Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Thomas Hancock, pioneer of rubber manufacture, 1786; Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin, anarchist, 1814; Jean-Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, 1828; Alphonse Legros, painter and etcher, 1837; John Meade Falkner, novelist, 1858; Harry S. Truman, 33rd US president, 1884; Edmund Wilson, novelist, playwright and poet, 1895; Friedrich August von Hayek, economist, 1899; John Derrick Mordaunt Snagge, broadcaster, 1904. Deaths: Pietro Longhi, painter, 1785; Antoine- Laurent Lavoisier, chemist, guillotined 1794; John Stuart Mill, political economist, 1873; Gustave Flaubert, novelist, 1880; Eugene-Henri Paul Gauguin, painter, 1903; Eadweard Muybridge (Edward James Muggeridge), photographer and inventor, 1904; Dame Ethel Mary Smyth, composer and suffragist, 1944; Emanuel, Baron Shinwell, statesman, 1986. On this day: the British monarchy was restored, 1660; John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger was first performed, Royal Court Theatre 1956. Today was VE Day (1945) and is the Feast Day of St Acacius or Agathus, St Benedict II, pope, St Boniface IV, pope, St Desideratus or Desire of Bourges, St Gibrian, St Otger, St Peter of Tarentaise, St Plechelm, St Victor Maurus and St Wiro.