Anniversaries

Births: Giambattista Vico, philosopher and jurist, 1668; Josephine de Beauharnais (Marie-Josephe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie), wife of Napoleon, 1763; Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb, playwright, novelist and actor, 1876; William Ewart Berry, first Viscount Camrose, 1879; Anna Akhmatova (Anna Andreyevna Gorenko), poet, 1889; Dr Alfred Charles Kinsey, sex investigator and writer, 1894; Winifred Holtby, novelist, 1898.

Deaths: Vespasian (Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus), Roman emperor, 79; Pedro de Mendoza, soldier and explorer, at sea 1537; Sir James Hall, geologist and chemist, 1832; Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope, traveller and eccentric, 1839; Sir Joseph Prestwich, geologist, 1896; Sir Jonathan Hutchinson, surgeon and scientist, 1913; Cecil James Sharp, founder of the English Folk Society, 1924; Michael Arlen (Dikran Kouyoumdjian), novelist, 1956; Olivia Manning, novelist, 1980.

On this day: all provincial printing offices were closed by order of the Star Chamber, 1585; a treaty of peace and friendship with the American Indians was signed by William Penn, 1683; the first evening newspaper, Dawks's News-Letter, was published in London, 1696; the "June Days" insurrection (23-26 June) broke out in France, 1848; Keble College, Oxford, opened, 1870; the German Social Democratic Party published an article in the newspaper Vorwarts calling on their government to sue for peace, 1915; the British diplomats Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean fled to the Soviet Union, 1951; Gamal Abdel Nasser was elected as president of the Republic of Egypt, 1956; the Royalty Theatre opened in London, 1960; agreement was reached in Luxembourg on the terms of Britain's entry into the Common Market, 1971.

Today is the Feast Day of St Agrippina, St Etheldreda or Audrey, St Libert or Liebert, St Thomas Corsini and St Thomas Garnet.