Anniversaries

TODAY: Births: Andre-Marie Ampere, physicist, 1775; Joy Friederike Victoria (Gessner) Adamson, companion of wild animals and author, 1910; Federico Fellini, film director, 1920. Deaths: John Howard, prison reformer, 1790; Sir John Soane, architect, 1837; Jean-Francois Millet, painter, 1875; John Ruskin, social reformer, art critic and writer, 1900; Audrey Hepburn (Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston), actress, 1993; Sir Matt Busby, football manager, 1994. On this day: the First Fleet sent to Botany Bay arrived in New South Wales, 1788; Hong Kong was ceded to Britain by China, 1841; John Fitzgerald Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th US president, 1961. Today is the Feast Day of St Euthymius the Great, St Fabian, pope, St Fechin and St Sebastian.

TOMORROW: Births: Thomas Jonathan ("Stonewall") Jackson, Confederate general, 1824; Dr Duncan James Corrowr Grant, painter, 1885; Christian Dior, couturier, 1905; Benny Hill (Alfred Hawthorn Hill), comedian, 1924. Deaths: Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov), Russian leader, 1924; Lytton Giles Strachey, biographer and critic, 1932; George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), novelist, 1950; Cecil Blount de Mille, film director, 1959. On this day: the Daily News, the newspaper edited by Charles Dickens, was first issued, 1846; taxi-cabs were first officially recognised in Britain, 1907. Tomorrow is the Feast Day of St Agnes, St Alban or Bartholomew Roe, St Epiphanius of Pavia, St Fructuosus of Tarragona, St Meinrad and St Patroclus of Troyes.