Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: St Francis Xavier, Jesuit missionary, 1506; Dr Charles Burney, organist and historian of music, 1726; William Wordsworth, poet, 1770; Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey, sculptor, 1781; Daisy (Margaret Mary Julia) Ashford, author, aged 9, of The Young Visiters, 1881; Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski, anthropologist, 1884; Gabriela Mistral (Lucila Godoy Alcayaga), poet, 1889; Sir David Alexander Cecil Low, cartoonist, 1891; Billie Holiday (Eleanora Fagan), jazz singer, 1915. Deaths: Jean-Baptiste, Abbe de La Salle, founder of the Christian Brothers, 1719; Richard (Dick) Turpin, highwayman, hanged 1739; El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos), painter, 1614; Sir William Davenant, poet and playwright, 1668; William Godwin, writer, 1836; Phineas Taylor Barnum, showman, 1891; Henry Ford, motor manufacturer, 1947; James (Jim) Clark, car-racing champion, killed 1968. On this day: in France, the metre was made the official measuring unit of length, 1795; Italy invaded Albania, 1939; the World Heath Organisation was formed as a specialised UN agency, 1948; Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden was elected UN Secretary-General, 1953; Spain relinquished its protectorate over Morocco, 1956. Today is the Feast Day of St Aphraates, St Celsus or Ceallach of Armagh, St George the Younger, St Hegesippus, St Henry Walpole, St Herman Joseph and St John Baptist de la Salle.