ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
JUNE 6, 1942 PreSIDeNT rOOSeVeLT gave warning to Japan that she must stop using poisonous gas against the Chinese, or America will gas the Japanese in return. He said ‘retaliation in full measure will be meted out’. JUNE 6, 1969 PrINCe CHArLeS may join the Armed Forces when he leaves Cambridge next year. The Prince, 20, soon to be invested Prince of Wales, reveals this in the most candid interview he has yet given. Of his on-stage roles at university, he complains: ‘I was always cast in rather serious roles, and I think of myself more as a comic character. I love doing comic parts.’ [He went on to serve with the rAF and the royal Navy.]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
BJOrN BOrG, 62. Swedish former world No 1 tennis star and five-times Wimbledon champion (right), whose calm on-court demeanour earned him the nicknames Ice Man and Ice-Borg. His first wife, romanian tennis pro Mariana Simionescu, said: ‘He was always placid and calm, except if he lost a match — then he wouldn’t talk for at least three days.’ In 1979, he became the first player to win over $1 million in a season. rOBerT eNGLUND, 71. The American actor who played the horrifically scarred Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare On elm Street horror films says that, before Freddy, he was ‘a mop-haired blond surfer dude’. For his audition, he greased his hair down, used cigarette ash mixed with saliva under his eyes and ‘played staring games’ with a menace that unsettled his audience.
BORN ON THIS DAY
CAPTAIN rOBerT SCOTT (1868-1912). royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic and died in his attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole. Found in the tent alongside his team’s frozen bodies were 35lb of fossils, which the dying explorers had thought too valuable to jettison, even though lightening their load might have helped their survival. BILLIe WHITeLAW (19322014). The Bafta-winning actress from Coventry (right) was best known for playing Mrs Baylock in the 1976 film The Omen and for work with playwright Samuel Beckett, who called her the ‘perfect actress’. She referred to his death as ‘an amputation’. She first enrolled in a drama group to overcome her stutter and suffered stage fright all her career, saying it terrified her more than death.
ON JUNE 6…
IN 1944, D-Day began, with Allied troops landing on the beaches of Normandy in an offensive codenamed Operation Neptune.
IN 1975, it was announced that 67 per cent of British voters had opted to stay in the european economic Community in the UK’s first nationwide referendum.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Ebrillade (coined 1753) A) The shining of the sun. B) The recovery from a serious illness. C) The checking or restraining of a horse with the bridle. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Take stock: To consider a matter carefully before making a decision — or to make an inventory. From Old english ‘stoc’, meaning a stump, stake, or post.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
IF yoU don’t risk anything, you risk even more. Erica Jong, American novelist
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do librarians use for bait? Bookworms. Guess The Definition answer: C.