Anniversaries

Births: Armand Jean Duplessis de Richelieu, Cardinal and French statesman, 1585; William Bligh, captain of the Bounty, 1754; Alexander Nasmyth, painter, 1758; Zechariah Buck, organist and composer, 1798; Gaetano Milanesi, scholar and writer on art, 1813; Jane Ellen Harrison, scholar and archaeologist, 1850; Houston Stewart Chamberlain, writer, 1855; Ralph Hodgson, poet, 1871; Max Reinhardt (Goldmann), theatre director, 1873; James Evershed Agate, theatre critic, 1877; Arthur Freed, popular lyricist and producer, 1894; James Hilton, novelist, 1900; Cesare Pavese, poet and novelist, 1908; Paul Goodman, novelist, playwright and poet, 1911.

Deaths: William I, King (the Conqueror), 1087; James IV, King of Scotland, killed in battle at Flodden Field 1513; Sir Humphrey Gilbert, explorer, drowned off the Azores 1583; Tobias George Smollett, physician and writer, 1771; Giambattista Piranesi, architect, painter and engraver, 1778; Shaka, King of the Zulus, assassinated 1828; Otto Jahn, philologist and archaeologist, 1869; William Theed the Younger, sculptor, 1891; Stephane Mallarme, poet, 1898; Henri-Marie-Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa, painter, 1901; Roger Eliot Fry, artist, 1934; Mao Tse-tung, Chinese leader, 1976; Hugh MacDiarmid (Christopher Murray Grieve), poet and critic, 1978; Sir Georg Solti (Gyorgy Stern), conductor, 1997.

On this day: the English defeated the Scots at the Battle of Flodden Field, 1513; the Squirrel frigate was lost off the Azores, with the loss of all on board, 1583; San Sebastian, held by the French, surrendered to the Duke of Wellington, 1813; local government in Britain was constituted under the British Municipal Corporations Act, 1835; California became the 31st of the United States, 1850; Allied troops landed at Salerno, Italy, 1943; General Douglas MacArthur took over supervision of Japan, 1945; North Korea was proclaimed a separate independent state, 1948; the first hijack of a British aircraft took place near Beirut, 1970.

Today is the Feast Day of St Bettelin, St Ciaran or Kieran of Clonmacnois, St Gorgonius, St Isaac or Sahak the Great, St Joseph of Volokolamsk, St Omer or Audomarus and St Peter Claver.