ON THIS DAY
July 14, 2022
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
JULY 14, 1962
SEVEN Cabinet ministers were swept from office last night in the biggest wave of political executions in peacetime memory [later known as the Night of the Long Knives]. Harold Macmillan’s sensational sackings and promotions are aimed at producing a new image for the Government.
JULY 14, 1972
THE BBC is risking a row by reviving cash prizes for new quiz show, Three In A Row, to be aired on Radios 1 and 2 soon. The Corporation has discouraged cash prizes for years, fearing they would make it seem licence money was being given away.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
MAXINE PEAKE, 48. The actress from Manchester, who went to Rada on a Patricia Rothermere scholarship, played Twinkle in Victoria Wood sitcom Dinnerladies, Myra Hindley in ITV’s See No Evil and barrister Martha Costello in BBC drama Silk. As a child she didn’t think acting was for her ‘because I didn’t think I looked like an actor. I didn’t see dumpy 11-year-olds with basin haircuts.’
BRUCE OLDFIELD, 72. The British fashion designer has dressed Diana, Princess of Wales, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and Sophie, Countess of Wessex. He said: ‘If you want a glitzy, bodycon dress, I’m not your boy. When we made a dress for Kim Kardashian, the American Press wrote that I turned Kim into a princess.’ Brought up in a Dr Barnado’s home, he became a vice president of the charity.
BORN ON THIS DAY
WOODY GUTHRIE (1912-1967). The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame said without the u.S. folk singer-songwriter, ‘there would be no [Bob] Dylan, [Bruce] Springsteen or [Joan] Baez.’ Pete Seeger said of Guthrie’s This Land Is your Land: ‘That song was never on the hit parade. It was never played on the radio. It was never played on TV . . . but practically everybody in America knew this song.’ A sticker on Guthrie’s guitar read: ‘This machine kills fascists.’
LORD (William) Rees-Mogg (1928-2012). The Bristol-born ex-chairman of the Arts Council and father of Cabinet minister Jacob, edited The Times for 14 years, but is best remembered for an editorial in which he defended Mick Jagger after the Rolling Stones singer’s arrest for possession of cannabis. It was headlined: ‘Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?’
ON JULY 14…
IN 1960, Dame Jane Goodall arrived in western Tanzania to begin her 60-year study of wild chimpanzees. IN 1983, Nintendo’s Mario Bros arcade game was released.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Wheeple (coined 1901) A) To walk aimlessly. B) A scarecrow made of old garments. C) To whistle weakly. answer below. PHRASE EXPLAINED Go off the deep end: An explosive loss of self-control; it refers to a swimming pool’s deep end, where the diving board is.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Expedients are for the hour, but principles are for the ages. Henry Ward Beecher, U.S. clergyman (1813-1887)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you call a poorly dressed T. Rex? an eye-saur. Guess The Definition answer: C