April 4, 2019 ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE APRIL 4, 1922
MAy 10 will be a red-letter day for feminists, for the Inner Temple is predicted to ‘call’ the first woman barrister, Miss Ivy Williams, a Bachelor of Civil Law and an Oxford MA.
APRIL 4, 1933
EvErEST was conquered yesterday — and the honour of being the first to fly over the 29,0000ft giant of the Himalayas went to four British airmen. At Lalbalu Aerodrome, India, spectators had watched excitedly as the men put on electrically heated flying suits and adjusted the oxygen- supply apparatus before take-off.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
DErEK THOMPSON, 71. The Belfast- born actor ( right) was in Bergerac, Gonks Go Beat (1964), and had a frisson with Helen Mirren in a lift in 1981 film The Long Good Friday. He is Casualty’s only original remaining cast member — appearing in the BBC series as nurse Charlie Fairhead since 1986. In 2017, Thompson was revealed as the Corporation’s highest-paid drama star, on £400,000 a year. He has based the role on a charge nurse he met at Bristol royal Infirmary. rOBErT DOWNEy Jr, 54. The U.S. star of Iron Man and Chaplin was the highest-paid actor of 2013, 2014 and 2015 and was still in the top three last year, earning more than £60 million. He made his screen debut at five and was offered wine and a cannabis joint by his father at eight. In the Nineties, he was an addict, went to jail for drug offences and was widely said to have destroyed his career. But he got back on track when, arrested for drug use in 2001, he decided to go to rehab.
BORN ON THIS DAY
HUGH MASEKELA (1939-2018). South Africa’s ‘Father of Jazz’ was a trumpeter whose songs Soweto Blues and Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela) provided the soundtrack to the anti-apartheid movement. He picked up the trumpet at 14 after seeing Kirk Douglas in 1950 film young Man With A Horn. Masekela, who played at the 2010 World Cup opening ceremony in Johannesburg, was married to singer Miriam Makeba, dubbed ‘Mama Africa’. MAyA ANGELOU (19282014). The real name of the American poet and civil rights activist was Marguerite, but was called Maya because her brother, would say as a child: ‘My-a sister.’ Angelou ( right) is best known for I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, the first of seven volumes of autobiography. Before she was a full-time writer, she made a calypso album, worked as ‘a fry cook in hamburger joints’, and as a prostitute and madam.
ON APRIL 4…
In 1581, Queen Elizabeth I awarded Francis Drake a knighthood aboard his ship, the Golden Hind.
In 1973, the World Trade Center, then the world’s tallest building at nearly 1,370ft high and with 110 storeys, opened in New york.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION: Tiffin (1808)
A) Lunch or light meal. B) Listless person. C) Conceited young man. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED
Spitting image: Someone who is the exact likeness of another. One theory is that ‘spit’ is short for spirit, suggesting the similarities to be identical in mind as well as body.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
YOU have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. Sir Winston Churchill, British prime minister (1874-1965)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHy did the physics teacher and biology teacher split? There was no chemistry. Guess The Definition answer: A.