ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
MAY 15, 1947
MEMBERS of the French Parliament, who flew to London for the occasion, last night heard Mr Churchill launch his most passionate appeal for a speedy and effective setting-up of a United States of Europe. Mr Churchill said: ‘We have now at once to set on foot an organisation in Great Britain to promote the cause of United Europe . . . There is the United States . . . there is the Soviet Union, there is the British Empire and Commonwealth, and there is Europe, with which Great Britain is profoundly blended.’
MAY 15, 1961
SOVIET viewers will see the Queen in this year’s Trooping the Colour in the first ‘live’ Tv broadcast from Britain to Russia. Russian Tv chiefs chose the ceremony from a list of BBC outside broadcasts.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
SOPHIE RAWORTH, 51. The BBC news presenter (right), who earns from £ 200,000 to £ 209,999 a year, has completed the London Marathon and a 150-mile ultra-marathon in the Sahara after taking up running at 36 ‘to lose baby weight’. As a child, she appeared in a Milk Tray advert after going to a shoot with her mother, a model. SIR ANDY MURRAY, 32. The double Wimbledon and Olympic champion, who grew up in Dunblane, has been praised for calling out sexism in tennis. On a Tv show with comedian Michael McIntyre, a blindfolded Murray detected former British No 1 Tim Henman just by smelling him.
BORN ON THIS DAY
TENZING NORGAY (1914-86). In 1953, the Nepalese Sherpa became, alongside Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to summit Mount Everest. It was his seventh attempt. Tenzing, who had six children and 25 dogs, refused to reveal who reached the top first, saying: ‘This is teamwork. Actually, we climbed together. Whatever Hillary says, I don’t care, but I say, teamwork.’ L. FRANK BAUM (18561919). The U.S. author of the Wonderful Wizard Of Oz books, which inspired the 1939 film starring Judy Garland as Dorothy (right), had worked as a chicken rancher, travelling salesman and theatre manager. His wife’s feminism was thought to have inspired him. Nearly all of his child heroes were girls, and he thought men who didn’t support women’s aspirations ‘selfish, opinionated, conceited or unjust — and perhaps all four combined’.
ON MAY 15…
IN 1718, the world’s first machine gun was patented by London lawyer James Puckle. IN 1954, the Queen returned from her first Commonwealth tour — which lasted six months and covered 43,618 miles.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Dydler (1884) A) A short beard. B) Someone who clears water channels in the Norfolk Broads. C) A man with long whiskers. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED
Back to square one: Meaning back to the start; it’s apparently from early football radio commentary; the Radio Times had a numbered grid system to indicate to listeners where the ball was on the pitch, with ‘square one’ covering one of the goalkeepers’ areas.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn’t feel like it. Writer Alistair Cooke (1908-2004)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you call a beehive with no exit? Unbeelievable. Guess The Definition answer: B.