ON THIS DAY

AUGUST 25, 1981

MARK CHAPMAN, who gunned down John Lennon outside the Dakota building in New York last December, listened impassively last night as a Manhattan Supreme Court judge jailed him for 20 years to life for killing the superstar. Asked if he had anything to say, Chapman said: ‘I am going to read you a passage from The Catcher In The Rye’.

AUGUST 25, 2006

TO generations of schoolchildren, it was the ninth planet. But, last night, Pluto fell from grace. In a move that will mean textbooks have to be rewritten, it was stripped of its status as a full-scale planet. After heated debate in Prague, the world’s top astronomers decided Pluto, discovered in 1930, was merely a ‘dwarf planet’.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

TIM BURTON, 62. The American director of Edward Scissorhands and Alice In Wonderland was in a relationship with British actress Helena Bonham Carter for 13 years, but the couple lived in separate but adjoining properties in Hampstead, north London. Bonham Carter said it was because Burton snored and she was ‘outrageously bossy’.

MARTIN AMIS, 71. The Oxford-born author of Success and Money is the son of Booker Prize-winning novelist kingsley Amis. He has been described as speaking ‘pure prose in a voice seemingly made out of champagne and roll-ups’. Amis, once asked whether his latest book heralded a return to form, shot back: ‘What’s this return s***?’

BORN ON THIS DAY

REGIS PHILBIN (1931-2020). The American TV star, who died last month, took Chris Tarrant’s role in the U.S. version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? According to Guinness World Records, he was the mostwatched person in TV history, with more than 17,000 hours of airtime — equal to two full years — in his six-decade career.

ALTHEA GIBSON (19272003). The American tennis player was the first black woman to compete at the U.S. Open in 1950 and at Wimbledon in 1951. She went on to win both championships twice, and the French Open. The daughter of sharecroppers, she also had success in doubles, at Wimbledon, with Britain’s Angela Buxton. She released an album, Althea Gibson Sings, and played a maid in the John Wayne film The Horse Soldiers.

ON AUGUST 25…

IN 1970, Elton John was first introduced to U.S. audiences, with a performance at the Troubadour in LA. The Los Angeles Times said it turned him ‘from an unknown into rock’s biggest star since The Beatles’.

IN 2012, Neil Armstrong, the first person to set foot on the Moon, died aged 82.

WORD WIZARDRY

GUESS THE DEFINITION: Looby (c 1300s)

A) An awkward person, especially one who is lazy or stupid. B) A hangman’s noose. C) Without thought, headlong.

Answer below

PHRASE EXPLAINED

To have kittens — to be extremely nervous or upset. It derives from myths in the Middle Ages in which stomach pains in pregnancy were said to be caused by scratching kittens, rather than a growing infant.

QUOTE FOR TODAY

LITERATURE is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. Life is the other way around

David Lodge, English author

JOKE OF THE DAY

HOW does a flowerbed smile? With tulips.

Guess The Definition answer. A.