ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE AUGUST 9, 1974
IN THE wake of Watergate, the greatest political scandal in history, Richard Milhous Nixon yesterday was on the brink of resignation as the 37th President of the United States. Today he is expected to hand over power to Vice-President Gerald Ford.
AUGUST 9, 2008
CHINA is the love child of Chairman Mao and Lady Thatcher, so these Beijing Games will be a battle between communist totalitarianism and freedom. This was the story of last night’s opening ceremony, as the last frontier of East-West suspicion was finally crossed. A spellbinding and futuristic curtain-lifter, it featured 15,000 different costumes and 14,000 performers, 9,000 of them on loan from the People’s Liberation Army.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
LISA NANDy, 43. The Labour MP for Wigan and Shadow Levelling Up Secretary was on the campaign trail until the morning she gave birth to her son, just days before the 2015 General Election, then she ‘went back and did some door-knocking’. As a teenager, she was a big Take That fan and camped outside singer Mark Owen’s house. She wrote a dating column in her university newspaper as an agony aunt ‘who likes a bit of hot mail’.
POSy SIMMONDS, 77. The cartoonist and illustrator from Berkshire is best known for her graphic novels Gemma Bovery and Tamara Drewe, which was once described as ‘The Archers on Viagra’. Simmonds says she takes the bus as much as possible because it is where she gets inspiration for her characters. One of her employers, Reader’s Digest, gave her strict instructions: ‘No smoking, no drinking, no sex, no big noses.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
TOVE JANSSON (19142001). The Finnish author and illustrator made her name with the Moomin children’s books, which have been translated into more than 50 languages. She sketched out the first Moomin, ‘the ugliest creature imaginable’, after a fight with her brother about the philosopher Immanuel Kant. Jansson later tired of the characters, writing: ‘Those damn Moomins. I don’t want to hear about them any more.’
EILEEN GRAy (1878-1976). The Irish
architect and furniture designer, a pioneer of Modernism, set the world record in 2009 for the most expensive chair sold at auction, when a design of hers owned by yves Saint Laurent was sold for almost £20 million. She made lacquered furniture in her bathroom
and was the first person to produce blue lacquer, never revealing the secret.
ON AUGUST 9…
IN 1936, U.S. athlete Jesse Owens won his fourth and final gold medal at the Berlin Olympics — in the 4×100-metre relay. IN 1991, the comedy On The Hour was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It would introduce Alan Partridge to the world.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Oenology (c 1810) A) A study of eggs. B) A study of fossils.
C) Science of viniculture. Answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED By dint of —
meaning by means of; ‘dint’ used to be defined as a ‘blow’, and this sense of force survives only in this phrase.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Leaders should never, ever try to look cool — that’s for dictators. Ben Elton, British writer and performer
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you get if you cross elephants with fish? Swimming trunks.
Guess The Definition answer: C