ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 307...
ADELE’S company, Melted Stone, turned over £30.7 million last year, or more than £80,000 a day. The singer paid corporation tax of £4million — about the same as Facebook, which generated UK sales of £210million. She said being super-rich has hardly changed her, except that ‘I shop at Waitrose these days and I got a plasma TV’. IN 1953, 307 people in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Sussex and Essex lost their lives in the North Sea Flood. Sea defences were overwhelmed by high spring tides, strong winds and a storm surge, with water levels more than 18ft (5.6 metres) above mean sea levels. AMErIcAN Matt Suter holds the record for surviving the longest distance in a tornado. Knocked unconscious by a twister in 2006, he came to 1,307ft (398m) away — the length of four football pitches — with only minor injuries.
THERE ARE 59 DAYS LEFT
JOHN LENNON and Paul Mccartney first met as teenagers 59 years ago at a fete at St Peter’s church in Liverpool, where Lennon’s band, The Quarry Men, were playing. The cavern club — the venue that would make The Beatles’ name — opened the same year. KING cHArLES I’s death warrant was signed by 59 commissioners, known as regicides. Three days later,charles was beheaded at the Palace of Whitehall in 1649. After charles’s son became charles II, many of the regicides were hanged, drawn and quartered. A BIBLE belonging to Elvis Presley sold for £59,000 at an auction in Stockport in 2012. It was given to the singer by his Uncle Vester and Aunt clettes for his first christmas at his Graceland home in 1957.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
DAVID ScHWIMMEr, 50. The actor is best known for playing ross Geller in Friends. The role was written for him and he was the first actor cast. In 2000, he phoned a London radio station to deny that its stars were ‘greedy’ and had demanded $1million (£625,000) per episode. ‘When I hear figures like that, I get a little upset,’ he said. STEFANIE POWErS, 74. American actress who starred in Eighties TV series Hart To Hart. When not acting, Powers, who used to play polo with Prince charles, campaigns on behalf of animals and advises four U.S. zoos.
BORN ON THIS DAY
BUrT LANcASTEr (1913-1994). The star of From Here To Eternity was once a circus acrobat. He turned down the Broadway part of Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire that shot Marlon Brando to stardom and lost out to Brando on the role of Don corleone in The Godfather, which won him an Oscar. ANN rUTHErFOrD (1917-2012). The canadian-born actress is best remembered for playing carreen, Scarlett O’Hara’s sister, in Gone With The Wind (a role originally planned for Judy Garland). In 1997, she turned down the opportunity to star as 101year-old rose calvert in Titanic.
ON NOVEMBER 2nd . . .
IN 1936, at 3pm, the BBc Television Service started broadcasting from Alexandra Palace in London. The channel was renamed BBc1 in 1964. IN 1976, Jimmy carter beat Gerald Ford to become America’s first leader from the Deep South since the civil War. IN 1982, Britain marked another TV milestone with the birth of channel 4. Its first programme was countdown and its first advert was for Vauxhall cars.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Sex has never been an obsession with me. It’s just like eating a bag of crisps. Quite nice, but nothing marvellous. Singer Boy George
JOKE OF THE DAY
HOW do we know rapunzel liked a good party? She was always letting her hair down.