Anniversaries

Births: Diego Rodriguez da Silva y Velazquez, painter, baptised 1599; Aleksander Sergeyevich Pushkin, poet, novelist and playwright, 1799; Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Antarctic explorer, 1868; Thomas Mann, novelist, 1875; Robert Cedric Sherriff, playwright and novelist, 1896.

Deaths: Jeremy Bentham, philosopher and jurist, 1832; Sir John Alexander Macdonald, first prime minister of Canada, 1891; Carl Gustav Jung, psychiatrist, 1961; Jean Paul Getty, oil magnate, 1976; William (Bill) Voce, cricketer, 1984.

On this day: the Ashmolean Museum, founded by Elias Ashmole, was opened in Oxford, 1683; over 300 people died in the US during a great heat-wave, 1925; the Allied invasion of Normandy took place - D-Day, 1944; Croatia and Slovenia declared themselves to be 'independent and sovereign' republics, 1991.

Today is the Feast Day of St Ceratius or Cerase, St Claud of Besancon, St Eustorgius II of Milan, St Gudwal or Gurval, St Jarlath, St Norbert and St Philip the Deacon.