the MI6 headquarters.
BORN ON THIS DAY
BORIS BEREZOVSKY (1946-2013). The Russian oligarch was a mentor to Vladimir Putin and helped him into the Kremlin, but soon became one of his fiercest critics and lived in self-imposed exile in Britain. He was the target of a murder plot prevented by MI6 before he was found apparently hanged in his Ascot home. Many of his associates would also die in suspicious circumstances.
ANITA POINTER (1948-2022). The U.S . singer was one of the Pointer Sisters, who had hits with I’m So excited and Jump (For My Love). She was the daughter of a church minister who considered rock ‘n’ roll the devil’s work. She was also a songwriter; her hit Fairytale won a Grammy and was recorded by elvis Presley.
ON JANUARY 23 . . .
IN 1957, ‘Frisbees’ were first manufactured by the Wham-o toy company in the U.S.
IN 1967, Milton Keynes was designated as a ‘new town’ to accommodate overspill from Greater London.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Rantantingly (coined 1599)
A) Annoyingly.
B) extravagantly.
C) Without thought, or headlong.
answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED
To case the joint: meaning to inspect a property before robbing or breaking into it. From the American criminal fraternity; a ‘joint’ is a building.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never see an elephant except in a picture book?
Sir David Attenborough, naturalist
JOKE OF THE DAY
I SAW a badger doing stand-up…
It was a great sett!
Guess The Definition answer: B. Compiled by ETAN SMALLMAN and ADAM JACOT DE BOINOD