Anniversaries

Births: Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara, daughter of Pope Alexander VI, 1480; Sir Francis Baring, banker and merchant, 1740; Sir George Clausen, painter, 1852; Leopold Antoni Stanislaw Stokowski, conductor and composer, 1882; Sir Arnold Henry Moore Lunn, skier, 1888.

Deaths: Filippino Lippi, painter, 1504; John Leland, antiquary, 1552; George Jeffreys, first Baron Jeffreys of Wem, judge, 1689; Gustave Moreau, painter, 1898; Sir Richard Runciman Terry, musicologist, 1938; Albert Einstein, physicist, 1955; Benny Hill (Alfred Hawthorn Hill), comedian, 1993; Dame Elisabeth Frink, sculptor, 1993.

On this day: Paul Revere, silversmith and US patriot, made his dramatic ride from Charleston to Lexington, 1775; the 2,000 Guineas horse-race was first run at Newmarket, 1809; the remains of David Livingstone were interred in Westminster Abbey, 1874; the Natural History Museum in South Kensington was opened, 1881; the Republic of Ireland Act came into force, when Ireland became a republic, 1949; London Bridge was sold to a US oil company - the bridge was later re-erected in Arizona, 1968; the US Senate voted that in 1999, the Panama Canal would be turned over to the Republic of Panama, 1978.

Today is the Feast Day of St Apollonius the Apologist, Saints Eleutherius and Anthia, St Galdinus, St Idesbald and St Laserian or Molaisse.