Anniversaries

Births: Francis Xavier Quadrio, Jesuit scholar, 1695; Jakob Rosenhain, pianist and composer, 1813; Georges-Pierre Seurat, painter, 1859; Ruth Draper, entertainer, 1884; Peter Carl Goldmark, inventor of the long-playing record, 1906; Maria Anna Cecilia Sofia Callas (Kalogeropoulos), operatic soprano, 1923.

Deaths: Margaret of Angouleme, Queen of Henry II of Navarre, 1549; Philippe Lebon, chemist, 1804; Donatien-Alphonse-Francois, Marquis de Sade, writer and philosopher, 1814; Amelia Opie (Alderson), novelist, 1853; John Brown, abolitionist, executed 1859; Sir Evelyn Henry Wood, field marshal, 1919; EM Delafield, novelist, 1943; Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti, novelist and poet, 1944; Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer, mathematician, 1966; Stephen Potter, author and 'gamesman', 1969; Philip Arthur Larkin, poet, 1985.

On this day: the new St Paul's Cathedral was opened, 1697; Napoleon was crowned Emperor in Paris by Pope Pius VII, 1804; the Second French Empire was proclaimed, with Napoleon III as emperor, 1852; King Camp Gillette patented the first safety razor, 1901; a Soviet-type government was set up in Armenia, 1920; the first atomic pile started operating, Chicago, US, 1942; Senator Joseph McCarthy was condemned by the US Senate, 1954; the Persian Gulf sheikhdoms combined to form the United Arab Emirates, 1971; in the reunited Germany, the Christian Democrats, under Helmut Kohl, won the first general election, 1990.

Today is the Feast Day of St Bibiana or Viviana, St Chromatius of Aquilea, St Nonnus and St Silvanus of Constantinople.