EVENTS: On this day in 1936 an evening-gowned and beautifully coiffured brunette, Elizabeth Cowell, became the first female announcer to appear on BBC Television’s experimental high-definition service, then being transmitted to the Radiolympia exhibition from Alexandra Palace. The BBC had advertised for blondes and brunettes rather than redheads as the Baird television system was unduly sensitive to red.
In 1888 the body of Mary Ann (Polly) Nichols, the first victim of Jack the Ripper, was found in London; in 1900 Coca-Cola first went on sale in Britain; in 1928 The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht has its premiere in Berlin; in 1989 it was announced that Princess Anne and her husband, Captain Mark Phillips, would separate.
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BIRTHS: An agreeably large proportion of the 128-minute running time of the 1960 film The Magnificent Seven seems to be taken up by the slow unfolding of James Coburn’s limbs as the 6ft 3in actor eventually stands up in his opening scene to deal with a foolhardy character who has been taunting him. Nearly 40 years later Coburn finally won an Oscar for best supporting actor for his portrayal of a cop’s abusive father in Affliction. Coburn was born in Laurel, Nebraska, on this day in 1928.
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Charles James Lever, journalist, raconteur and novelist, born in Dublin, 1806; Théophile Gautier, poet, novelist and journalist, born in Tarbes, France, 1811; Hermann von Helmholtz, scientist and philosopher, born in Potsdam, Prussia, 1821; Maria Montessori, originator of the educational system that bears her name, born in Chiaravalle, Italy, 1870; Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands, 1890-1948, born in The Hague, 1880; “Bombardier” Billy Wells, British heavyweight boxing champion, 1911-20, born in London, 1889; Fredric March, actor, born in Racine, Wisconsin, 1897.
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DEATHS: “Consider that the holy God is your Father, and let this oblige you to live like the children of God, that you may look your Father in the face, with comfort, another day,” the preacher and writer John Bunyan told a Whitechapel congregation on August 19, 1688. Just before this final sermon he had practised what he preached by riding to Reading to reconcile a father and son: an effort that, given the heavy rain on the return journey, contributed to his death in London on this day in 1688.
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King Henry V, who reigned 1413-22, died in Bois de Vincennes, France, 1422; Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, navigator, died in Paris, 1811; Charles Baudelaire, poet, died in Paris, 1867; Georges Braque, Cubist painter, died in Paris, 1963; Rocky Marciano, world heavyweight boxing champion, killed in an air crash near Newton, Iowa, 1969; John Ford, film director, died in Palm Desert, California, 1973; Henry Moore, sculptor, died in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, 1986; Urho Kekkonen, President of Finland, 1956-81, died in Helsinki, 1986; Diana, Princess of Wales, died after a car crash in Paris, 1997.