ON THIS DAY
July 27, 2020
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
JULY 27, 1956 COLONEL Nasser last night seized the Suez Canal only five weeks after the last British troops had walked out. In Alexandria, he told a wildly cheering crowd that Egypt had nationalised the Canal, despite Britain being its biggest shareholder. JULY 27, 1970 CILLA BLACK became a mother last night when the 27-year-old pop star gave birth to an 8lb 12oz boy at the Avenue Clinic, St John’s Wood. Cilla said after the birth: ‘I was surprised how straightforward it was. I feel fine. We haven’t decided on a name yet.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JONATHAN Rhys Meyers, 43. The Irish actor, who was expelled from school at 16 for truancy, started out in an advert for knorr soup before starring in Bend It Like Beckham and playing Henry VIII in TV drama The Tudors. He has been in six car accidents (none while he was driving). BARONESS (Shirley) Williams, 90. The former Labour minister co-founded the SDP before becoming a Lib Dem peer. While studying at Oxford, she was reportedly ‘a blonde, blueeyed beauty with a seductively husky voice’ who enjoyed skinny dipping and was having too much fun to study. Her mother, Testament Of Youth author Vera Brittain, wrote to her tutor asking him to persuade her to go to bed earlier: ‘Shirley is terribly handicapped by her popularity and very much at the mercy of her friends.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
GARRY DAVIS (1921-2013). In 1948, the former bomber pilot and Broadway understudy to Danny kaye renounced his U.S. citizenship, declaring himself a citizen of the world. Davis argued that if there were no nation states there would be no wars. He printed his own passport and issued 2.5 million documents to followers. An obituary reported: ‘He periodically ran for president of the world, always unopposed.’ LYUDMILA RUDENkO (1904-1986). The Soviet chess star was described as ‘one of the most influential players to ever pick up a rook’. In 1950, she became only the second Women’s World Chess Champion, but said her greatest accomplishment was organising the evacuation of factory workers’ children in the Siege of Leningrad in World War II.
ON JULY 27…
IN 1925, the world’s first long wave transmitting station opened in Daventry, Northamptonshire, bringing the total radio audience within listening distance to 94 per cent of the population.
IN 1976, Tina Turner filed for divorce from husband Ike, to end their 16-year marriage.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Ratiocination (c 1525) A) Affected use of archaic language. B) The process of logical reasoning. C) The device of damning by faint praise. (Answer below)
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Born with a silver spoon — to have a high social position and be rich from birth; the use of silver wear was popular when dining with the British aristocracy and godparents often gave silver spoons to their godchildren at their christening.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
A critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste. Whitney Balliett, U.S. jazz critic (1926-2007)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY do ship-builders have such high job satisfaction? their work is truly riveting. Guess the Definition answer: B