Anniversaries

Births: Jean Picard, astronomer, 1620; Sir John Gilbert, painter and illustrator, 1817; Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, journalist, 1868; Eugen Schufftan (Eugene Shuftan), cameraman, sculptor and painter, 1893; Ernest Miller Hemingway, novelist, 1899.

Deaths: Robert Burns, poet, 1796; Dame Ellen Alicia Terry, actress, 1928; George Macaulay Trevelyan, historian, 1962; Philip St John Basil Rathbone, actor, 1967; Albert John Luthuli, president of the African National Congress, 1967.

On this day: Napoleon defeated the Mamelukes in Egypt in the Battle of the Pyramids, 1798; the Tate Gallery, presented to the nation by Sir Henry Tate, was opened, 1897; the Imperial Economic Conference began in Ottawa, 1932; in the US, the first nuclear merchant ship, the NS Savannah, was launched, 1959; Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike became prime minister of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) - the world's first woman prime minister, 1960; Commander Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the Moon, 1969.

Today is Independence Day in Belgium and the Feast Day of St Arbogastes, St Laurence of Brindisi, St Praxedes, St Victor of Marseilles.