ON THIS DAY
January 16, 2017
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
JANUARY 16, 1907 dr W.E. HOYLE gave a lecture on ‘Animal Toilets’ at Stepney. Perhaps the quaintest story was that concerning the nile crocodile, which lies on the banks of the river with its mouth open, for the Egyptian plovers to walk in and clean its teeth. January 16, 1917 THE duke of Connaught opened a national Economy Exhibition at dulwich Baths, SE London, yesterday. It is planned to help busy middle-class and working-class mothers to make the best of what they already possess. old stockings are shown made into new gloves for school children.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
KATE MOSS, 43. The supermodel from Croydon, South London, declared in 1999 that she had never walked a catwalk sober. She said she had ‘simply the best birth’ — her daughter Lila Grace. ‘I had candles and a bottle of Cristal.’ In 2014, to mark her 25 years in the fashion industry, a Mayfair restaurant modelled a champagne coupe (pictured) on Moss’s left breast. DEBBIE ALLEN, 67. The American actress is best known for playing dance teacher Lydia Grant in the 1980 film Fame. She had the most famous line of the movie: ‘You want fame? Well, fame costs, and right here is where you start paying — in sweat.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
ETHEL MERMAN (1908-1984). Called the ‘Queen of Musicals’ for her belting vocal style on classics including There’s no Business Like Show Business, Merman starred in many Broadway musicals and films across a 50-year career. She refused to allow her songs to be changed last minute— even by the composer. When Irving Berlin tried it, she responded: ‘Call me Miss Bird’s Eye. It’s frozen.’ André Michelin (18531931). With his brother édouard, André (right) founded the Michelin tyre company and revolutionised the industry, inventing the detachable pneumatic tyre on a metal rim. In 1900, he published his first guide for French motorists that would rate restaurants by awarding ‘Michelin stars’.
ON JANUARY 16...
IN 1969, two manned Soviet Soyuz spaceships became the first vehicles to dock in space and transfer people. IN 1970, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi became the leader of Libya, four months after a bloodless coup that ended the monarchy under King Idris. He would govern until he was killed in the Libyan rebellion in 2011. IN 2006, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was sworn in as president of Liberia — Africa’s first elected female head of state.
WORD WIZARDRY
NEW WORD OF THE DAY Mahoosive — exceptionally big; huge. GUESS THE DEFINITION Umest (coined 1400) A) The coverlet of a bed, often claimed by a priest at the death of a parishioner B) A pert, forward, saucy boy C) To dig up weeds with a hoe (answer below) PHRASE EXPLAINED Pig months — a 19th-century phrase for those months in the year which have an ‘r’ in their name: that is, all except the summer months of May, June, July or August, when it was traditionally considered unwise to eat pork (or shellfish).
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Buy old masters. They fetch a better price than old mistresses Lord Beaverbrook, tycoon and newspaper owner (1879-1964)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT’S wrong with a man with jelly in one ear and sponge cake and custard in the other? he’s a trifle deaf. Guess The Definition answer: a. Compiled by ETAN SMALLMAN and ADAM JACOT DE BOINOD