ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE JULY 27, 1965
BRITAIN is to change to an all-numbers system of telephone dialling instead of letters and figures, owing mainly to a rise in international calls. Mr Anthony Wedgwood Benn, the Postmaster- General, said the changeover will cost about £1 million.
JULY 27, 1966
ENGLAND are in the final of the World Cup after beating Portugal 2-1 at Wembley last night, and will play West Germany for the title on Saturday. In Brussels, a night session of the Common Market was postponed for two hours for West German delegates to watch the Wembley game on TV.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JORDAN SPIETH, 24. The Texan golfer, who won the Open — and his third Major — on Sunday (right), says he is inspired by his younger sister Ellie, who has special needs. He always buys her a souvenir key ring from the places he visits. Spieth is worth $ 60 mil lion, but celebrated his 2015 Masters win at Chick-fil-A, a fast-food restaurant opposite his old school in Dallas, which opened on a Sunday for the first time. JOY WHITBY, 87. The English children’s TV pioneer launched Play School and Jackanory in the mid-Sixties. She applied for a job on BBC radio’s Listen With Mother while a secretary at the Mayfair Delinquency Clinic. Her bold style inspired producers on new U.S. show, Sesame Street. JO DURIE, 57. The former British No 1 tennis player from Bristol (right) was national singles champion seven times and won two Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. Her training was so intense that by 20 she already had back and hip problems. By 30, knee pain meant she had to take anti-inflammatories just to get through a match.
BORN ON THIS DAY
CHARLOTTE CORDAY (1768-1793). The French noblewoman went down in history as the assassin of Jean-Paul Marat, a leader of the French Revolution. She stabbed him in the heart as he worked in the bath and was guillotined four days later. Corday was given the posthumous nickname l’ange de
l’assassinat, the Angel of Assassination.
ON JULY 27…
IN 1694, the Bank of England was founded to act as the government’s banker. IN 1890, artist Vincent Van Gogh shot himself in the chest, dying two days later. IN 1900, Kaiser Wilhelm II compared his people to the Huns, a tribal name that from then on became an insult for Germans.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION Farthingale (coined 1552) A) Diagonally across from something else. B) Framework of hoops, often whalebone, worn under a dress to shape its skirts. C) Game in which a player lying face-down has to guess which other player struck him. Answer below. PHRASE EXPLAINED Gammy leg:
Meaning a lame leg and originating from a ‘game’ one, from the Irish word ‘cam’, for crooked.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
GROWING old is like being increasingly penalised for a crime you haven’t committed. Anthony Powell, novelist (1905-2000)
JOKE OF THE DAY
HOW does a baby frog’s accent sound? A tad Polish. Guess The Definition answer: B.