'I let down my friends; I let down my country; I let down our system of government; I let down what was left of my hair' - so said 'Tricky Dicky' ex-President Nixon on this day in 1977.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, the term Watergate with which Nixon will for ever be associated, has been hijacked by journalists for every scandal, major and minor, ever since. Hence, to name but a few - Cowangate; Ramsgate; Margate and Tailgate.
Enough, already!
In other news ...
Scientists at Johns Hopkins University today in 1991 were given permission to clone the genes of Abraham Lincoln, the American President assassinated in 1865, to decide whether honest Abe had Marfan's syndrome, the symptoms of which are tallness and long arms.
You know that famous photo of Lincoln with General George B Maclennan (he of the saddle) at an army camp somewhere or other about 1862? Well, I'll grant you (ho ho - Civil War joke) Lincoln looks tall, but on that basis McLennan was really short and Mary Todd Lincoln, the President's wife, was a midget.
And nobody's cloning them, I notice!
