ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
JULY 6, 1940 EVERY ship leaving Britain for America from now until the end of August has been commandeered for the evacuation of children. Mr J. Roland Robinson, MP for Blackpool, said yesterday that he hoped 30,000 British youngsters would have arrived in America by the end of next month. JULY 6, 1956 A BATTLE between Britain’s doctors on whether they should smoke at their annual conference at Brighton is to reopen this morning. Normally, the BMA meeting is held in a thick haze of smoke. It was Dr J. O. McDonagh of Perth — he used to smoke 20 a day as well as a pipe — who broke tradition. ‘Ridiculous,’ he said. ‘A large proportion of us are convinced there is a relationship between smoking and disease.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
SYLVESTER STALLONE, 72. The Rambo star was nominated at the 1977 Oscars in both acting and screenwriting categories for Rocky and the boxing movie became the first sports film to win Best Picture. Stallone wrote the entire first draft of the script in three days after watching a Muhammad Ali fight. GERALDINE JAMES, 68. The Bafta winner from Maidenhead starred in The Jewel In The Crown, Band Of Gold and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. She also played the upper-class mother who still breastfeeds her grown-up son (David Walliams’s character) in a series of Little Britain sketches. ‘It’s great for the old CV,’ she said. ‘When I go to heaven I can say, “Tick — I’ve done Chekhov, done Shakespeare, done a few movies and done Little Britain.”’
BORN ON THIS DAY
MARC CHAGALL (1887-1985) The artist, known for his paintings of levitating lovers, left the Soviet Union in 1923 and made his home in Paris. Picasso said in the Fifties: ‘When Matisse dies, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is.’ Heartbroken after his first wife’s death in 1944, for months he refused to paint — but he resumed when he fell in love again and worked until the day he died, aged 97. NANCY REAGAN (19212016). The American First Lady was Ronald Reagan’s second wife. The former Hollywood actress believed in the power of astrology — a belief that intensified after an astrologer forewarned there would be ‘an incident’ on March 30, 1981 — the day her husband was shot. After that, Nancy regularly consulted an astrologer to help schedule her husband’s meetings.
ON JULY 6…
IN 1957, Paul McCartney, 15, and John Lennon, 16, first met at a church fete in Liverpool.
IN 2005, London partied after it was announced in Singapore that the city would host the 2012 Olympics.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Jorum (1730) A) A large for serving drinks. B) An informal gathering. C) A joke. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED The grass is always greener on the other side: Meaning to believe that someone else’s life is better then your own; from the 19th century, it alludes to grazing herds appearing to move towards greener pastures.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans Allen Saunders, U.S. writer (1899-1986)
JOKE OF THE DAY
THE doctor told me I had onomatopoeia. ‘What’s that?’ I asked. ‘It’s exactly what it sounds like,’ he said. Guess The Definition answer: A