ON THIS DAY
March 12, 2020
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
MARCH 12, 1938 HITLER has marched into Austria. The Austrian Foreign Office said that German troops had crossed the frontier at Passau and that the Austrian Army was falling back. The British and French Ambassadors in Berlin registered a protest.
MARCH 12, 1988 ACTRESS Susan George said last night she was devastated by the death of her former boyfriend, Bee Gee Andy Gibb. ‘I just can’t believe he’s dead,’ she said. ‘I still love him dearly.’ George and 30-year-old Gibb (pictured together), who died of a heart attack, had planned to meet to celebrate his relaunch as a pop singer.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
COLEEN NOLAN, 55. The Blackpool-born singer and Loose Women star was the youngest of the Nolan Sisters whose hits included I’m In The Mood For Dancing. The group, which she joined at 15, was so popular in Japan they needed an army escort. On her first day at school, Coleen and sisters Linda and Bernie were introduced by her teacher at assembly: ‘These girls are from a singing family, so let’s have a song!’ Nolan said: ‘So we had to sing. I was mortified; I just wanted to be normal.’
JAMES TAYLOR, 72. The U.S. singer-songwriter, who has had hits with Fire And Rain and you’ve Got A Friend, was the first artist signed to The Beatles’ record label, Apple Records. He said he was a ‘bad influence’ on the Fab Four ‘because I gave John [Lennon] opiates’.
BORN ON THIS DAY
JACK KEROUAC (1922-69). The U.S. author, who became known as the godfather of the ‘Beat Generation’, wrote On The Road, about a spontaneous road trip, in just three weeks on a 120 ft roll of typewriter paper. Named one of the most important figures of the 20th century by Life magazine, Kerouac insisted: ‘I’m only a jolly story teller . . . my only plan is the old Chinese way of the Tao: “Avoid the authorities.”’
EDWARD ALBEE (1928-2016). The threetime Pulitzer prize-winning American playwright made his name with Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? He said of the play, whose title he took from graffiti he had seen in New york: ‘I find Virginia Woolf hung about my neck like a shining medal of some sort — really nice but a trifle onerous.’
ON MARCH 12…
IN 1894, Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time.
IN 1928, the BBC Dance Orchestra, led by Jack Payne, made its first official broadcast. It became so popular it was soon receiving 10,000 letters a week.
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Oracy (c1960)
A) Learning to talk well. B) Vexation in having difficulty in finding the right word. C) Genteel irony. Answer below
See eye to eye — meaning to share a common viewpoint; from the Book of Isaiah in the line ‘for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion’.
The greater philosopher a man is, the more difficult it is for him to answer the foolish questions of common people.
Henryk Sienkiewicz, Polish writer (1846-1916)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY did the bacon laugh? Because the egg cracked a yolk. Guess The Definition answer: A.