A Soviet spy in the royal court, a ‘Democracy Wall’ in Beijing, and a lucky cat with a taste for the high life: headlines from 40 years ago

A Dutch man being given female hormones and developing breasts, a Spanish airliner being chased by a UFO, and a lucky feline globetrotter made the headlines 40 years ago this week. November 11, 1979 ● A Dutch woman in Utrecht in central Netherlands, tried to curb her husband’s sexual advances by regularly slipping female hormone tablets into his coffee over a 12-year period. The husband, 60, only found out when being examined by the family doctor, who noticed he had developed breasts. The man had complained about soreness under the armpits. ● A Federal Grand Jury in the US indicted the McDonnell Douglas Corporation in connection with millions of dollars in payments to promote overseas sales of DC9 and DC10 aircraft. Those indicted included a ranking corporate vice-president and three other officials of the aircraft manufacturing giant, one of the country’s leading defence contractors. November 12, 1979 ● At least four young Chinese were arrested at the “Democracy Wall” in Beijing as police stopped the sale of an unofficial transcript of a dissident’s trial. The group was selling the transcript of the October 16, 1979 trial of Wei Jingsheng, editor of Explorations magazine. Wei was jailed for 15 years for giving military secrets to a foreigner and for calling for the overthrow of the communist system. November 13, 1979 ● A Spanish airliner with 119 passengers on board made an unscheduled overnight stop in the Spanish port city of Valencia after the pilot reported the aircraft was being pursued by an unidentified flying object (UFO). Airport sources quoted the pilot as saying there was a “strange luminous object” following the aircraft. ● A pall of noxious smoke hung over the Toronto suburb of Mississauga after a train derailment released deadly chlorine gas into the air and forced the biggest evacuation in Canadian history. Nearly 250,000 people were ordered to evacuate from their homes after seven tanker cars transporting chlorine and other gases exploded in flames. When Janet Jackson helped Hong Kong ‘discover what a good time is’ November 14, 1979 ● A Siamese cat called Lucky had arrived in Britain after inadvertently flying around the world for 32 days in the hold of a jumbo jet. Lucky escaped from her box during a flight from Guam to her intended destination in Miami and hid in the plane’s hold. She was not discovered until a month later when the Boeing 747 arrived in London on a flight from San Francisco. ● China was making little progress in building tourist hotels because designers were trying to make them too luxurious. The People’s Daily newspaper said local officials often wanted to build facilities that they could enjoy such as cinemas, banquet halls as well as hotels. November 15, 1979 ● People who took sleeping pills or tranquilliser drugs were four to five times more likely to have car crashes than those who did not, a British professor at the University of Edinburgh said. They would also suffer from what could be drug-induced personal upsets that would eventually lead to “a drug overdose”. ● Hong Kong and Macau residents might soon be able to drive their cars across the border into Guangdong province. Some observers believed the new measures were intended to allow more Hong Kong and Macau residents to visit Guangdong. ● Relief might be in the pipeline for Hongkongers who were too well-off to qualify for public housing yet not rich enough to afford private flats. Construction sites to build more “high-class public housing” had been identified to cater for people in the “sandwiched” class – those earning more than HK$5,000 a month, according to the Secretary for Housing, Alan Scott. How New Territories highways changed the face of Hong Kong November 16, 1979 ● Two brothers nicknamed “The Playboy Lords” were sentenced to death for their part in the rape of 106 girls. The Chinese media said the twin brothers were part of a gang who carried out the attacks. The twins had been described in the media as sons of the overlord of Zhejiang province believed to be an Army general. ● A London record producer was sentenced to three years in jail and ordered to be given six strokes of the cane for possessing 27.9 grams of heroin by a Kuala Lumpur court. November 17, 1979 ● British politicians and the press demanded to know why the Queen’s art adviser had been allowed to enjoy his place in the upper echelons of British society for 15 years after confessing to security authorities that he was a spy for the Soviet Union. The case of Anthony Blunt, 72, who was stripped of his knighthood when finally exposed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, provoked indignation across the entire political spectrum. Remember A Day looks at significant news and events reported by the Post during this week in history

A Soviet spy in the royal court, a ‘Democracy Wall’ in Beijing, and a lucky cat with a taste for the high life: headlines from 40 years ago

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} A journey back through time to look at significant news and events reported by the South China Morning Post from this week in history

A journey back through time to look at significant news and events reported by the South China Morning Post from this week in history