ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
NOVEMBER 26, 1952 DESIGNS for the Queen’s new coins were announced yesterday. Complete sets — of half a crown to a farthing — are expected to be available through banks by next May. They will cost eight shillings. Soon, for the first time in half a century, the great presses at the Royal Mint will begin to strike coins bearing the profile of a Queen. NOVEMBER 26, 1990 A CHURCH bell tolling across the Chilterns signalled to Margaret Thatcher yesterday that the time really had come to go. She was at Chequers, weekend home of Prime Ministers since 1921. Mrs Thatcher and husband Denis spent their final Sunday at the country retreat saying farewell to staff, one of whom tearfully admitted: ‘No one has quite realised she is really going after all these years.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
TINA TURNER, 80, right. The singer-songwriter, born Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Tennessee, has been dubbed the ‘Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll’ and has won 12 Grammys. But she says she now prefers housework to dancing: ‘I love the house cleaning as when you don’t do it you get to crave it.’ She met her current husband, German record executive Erwin Bach, at Heathrow airport. RITA ORA, 29. The Kosovan-born British pop star has been a judge on both The X Factor and The Voice. Last year, she became the British female artist with the most top-ten singles — a total of 13 — overtaking Shirley Bassey and Petula Clark.
BORN ON THIS DAY
WILLIAM COWPER (1731-1800). The Hertfordshire-born writer was called ‘the best modern poet’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Cowper — pronounced Cooper — campaigned against slavery, with one of his poems being frequently cited by U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King. The phrase ‘God moves in mysterious ways’ is likely to have come from Cowper’s poem Light Shining Out Of Darkness — later a hymn — which begins: ‘God moves in a mysterious way.’ LORD (CHARLES) FORTE (1908-2007). The Italian-born entrepreneur, who came to the UK aged four, built a £1.8 billion hotel and restaurant empire by starting with five London milk bars in the 1930s. Forte was interned on the Isle of Man during World War II because of his Italian nationality, but was released after three months and became an adviser to the Ministry of Food.
ON NOVEMBER 26...
IN 1927, Maria Augusta Kutschera, 22, and naval captain Georg von Trapp, 47 — who would inspire the musical The Sound Of Music — married in Salzburg, Austria.
IN 2003, after nearly 30 years of commercial services, Concorde (right) made its final flight, over Bristol.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Hebetude
A) A healthy attitude. B) A fit of depression. C) Dullness, lethargy. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED
Curiosity killed the cat: Meaning being inquisitive about other people’s affairs can get you in to trouble. Dating from the 1800s, it’s derived from the older expression ‘care killed the cat’.