ON THIS DAY

FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE AUGUST 31, 1945

THE GI Joes are going home, taking with them their opinions of England. Californiabound Private Howard Kilns, aged 28, said: ‘I didn’t find you reserved. You invited me into your homes, gave me your rations and I’ve had a swell time.’ But Private Michael Tommasi, 30, of Connecticut, said: ‘You’re a lot of snobs. I expected you to be friendly… you haven’t been. You’re too darned cold.’

AUGUST 31, 1967

THE ‘breath test’ law will come into force on October 9. It will be an offence to drive after drinking more than 80mg of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. Police can take breath tests, but courts will act only on blood or urine tests taken after these.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

RICHARD GERE, 69. The Pretty Woman star was named Sexiest Man Alive in 1999 by People Magazine, which declared the actor and his supermodel ex-wife Cindy Crawford the Sexiest Couple Alive in 1993. He has not always had good reviews from actresses. When he starred with Debra Winger in An Officer And A Gentleman (pictured), she called him a ‘brick wall’. SIR VAN MORRISON, 73. The famously grumpy Brown Eyed Girl singer calls his biggest hit ‘the money song’ — as the record company ‘got all the money and I got none’. He was 19 when he had his first hit, Baby Please Don’t Go, fronting the band Them, but says that, over 50 years on, he still finds performing a trial. ‘I’m a very private person and, in order to perform, I have to be something I’m not — namely, an extrovert.’

BORN ON THIS DAY

ROY CASTLE (19321994). The dancer, singer, comedian and trumpet player from Huddersfield (pictured), who presented the BBC’s Record Breakers for two decades, set world records himself, including two for tap dancing: the fastest at 1,440 taps a minute, and the largest tap dance with 500 participants. Non-smoker Castle died of lung cancer. He urged fellow sufferers to get on with life, saying: ‘Don’t whine. Laugh.’ CALIGULA (AD 12-41). The third Roman Emperor, regarded as the era’s most tyrannical, was accused of incest with his three sisters. Historian Suetonius said he was ‘horribly pale’, with ‘the face of an old man’, a ‘deformed’ head, ‘enormous feet’ and a neck ‘covered in bristles’. Often compared to a goat, he made it a capital crime to mention goats in his presence.

ON AUGUST 31…

IN 1940, British actors Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh married in California. IN 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car crash in Paris, aged 36.