ON THIS DAY
November 1, 2021
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE NOVEMBER 1, 1938
MR H.G. Wells wants Columbia Broadcasting System radio to make ‘a full retraction’ for their broadcast last night of a dramatisation of his novel The War Of The Worlds that sent listeners in the United States into a panic. Terse bulletins describing an invasion by Martians were flashed on the wireless, and thousands of terror-stricken civilians feared the end of the world had come.
NOVEMBER 1, 1971
A BOMB blasted a Territorial Army building near London’s Lambeth Bridge early today less than 24 hours after the massive Post Office Tower explosion which wrecked the observation floor 480ft up. The only claim for responsibility came from a man with an Irish accent who called the Press Association news agency in London, saying: ‘This is the Kilburn battalion of the IRA. We did the Post Office Tower.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
TOnI COLLETTE, 49. The Australian star of Muriel’s Wedding and About A Boy received an Oscar nomination for The Sixth Sense. She has shaved her head five times, saying: ‘I find it quite cleansing,’ and once complained about often being asked why she played so many mothers. She has also sung with the band Toni Collette & the Finish, which featured her husband Dave Galafassi on drums.
YUKO SHIMIzU, 75. The Japanese designer invented Hello Kitty in 1974 while creating a decoration for a plastic purse. Described by Time magazine as a ‘polarising cult figure’, the character has featured on everything from debit cards to Airbus A330 planes and is thought to be worth about $8billion a year.
BORN ON THIS DAY
LAURA LA PLAnTE (19041996). The U.S. actress, ‘a blonde, bob-haired cornflower of the silent screen’, starred in more than 50 movies and serials, including The Cat And The Canary and Showboat. Born into poverty in St Louis, Missouri, she became Universal’s top star, ‘a sort of Carole Lombard of her day’, but vanished from public view in the 1950s.
SPEnCER PERCEvAL (1762-1812). The only British prime minister to have been assassinated was shot dead through the heart in the House of Commons lobby. Perceval, nicknamed Little P, served as his own, unpaid Chancellor of the Exchequer after six others declined the office.
ON NOVEMBER 1…
IN 1848, WHSmith opened its first railway bookstall at Euston station.
IN 1990, deputy prime minister Sir Geoffrey Howe resigned over Margaret Thatcher’s approach towards Europe.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION: Neap (c 900)
A) A pinching sensation. B) Single ear of corn. C) Tide just after the first or third quarters of the Moon. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED Be a walkover:
Meaning an easy achievement; from horseracing, where an entrant in a one-horse race had to at least ‘walk over’ the course before being awarded victory.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
THERE is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. George Santayana, Spanish-born philosopher (1863-1952)
JOKE OF THE DAY
I ALMOST got caught stealing a board game. But it was a Risk I was willing to take.
Guess The Definition answer: C.