ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
DECEMBER 28, 1940 BRITAIN’S public schools are saying goodbye to Mr Chips. In this war women are being engaged for the jobs done in the last one by elderly schoolmasters. The Government has recently seconded as skilled mathematicians and scientists schoolmasters qualified in these subjects.
DECEMBER 28, 1959
THE Prince of Wales read the eighth lesson at a service of nine carols and lessons last night. It was the first time the 11-year-old had spoken in public. Many at the 15thcentury Church of St Peter and St Paul on the Sandringham estate were surprised to see Prince Charles walk up to the chancel.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
NIGEL KENNEDY, 61. The Brighton-born violinist (pictured), dubbed ‘the bad boy of classical music’, started playing at six, and sold two million copies of his recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. He is known for his criticism of conductors, once saying he could not understand ‘why you’d want to wave a stick around when you could be playing an instrument’. GORDON TAYLOR, 73. The chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, is the best-paid union chief in Britain — and possibly the world — earning at least £25,000 a week. Of criticism about his pay, he once said: ‘My salary pales into insignificance compared to the bankers.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
RICHARD WHITELEY (1943-2005). The Bradfordborn Countdown star (right, with co- star Carol Vorderman) was the first face seen on Channel 4 when it launched in 1982 and was thought to have notched up more hours on our screens than any other living person, apart from the ‘girl on the test card’. Liu XIAOBO (1955-2017). China’s most highprofile political prisoner was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2010 — only the second person in history to receive it while in jail. The university professor negotiated the safe exit of hundreds of demonstraters from Tiananmen Square during the 1989 protests, for which he was sent to a labour camp.
ON DECEMBER 28…
IN 1612, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei made the first observation of Neptune.
IN 1918, Sinn Fein’s Constance Markievicz, who was detained in Holloway prison, became the first woman to be elected to the House of Commons — though she did not take her seat.
IN 2012, Vladimir Putin banned Americans from adopting Russian children.
WORD WIZARDRY
Guess The Definition Cenacle (coined 1400) A) A stand for holding cutlery or napkins. B) The large room in which the last Supper took place. C) That part of an animal that it cannot reach to scratch. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Cloud cuckoo land: An absurdly overoptimistic fantasy; it derives from The Birds, a Greek drama by Aristophanes, in which Pisthetaerus persuades the world’s birds to create a new city in the sky to be named Cloud Cuckoo.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
If people compare me to Jagger and the Stones I would be the one to be put down .. . I’ve been far more progressive than any of them. Sir Cliff Richard, British singer
JOKE OF THE DAY
What kind of monkey can fly? A hot air baboon. Guess The Definition answer: B.