Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Emma (Lyon), Lady Hamilton, mistress of Lord Nelson, 1765; Edward Lear, artist, humorist and versifier, 1812; Florence Nightingale, nurse, 1820; Dante Gabriel Rossetti, poet and pre-Raphaelite painter, 1828; Leslie Charteris (Leslie Charles Bowyer Yin), novelist and creator of "The Saint", 1907. Deaths: Daniel-Franois Esprit Auber, composer, 1871; Bedrich Smetana, composer, 1884; John Edward Masefield, poet, 1967; Erich von Stroheim (Erich Oswald Stroheim), actor and director, 1957; John Smith QC MP, Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition, 1994. On this day: Horatio Bottomley began publishing John Bull, 1906; the General Strike in Britain collapsed, 1926; Captain Edmund Amundsen crossed the North Pole in the airship Norge, 1926; the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth took place, 1937; in Britain, voting age was reduced from 21 to 18, 1969. Today is the Feast Day of St Dominic of the Causeway, St Epiphanius of Salamis, St Ethelhard, St Germanus of Constantinople, St John Stone, St Modoaldus, Saints Nereus and Achilleus, St Pancras of Rome and St Rictrudis.