Anniversaries

Births: Edward VI, King of England, 1537; William Westall, painter, 1781; Pedro I, (Antonio Pedro de Alcantara Bourbon) Emperor of Brazil, 1798; Francesco Florimo, composer, 1800; John Liptrott Hatton, composer, 1809; Theodore Walter Watts- Dunton, poet, critic and novelist, 1832; Helen Modjeska (Helena Modrzejewska, formerly Jadwiga Opid), actress, 1844; Max Friedlander, baritone and writer, 1852; Elmer Ambrose Sperry, inventor, 1860; James Ramsay MacDonald, statesman, 1866; Ralph Vaughan Williams, composer, 1872; Aleister Edward Alexander Crowley, author and occultist, 1875; Sir Godfrey Seymour Tearle, actor, 1884; Luis de Freitas Branco, composer, 1890; James Phillip McAuley, poet, 1917.

Deaths: Fritz Herlen, artist, 1491; Piero della Francesca, painter, 1492; Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, 1576; Carel Fabritius (Pieterz), painter, killed 1654; Matsuo Basho (Munefusa Matsuo), poet, 1694; Elizabeth Fry (Gurney), Quaker prison reformer, 1845; Ando Tokitaro Hiroshige, artist, 1858; Robert Stephenson, civil engineer, 1859; Robert Edward Lee, Confederate general, 1870; Francois-Pierre Guizot, statesman and historian, 1874; Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, novelist, 1887; Joseph-Ernest Renan, historian and philosopher, 1892; Edith Louisa Cavell, nurse, executed by the Germans 1915; Anatole France (Jacques-Anatole Thibault), author, 1924; Edwin Abbott Abbott, theologian, teacher and scholar, 1926; The Grand Duke Cyril Romanov of Russia, 1938; Tom Mix (Thomas Edwin Mix), actor, 1940; Paul Hermann Muller, chemist, 1965; Sonja Henie, skater and actress, 1969; Dean Gooderham Acheson, statesman, 1971.

On this day: an island in the West Indies was discovered by Christopher Columbus, which he named San Salvador, 1492; a powder magazine exploded at Delft, largely destroying the city, 1654; the French fleet was defeated off Vigo by Admiral Sir George Rooke, 1702; Pedro I was proclaimed Emperor of Brazil, 1822; Gustav Hamel flew the English Channel from Hardelot, France to Maidstone, Kent, 1911; nearly 1,000 people died in a disastrous fire at North Minnesota, in the United States, 1918; the borough councillors of Poplar, London, were released from prison, where they had been committed for refusing to levy certain rates, 1921; the German Zeppelin Z3 flew from Friedrichshafen to Lakehurst, New Jersey, 1924; an iron lung was used for the first time, at Boston, Massachusetts, 1928; a wartime base in the Azores was granted to Britain by Portugal, 1943; the first Morris Minor car designed by Alec Issigonis was produced at Cowley, Oxfordshire, 1948; the College of Europe opened at Bruges, 1950; Equatoria1 Guinea became independent, 1968; the XIXth Olympic Games opened in Mexico City, 1968; Gerald Ford was nominated US Vice-President by Richard Nixon, 1973; the first London production of the musical show Little Shop of Horrors was presented, 1983.

Today is the Feast Day of St Edwin, St Ethelburga of Barking, Saints Felix and Cyprian, St Maximilian of Lorch and St Wilfrid of York.