Anniversaries

Births: James Barry, historical painter, 1741; Heinrich Wilhelm Matthaus Olbers, astronomer, 1758; Sir George Williams, merchant and founder of the YMCA, 1821; Christian Friedrich Theodore Thomas, conductor, 1835; Henry John Heinz, food- products magnate, 1844; Lewis Fry Richardson, physicist and psychologist, 1881; Friedrich Bergius, chemist, 1884; Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, writer and lecturer, 1884; Francois Mauriac, author, 1885; Ethel Edith Mannin, novelist and travel writer, 1900; Richard Burton (Jenkins), actor, 1925.

Deaths: Huldrych Zwingli, religious reformer, killed in battle 1531; Sir Thomas Wyatt, poet and diplomat, 1542; Meriwether Lewis, explorer, 1809; Samuel Wesley, composer and organist, 1837; Friedrich Hegar, conductor and composer, 1841; James Prescott Joule, physicist, 1889; Josef Anton Bruckner, composer, 1896; Leon Boellmann, composer, 1897; Maurice de Vlaminck, painter, 1958; Leonard 'Chico' Marx, comedian, 1961; Jean Cocteau, poet, novelist and playwright, 1963.

On this day: the Order of the Bath was constituted, 1399; the title 'Defender of the Faith' was conferred on Henry VIII by Pope Leo X, 1521; Peter the Great became Tsar of Russia, 1669; the Chicago Fire ended, having almost completely destroyed the city, 1871; the Anglo-Boer War started, 1899; inflation overtook German currency, with the exchange rate dropping to 10,000,000,000 marks to the pound, 1923; in China, fighting broke out between the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists under Mao Tse-tung, 1945; the second Vatican Council was opened by Pope John XXIII, 1963; the Apollo 7 spacecraft, with a crew of three, was launched from Cape Kennedy, 1968.

Today is the Feast Day of St Agilbert, St Alexander Sauli, Saints Andronicus, Tarachus, and Probus, St Bruno the Great of Cologne, St Canice or Kenneth, St Gummarus or Gomaire, St Mary Soledad and St Nectarius of Constantinople.