ON THIS DAY
December 9, 2017
DECEMBER 9, 1939
MOTHERS and fathers will leave London tomorrow to visit their evacuee children on reduced- rate Christmas excursions. However, in Clacton- on-Sea, Essex, they will get the cold shoulder. A town reception committee member said: ‘They arrive without having the courtesy to notify the lady who is looking after their children, and then expect to be fed and entertained for the day. They do not even offer to pay.’
DECEMBER 9, 1942
BRITAIN is in the longest black-out period of the year. Workers travelling by rail in the early mornings and at night are being killed or maimed by falling out of trains as, in the dark, they do not know if they are at a platform or not.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
KIRK DOuGLAS (right), 101. The star of Spartacus and father of actor Michael Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch in New York. Asked for an acting tip, he said: ‘When you play a weak character, find a moment when he’s strong, and when you play a strong character, find a moment when he’s weak.’ Last week, Dame Judi Dench — 83 today — was given the Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film. IMOGEN HEAP, 40. The Grammy and Ivor Novello-winning English singer-songwriter composed the music for hit West End play Harry Potter And The Cursed Child. She is a big fan of musical technology and helped to develop a pair of gloves to control sounds with hand gestures, using them to compose a song for her album Sparks.
BORN ON THIS DAY
GRACE HOPPER ( 1906- 1992). The computing pioneer and u.S. rear-admiral was the first person chosen by the Data Processing Management Association as its 1969 computer sciences ‘Man of the Year’. When she retired aged 79, she was the oldest serving officer in the u.S. navy. She coined the phrase ‘computer bug’ after a moth was found in her machine in 1945 — and removed by a colleague using tweezers. MARGARET HAMILTON (1902-1985). The u.S. actress (right) played the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard Of Oz. She was treated for facial burns after her costume caught fire. A make- up artist told her later: ‘ There’s copper in that make-up and if I didn’t get that off, it would’ve gone on eating into your face.’
ON DECEMBER 9...
IN 1868, the world’s first traffic lights were installed near the Houses of Parliament. IN 2012, English astronomer Sir Patrick Moore died, aged 89.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION Brills (coined 1688) A) Small low clouds in clear sky. B) The hair on a horse’s eyelids. C) unharvested apples. Answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED
To pass the acid test: Proving the value or quality of something. First used in the American gold rush, when prospectors needed to differentiate between gold and base metals. The tests used nitric acid.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
SPOON-feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon. E.M. Forster, English novelist (1879-1970)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you call a woman with a foot on either side of a ditch? Bridget. Guess The Definition answer: B.