ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE JUNE 16, 1928
THE first annual report of the British Broadcasting Corporation, published yesterday, reveals that the cost of the wireless programmes in 1927 was £487,728, or about £7 an hour. There were more than 68,000 hours of transmission.
JUNE 16, 1998
IT WAS a case of two’s company, 132,000’s a crowd when Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt went public with their romance at the weekend. The couple, who had kept their relationship firmly under wraps, declared themselves an item by appearing together at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in washington DC.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JOYCE CAROL OATES, 84. ‘America’s foremost woman of letters’ is the author of more than 100 books, including Blonde, a novel about Marilyn Monroe that has been adapted for a Netflix film due out this year. She has complained about sexist reviews, including one that ‘ told me to focus on women’s issues and leave the “big, social novel” to Norman Mailer’.
NEIL MacGREGOR, 76. The Glasgow-born former director of the National Gallery presented Radio 4’s A History Of The world
In 100 Objects. when he took the top job at the British Museum, he did a shift on the information desk and found himself telling members of the public (who were perhaps confusing it with the Natural History Museum) ‘why there are no dinosaurs’.
BORN ON THIS DAY
BARBARA MCCLINTOCK (1902-1992). The U.S. scientist remains the only woman to be awarded an unshared Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine after she discovered ‘jumping genes’ in maize. According to Nobel, she made genetic ‘discoveries so far beyond the understanding of the time that other scientists ignored her work for more than a decade’. TUPAC SHAKUR (19711996). The U.S. rapper was named by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 100 greatest artists of all time and inducted posthumously into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017. He dated Madonna, who in 2018 lost a legal bid to stop the auction of personal items including a break-up letter he had sent her. Shakur died aged 25, six days after being hit in a drive-by shooting.
ON JUNE 16 . . .
IN 1972, David Bowie released his seminal album The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars.
IN 2019, almost two million took part in
the largest protests in Hong kong history, against a controversial extradition bill.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION: Numinous (circa 1640s)
A) Shiny. B) Enough, sufficient. C) Surpassing comprehension; mysterious.
Answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED On the bubble:
Meaning to occupy the last qualifying position in a tournament. It refers either to a player or a team and comes from the expression ‘sit on the bubble’, with the implication that the bubble might burst.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Being able to talk about movies with someone — to share the giddy high excitement you feel — is enough for a friendship.
Pauline Kael, U.S. film critic (1919-2001)
JOKE OF THE DAY
My PET mouse, Elvis, died yesterday. He was caught in a trap.
Guess The Definition answer: C. Compiled by ETAN SMALLMAN and ADAM JACOT DE BOINOD