ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
MARCH 24, 1956 POPULAR rejoicings attended the birth today of the world’s first Islamic republic, Pakistan. The glittering gathering of leading Pakistanis and distinguished visitors assembled under yellow, flower-decked canopies on the still-dewy lawns of President Mirza’s house as dawn was breaking. MARCH 24, 2011 In 79 fabulous years, she looked death in the eye countless times and lived to tell the tale. But yesterday, after a life as dramatic as any movie script, Elizabeth Taylor’s battle was over. She died of heart failure in hospital, with her four children at her side.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
GRAYSON PERRY, 60. When he won the Turner Prize in 2003, the artist from Essex turned up dressed as his female alter ego Claire (pictured), in a Little Bo Peep costume, and proclaimed: ‘It’s about time a transvestite potter won.’ Last month, he became the first man dressed as a woman to appear in Country Life magazine’s ‘Girls in Pearls’ feature. MARY BERRY, 85. The Bath-born former Great British Bake Off judge, hailed as the ‘doyenne of baking’, trained at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu in Paris at 17. Berry, who has written more than 70 cookery books, says her favourite cake is a ginger treacle tray bake. She raised eyebrows when she shared her ‘no-fuss’ way to clean the loo, which involved scooping water from the bowl with a mug.
BORN ON THIS DAY
KITTY O’NEIL (1946-2018). The American stuntwoman stood in for Lindsay Wagner in The Bionic Woman and for Lynda Carter in Wonder Woman. She set a number of world records, including becoming the fastest female driver by reaching 512.71mph in a hydrogen peroxide-fuelled machine. She also broke her own 1979 women’s high-fall record by jumping head first from the 127fthigh roof of a California Hilton. STEVE MCQUEEN (19301980). The u.S. actor, dubbed ‘The King of Cool’, starred in The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven. McQueen (pictured) was described by the LA Times as ‘less complicated than newman, more rugged than Redford, less wooden than Eastwood’, but he said: ‘I’m not a great actor, let’s face it. He died, aged 50, after suffering from lung cancer.
ON MARCH 24…
IN 1946, Letter From America, presented by Alistair Cooke, began on the BBC Home Service and World Service. IN 2002, Gareth Gates, 17, became the youngest British male solo star to notch up a no 1, with unchained Melody.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Blain (coined Middle English era) A) Conceited; B) An inflammatory swelling or sore; C) A single ear of corn Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED THE proof is in the pudding — meaning that the best way to know if something is true or not is to experience it first hand; from William Camden’s 1605 Remains Concerning Britain: ‘The proof of the pudding is in the eating.’
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Success is counted sweetest by those who ne’er succeed
Emily Dickinson, American poet (1830-86)
JOKE OF THE DAY
HOW did Thomas Edison invent the lightbulb? He had a bright idea.
Guess The Definition answer: B.