Anniversaries

TODAY

Births: Alfred Victor, Comte de Vigny, poet, 1797; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, architect, 1886; Karl Mannheim, sociologist, 1893; Gloria May Josephine Swanson, actress, 1899. Deaths: Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre, 1615; John Burke, genealogist, compiler of the first Burke's Peerage, 1848; Sir George Gilbert Scott, architect, 1878; Myles Birket Foster, painter, 1899; Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, cosmonaut, killed in an aircraft accident 1968. On this day: the United States Navy was formed, 1794; a United Nations Peace Force took over in Cyprus, 1964; at Tenerife, Canary Islands, a Pan Am jumbo jet collided on take-off with a KLM jumbo jet on the runway, killing 583, 1977. Today is the Feast Day of St Alkeld or Athilda and St John of Egypt.

TOMORROW

Births: St Teresa of Avila, Carmelite nun, 1515; Maxim Gorki (Alexei Maximovich Peshkov), novelist, 1868; Dame Flora Robson, actress, 1902. Deaths: Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, composer, 1881; Virginia Woolf (Adeline Virginia Stephen), writer and critic, 1941; Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninov, composer, 1943; Marc Chagall, painter, 1985; Eugene Ionesco, writer and playwright, 1994. On this day: the Act of Union with England was passed by the Irish Parliament, 1800; Britain declared war on Russia (the Crimean War), 1854; electric lighting was installed in the Houses of Parliament, 1878; the pirate radio station Radio Caroline began to transmit from a ship in the North Sea, 1964; an accident occurred at the nuclear reactor on Three Mile Island, near Middletown, Pennsylvania, 1979. Tomorrow is the Feast Day of St Guntramnus or Gontran and St Tutilo.