EVENTS: On this day in 1918 Virginia Woolf wrote of Christina Rossetti in her diary: “First she starved herself of love, which meant also life; then of poetry. . . Consequently, as I think, she starved into austere emaciation a very fine original gift.”
In 1891 the first traveller’s cheque, devised by American Express, was cashed; in 1962 Nelson Mandela was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, later extended to life; in 1963 the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed by Britain, America and the Soviet Union.
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BIRTHS: Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, was born on this day in Leicester, 1862. Affected by tumours from an early age, his condition rapidly deteriorated and he developed many bulbous, cauliflower-like growths that sprouted from his head and body, a tusk-like growth on his face, and a club-like right forearm. He earned a living by exhibiting himself in sideshows until he was rescued by Dr Frederick Treves in 1886 and became a resident patient at the London Hospital, where he lived until his death. This occurred when his head, which had grown so vast that he had tremendous difficulty in keeping it upright, fell backwards and dislocated his neck. His appearance was not, as was then believed, due to elephantiasis, but an extreme overgrowth of tissue and bone called Proteus syndrome. He wrote: “‘Tis true my form is something odd / But blaming me is blaming God / Could I create myself anew / I would not fail in pleasing you / If I could reach from pole to pole / Or grasp the ocean with a span / I would be measured by the soul / The mind’s the standard of the man.”
Count Johann von Struensee, physician and politician who had excessive control over the weak-willed Christian VII, born in Halle, Germany, 1737; Guy de Maupassant, author of 300 short stories, six novels, travel books, verse and journalism, born in Miromesnil, France, 1850; John Huston, film director whose movies included The Maltese Falcon (1941), born in Nevada, Missouri, 1906.
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DEATHS: Soichiro Honda, the Japanese engineer, racing driver and industrialist who founded Honda, died on this day in 1991. From humble origins as a garage apprentice, he opened his own garage in 1928 and established Honda, with 20 employees, two decades later. The company became the largest Japanese business launched after the Second World War. After producing its first small sports car, the S500, in 1963, it overtook five competitors, Daihatsu, Fuji, Mazda, Mitsubishi and Suzuki, to become Japan’s third most successful car manufacturer behind Toyota and Nissan. Heeding his own maxim that “a company prospers when its former head turns up as infrequently as possible”, he retired from the company presidency and withdrew completely from management affairs in 1973.
Thomas Newcomen, inventor of the atmospheric steam engine, died in London, 1729; Friedrich Engels, co-author of The Communist Manifesto (1848), died in London, 1895; Marilyn Monroe, actress, died of an overdose in Los Angeles, 1962; Sir Alec Guinness, actor, died in Midhurst, West Sussex, 2000.