ON THIS DAY

JULY 8, 2017

FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE JULY 8, 1949

BErLIN will soon be open to tourists from Britain for the first time in ten years. Tourists will not be allowed to hold British or American occupation currencies and will live on German ration cards. There are, however, comfortable hotels which will accommodate them at reasonable prices.

JULY 8, 1969

BONNIE, the space monkey, was being brought back to Earth tonight after less than nine days in orbit. Tracking stations detected ‘a decline in the monkey’s condition’ early today. Bonnie’s capsule was scheduled to parachute into the Pacific. [He died 12 hours after landing].

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

BrIAN WALDEN, 85. The former Labour MP from West Bromwich left Parliament to become the presenter of LWT’s Weekend World in the Seventies and Eighties. Margaret Thatcher described him as her favourite interviewer. In 2010, a Tory MP claimed it was a seminar given by Walden that had persuaded David Cameron to form a coalition, rather than a minority government. KIM DArBy, 70. The U.S. actress starred opposite John Wayne in the 1969 western True Grit, right. She said that she was not acting during the many shooting scenes: ‘I was really flinching. They were very loud and were pretty close to me.’ She married five times and left showbusiness to become a teacher.

BORN ON THIS DAY

ALEC WAUGH (1898-1981). The English novelist, overshadowed by his younger brother Evelyn, wrote The Loom Of youth, the first book to refer to gay relationships in public schools. It was so controversial that he and his father were expelled from the alumni society of Sherborne School. JErry VALE (1930-2014). The crooner from New york sold a million copies of you Don’t Know Me in the mid-Fifties. In 1964 he was the third best-selling male singer after Tony Bennett and Andy Williams, thanks to his covers of Italian standards such as Volare and O Sole Mio.

ON JULY 8...

IN 1835, computing pioneer Ada Byron — daughter of poet Lord Byron — married the Earl of Lovelace. IN 1996, the Spice Girls released their debut single, Wannabe.

WORD WIZARDRY

NEW WORD OF THE DAY FOLO (acronym): fear of living offline. GUESS THE DEFINITION Rhadamanthine (coined 1840) a) Uncomfortable, bothered, uneasy b) Strictly and inflexibly honest and just c) Foppish, conceited Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to

enter the Kingdom of God: From the Bible. The original Greek tells not of a camel, but a rope (kamilos) which, when translated into Latin, was confused with kamelos (camel). The error has remained in almost all languages in which the Bible is printed.