Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, painter and engraver, 1727; Sir John Soane, architect, 1753; Mungo Park, explorer of Africa, 1771; Cyril Vernon Connolly, author, journalist and critic, 1903, Deaths: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, feminist, 1797; Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, traveller, politician and poet, 1922; Huey Pierce Long, US senator from Louisiana, assassinated 1935; Balthazar Johannes Vorster, South African leader, 1983. On this day: the English defeated the Scots at the Battle of Pinkie, 1547; Simon Bolivar became the dictator of Peru, 1823; the first London production of the operetta The Chocolate Soldier was presented, 1910; the first motorway (autobahn) was completed in Germany, 1921; the people of Gibraltar voted overwhelmingly to stay under British rule, 1967. Today is the Feast Day of St Ambrose Barlow, St Aubert of Avranches, St Finnian of Moville, Saints Menodora, Metrodora and Nymphodora, St Nemesian, St Nicholas of Tolentino, St Pulcheria, St Salvius or Salvy of Albi and St Theodard of Maestricht.