Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Willem van Mieris, painter, 1662; Richard Cobden, political reformer, 1804; Raoul Dufy, painter, 1877; Josephine Baker, singer, 1906; Paulette Goddard (Marion Levy), actress, 1911. Deaths: Jean-Francois Millet, painter, buried 1679; Georges (Alexandre Cesar-Leopold) Bizet, composer, 1875; Lionel de Rothschild, banker, 1879; Samuel Plimsoll, politician and social reformer, 1898; Franz Kafka, writer, 1924; Arthur Michell Ransome, critic and children's writer, 1967; Dame Anna Neagle (Marjorie Robertson), actress and dancer, 1986; Robert Morley, actor and playwright, 1992. On this day: the Dutch were defeated by the English fleet at the Battle of Lowestoft, 1665; the Duke of Windsor married Mrs Wallis Warfield Simpson, 1937; the British army was evacuated from Dunkirk, 1940; third-class travel on British Railways was abolished, 1956. Today is Corpus Christi and the Feast Day of St Cecilius, St Charles Lwanga, St Clothilde, St Genesius of Clermont, St Isaac of Cordova, St Joseph Mkasa, St Kevin or Coemgen, St Liphardus and Urbicius, St Lucillian and his Companions, St Morand and Saints Pergentinus and Laurentinus.