ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
FEBRUARY 13, 1957 THERE will be no more heel-clicking, no more noisy goose-stepping in the new Army of Germany’s Fourth Reich. For the soldiers of Konrad Adenauer’s new Germany are to be issued with a jackboot with silent rubber soles and heels as part of a total restyling of military fashions. ‘We are calling it the democratic jackboot,’ the defence minister said today. FEBRUARY 13, 1967 SHE is one of his fans; and he is one of hers. She is Princess Margaret. he is The Duke — Ellington, of course. The jazz musician once dedicated a composition to her, called Princess Blue. But their first meeting came when Princess Margaret went with Robin Douglas-home to a concert given by Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald at the Royal Festival hall. The Princess, with a long, elegant cigarette-holder not often seen in photographs, although she always uses one, told them: ‘It was a marvellous performance.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
PETER GABRIEL, 67. The Surrey-born singer-songwriter and original lead singer of Genesis quit the band in 1974, saying he ‘wanted to spend more time in his vegetable patch’. The video for his 1986 solo hit Sledgehammer — animated by Wallace And Gromit creators Aardman Animations — is the most played video in MTV’s history. STOCKARD CHANNING, 73 (pictured). The American actress made her name in Grease as rebel schoolgirl Rizzo (despite being 33 when she played her) and as the First lady in The West Wing. She says of her career: ‘I wanted to create art. That sounds ridiculous now, but back then that was a reasonable thing to want to do with your life.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY (1910-1989). The london-born American engineer jointly won the Nobel Prize for Physics for research into semiconductors, which formed the basis for the electronic age. A former colleague said: ‘he is the man who brought silicon to Silicon Valley.’ Controversially, he proposed that individuals with IQs below 100 be paid to undergo voluntary sterilisation. BESS TRUMAN (1885-1982), the wife of President Truman. On her first official appearance as First lady, she was trying to christen a hospital plane with a bottle of champagne that would not smash. Finally, a mechanic cracked it open with a wrench and Mrs Truman was sprayed with bubbly. When the President teased her, she replied: ‘I’m sorry I didn’t swing that bottle at you.’
ON FEBRUARY 13 ...
IN 1542, henry VIII’s fifth wife, Catherine howard, was executed for adultery. IN 2000, Charles Schulz’s final Peanuts comic strip ran in newspapers around the world — one day after the cartoonist’s death at 77.
WORD WIZARDRY
NEW WORD OF THE DAY FOG (acronym): fat, oil and grease (as poured down drains, which can create blockages). GUESS THE DEFINITION Disapper (coined 1612) A) A turnstile. B) One who disappears and pops up again. C) Second swarm of bees in the same season. (Answer below) PHRASE EXPLAINED Separate the wheat from the chaff: Wheat is used to make bread, but chaff is inedible and so thought worthless. The notion appears in the Gospel of Matthew in which the winnowing of wheat and chaff is employed as a metaphor for the way we are judged by God.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
THE important thing when you are going to do something brave is to have someone on hand to witness it.
Lord Howard, former Tory leader
JOKE OF THE DAY
HOW do you surprise a psychic? Throw them a surprise party. Guess The Definition answer: B. Compiled by ETAN SMALLMAN and ADAM JACOT DE BOINOD