Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: St Philip Neri, missionary, 1515; Matthew Prior, poet, 1664; Paul Julius, Baron von Reuter (Israel Beer Josaphat), news agency founder, 1816; Sir John Gilbert, painter and illustrator, 1817; Jacques Feyder (Frederix), film director, 1888; Harold Hart Crane, poet, 1899; Ernest Miller Hemingway, novelist, 1899. Deaths: Robert Burns, poet, 1796; Daniel Lambert, fat man who weighed 739 pounds at his death, 1809; Dame Ellen Alicia Terry, actress, 1928; George Macaulay Trevelyan, historian, 1962; Philip St John Basil Rathbone, actor, 1967; Albert John Luthuli, president of the African National Congress, 1967. On this day: the Marquesas Islands were discovered by Alvara Mendana, 1595; the Society of Jesus was dissolved by Pope Clement XIV, 1773; Napoleon defeated the Mamelukes in Egypt in the Battle of the Pyramids, 1798; George Christian Frederick Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was proclaimed King Leopold I of the Belgians after the country became a separate kingdom, 1831; the Confederates were victorious in the first Battle of Bull Run, 1861; Battersea Bridge, London, opened, 1890; the Tate Gallery, presented to the nation by Sir Henry Tate, was opened, 1897; Guam, in the Pacific, was re-occupied by the US, 1944; in the US, the first nuclear merchant ship, the NS Savannah was launched, 1959; Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike became prime minister of Ceylon (Sri Lanka); she was also the world's first woman prime minister, 1960; Runcorn Bridge across the Mersey opened, 1961; Commander Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the Moon, 1969; France exploded a nuclear device at Maruroa Atoll in the Pacific, 1973; the British ambassador to the Irish Republic was killed by a landmine, 1976. Today is Independence Day in Belgium and the Feast Day of St Arbogastes, St Laurence of Brindisi, St Praxedes, St Victor of Marseilles.