ON THIS DAY

FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE

NOVEMBER 13, 1940 THERE were 15,029 civilian air-raid casualties in Britain last month — 6,334 dead and 8,695 injured. Casualty numbers of women and children exceeded those of men, giving emphasis to the Government’s appeal that children should be evacuated and that women should leave london. NOVEMBER 13, 1954 PROFESSOR Albert Einstein, who wrote recently that he would prefer to have been a plumber or a pedlar, has been awarded honorary membership of the Plumbers and Steamfitters Union.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

AlExANDRA SHUlMAN, 60, who stood down as editor of British Vogue in June after 25 years. She said in a documentary last year that she doesn’t ‘love’ fashion and once said that having two parents who were journalists (theatre critic Milton Shulman and Drusilla Beyfus, journalist and author of a book on etiquette) meant that becoming a writer ‘was my idea of a nightmare — I wanted to be a hairdresser’. GERARD BUTlER, 48. The Paisley-born actor, who starred in the movies 300 and Coriolanus, started out as a lawyer but was sacked a week before qualifying. He said that while making his latest film, Geostorm, he went into anaphylactic shock and was hospitalised after being injected with 23 bee stings-worth of venom as a remedy for strained muscles after a full 12-hour day performing stunts.

BORN ON THIS DAY

GARRy MARSHAll (1934-2016), the New york-born director of Pretty Woman and Beaches also created TV sitcoms Happy Days, laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy. Of his flair for comedy, Marshall said: ‘In the Bronx, where we grew up in, you only had a few choices. you were either an athlete or a gangster, or you were funny.’ JEAN SEBERG (1938-1979). The American actress, who starred in 1957’s Saint Joan after winning a nationwide talent search, and in Jeanluc Godard’s Breathless, was found dead aged 40 after taking her own life in the back of her car. While filming Paint your Wagon with Clint Eastwood, Seberg’s husband, novelist Romain Gary, turned up on set and learned Eastwood and his wife were having an affair. Gary challenged Eastwood to a duel, but Eastwood declined.

ON NOVEMBER 13...

IN 1954, Britain beat hosts France in the final of the first Rugby league World Cup.

IN 2015, ISIS-backed terror attacks at a concert hall, stadium and bars in Paris left 130 dead and hundreds wounded. WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION Feond (Old English) A) Enemy, monster. B) A measure of about two gallons. C) A scallywag, rascal. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED

For Pete’s sake! A substitute for a stronger exclamation, the ‘Pete’ being a euphemism for God or St Peter, the guardian of the Gates of Heaven.