Anniversaries

Births: Gaius Julius Caesar, Roman soldier, 100 BC; Josiah Wedgwood, potter, 1730; Thomas Guthrie, founder of 'Ragged Schools', 1803; Ludwig Molitor, composer, 1817; Henry David Thoreau, author and naturalist, 1817; Eugene-Louis Boudin, painter, 1825; Karl Heinrich Barth, teacher and pianist, 1847; George Eastman, photographic pioneer, 1854; Anton Stepanovich Arensky, composer, 1861; Stefan George, poet, 1868; Frederick Edwin Smith, First Earl of Birkenhead, statesman, 1872; Amedeo Modigliani, painter and sculptor, 1884; George Butterworth, composer, 1885; Oscar Hammerstein II, lyricist and author, 1895; Pablo Neruda (Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto), poet and diplomat, 1904; Yul Brynner (Youl Bryner), actor, 1915.

Deaths: Jack (John) Cade, English rebel leader, 1450; Desiderius Erasmus, scholar, 1536; Jean Picard, astronomer, 1682; Titus Oates, impostor and conspirator, 1705; Alexander Hamilton, statesman, 1804; Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, writer, 1846; Robert Stevenson, lighthouse engineer, 1850; The Hon Charles Stewart Rolls, aviator and automobile manufacturer, killed 1910; Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, traveller and archaeologist, 1926; Ferguson Wright Hume (Fergus Hume), novelist, 1932; Charles Frederick Goldie, artist, 1947; Douglas Hyde, poet, historian and first president of the Irish Republic, 1949; Kenneth More, actor, 1982.

On this day: Henry VIII married Catherine Parr at Hampton Court Palace, 1543; the Armada set sail from Spain, 1588; the Battle of Aughrim was fought in Ireland by William of Orange, 1691; the Confederation of the Rhine was formed, 1806; Crimea was evacuated, 1856; Victoria Embankment, London, was opened by the Prince of Wales, 1870; Britain took possession of Cyprus, 1878; 500 lives were lost when the Japanese battleship Kawachi blew up in Tokuyama Bay, 1918; the Anglo-Soviet agreement was signed in Moscow, 1941; Sao Tome and Principe became independent, 1975; Reed International agreed to sell the Mirror Group newspapers to Robert Maxwell's Pergamon Press, 1984.

Today is the Feast Day of St Felix, Saints Hermagoras and Fortunatus, St Jason, St John Gualbert, St John Jones, St John the Iberian, St Veronica.