Anniversaries

TODAY: Births: Sir Godfrey Kneller (Gottfried Kniller), painter, 1646; Hermann Anton Gelinek (Cervetti), monk, violinist and composer, 1709; George Cattermole, water-colour painter, 1800; Wilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht, inventor of the bass-tuba, 1802; F. Anstey (Thomas Anstey Guthrie), writer, 1856; William Bateson, biologist, 1861; Frank Richards (Charles Harold St John Hamilton), writer and creator of "Billy Bunter", 1876; Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, novelist, 1896; Ernest Orlando Lawrence, physicist and inventor of the cyclotron, 1901; Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, physicist, 1902.

Deaths: Thomas a Kempis (Thomas Hammerken von Kempen), monk and writer, 1471; Girolamo Fracastoro, astronomer, poet and physician, 1553; George Canning, statesman, 1827; Sir William James Erasmus Wilson, dermatologist, who, at his own expense, brought "Cleopatra's Needle" to London, 1884; Jakob Christopher Burckhardt, art historian, 1897; Eugene-Louis Boudin, painter, 1898; James-Joseph Jacques Tissot, painter and illustrator, 1902; Frank Winfield Woolworth, chain-store founder, 1919; Anton Ivanovich Denikin, anti- Bolshevik general, 1947; Shirley Jackson, writer, 1965; Jaromir Weinberger, composer, 1967; James Gould Cozzens, novelist, 1978; Nicholas John Turney Montsarrat, novelist, 1979; Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine, 1996.

On this day: Queen Elizabeth I reviewed her troops at Tilbury, 1588; the first mail coach ran in Britain - from London to Bristol, 1784; Dr Michel Paccard and Jacques Balmat reached the summit of Mont Blanc, 1786; the Poor Law Act was passed in England, 1834; the Red Cross League, founded by Jean-Henri Dunant, was granted immunity in time of war at the Geneva Convention, 1864; the British Academy was granted a Royal Charter, 1902; the first British troops arrived in France, 1914; the Treaty of Rawalpindi was signed, 1919; the US dirigible Akron was launched, 1931; the Battle of Britain began, 1940; the Great Train Robbery occurred when pounds 2.5m was stolen from a train at Cheddington, Buckinghamshire, 1963; President Richard Nixon resigned, the first US president to do so, 1974; the London production of the musical 42nd Street was first presented, 1984; John McCarthy, the journalist held hostage by Islamic Jihad in the Lebanon since 1986, was freed, 1991.

Today is the Feast Day of St Altman, Saints Cyriacus, Largus and Smaragdus, St Dominic, The Fourteen Holy Helpers and St Hormisdas the Martyr.

TOMORROW: Births: Izaak Walton, author of The Compleat Angler, 1593; John Dryden, poet, 1631; Thomas Telford, civil engineer, 1757; Leonid Nikolayevich Andreyev, novelist and playwright, 1871; Leonide Fedorovich Massine, dancer and choreographer, 1896; Jean Piaget, child psychologist, 1896; Robert Aldrich, film director, 1918; Philip Arthur Larkin, poet, 1922.

Deaths: Trajan, Roman emperor, 117; Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp, admiral, 1653; Captain Frederick Marryat, novelist, 1848; Dr John Hill Burton, historian and jurist, 1881; Ruggiero Leoncavallo, composer, 1919; Professor Graham Wallas, economist, 1932; Sir John Bernard Partridge, artist and cartoonist, 1945; Nikolai Miaskovsky, composer, 1950; John Jeffrey Farnol, novelist, 1952; Herman Hesse, poet and novelist, 1962; Joe Orton (John Kingsley Orton), playwright, 1967; Dmitri Dmitryevich Shostakovich, composer, 1975.

On this day: the Siege of Limerick started, 1690; revolutionaries established the Commune in Paris, 1792; the border between Canada and the United States was established, 1842; the first Atlantic cable was completed by Cyrus Field, 1858; the Elementary Education Act was passed, 1870; the Married Women's Property Act was passed, 1870; the coronation of Edward VII took place in Westminster Abbey, 1902; following an earthquake in the area of Constantinople (Istanbul), 6,000 people were killed and 40,000 rendered homeless, 1912; an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, 1945; Cyprus was attacked by Turkish aircraft, 1964; Singapore became independent, 1965; the London production of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar was first presented, 1972; Gerald Ford became 38th US president, 1974.

Tomorrow is the Feast Day of St Emygius, Saints Nathy and Felim, St Oswald of Northumbria and St Romanus.